Another ooh in creator Philip Barrett's impressive oeuvre, this tale of the unexpected revisits the theme of obsessive struggle previously explored in The Record and Blackshapes as it chronicles a successful artist's hapless search for relief from a mysterious face that relentlessly haunts him and his work. When catharsis fails and this malicious muse encroaches deeper into the artist's life, his locked-in despair edges him toward the ultimate release, but instead delivers something peculiar and disturbingly twisty: a close encounter of the face kind.

With brisk pace, deft characterisation and curious plot, Weird Face proves an engaging read, and is simultaneously funny and disquieting. Barrett's Tomine-like cartooning exudes warmth and sophistication, and his adroit portrayal of elapsing time and a thoroughly lucid world add considerably to one's enjoyment of this classy comic. Not perhaps possessed of the subtly understated complexities associated with Barrett's more intimate work (Typical, See You Later Then etc.), Weird Face is a crowd-pleaser – a satisfying story, satisfyingly told.

16 A5 pages for 2 euros/£1.50 /$3.00 (postage included) from http://www.blackshapes.com/comics.htm

Author Michael J Weller pumps enough whimsy into his odd-shaped fiction to gently bump the knobbly high ceiling of concept. Again, though, that sense of a perpetually inchoate central plot – fuelled no doubt by a prose writing informed by comic strip vocabularies and visual codes, which offers the presence of super-beings – albeit off-duty – but the absence of action-packed battle. In this one, menaced by the revenge fiction of Nibs writer Mike Weller, Michelle Jolly's impatient wait for her new dream of inspiration finally nears an end; a dewy-eyed Jim Pannifer must don tights if he is to maintain contact with local-writing-group-turned-amateur-dramatic-society; and the Council of God have been asked by the Archangels to forward nominations for the ninth Guardian to the Divine Assembly: Sappho makes the case for the Prophet Mahomet, Pythagoras for Charles Darwin, and Dante for William Blake, but who really could follow the eighth Guardian, Diando? (Diando: the composite Holy Spirit of ancient goddesses Ppamms, Dido and Diana, and of the lovely Jill Dando.)

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from Mike Weller, 3 Queen Adelaide Court, Queen Adelaide Road, Penge, London SE20 7DZ, or pick up a copy at the London Underground Comics stall in Camden market. E-mail: mikejweller(at)hotmail.com Site: http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/wellerverse.htm

Additional 3World in 4Time comix, pics, videos, and comments: www.4time.wordpress.com, www.earthco.wordpress.com, www.blog2blog.wordpress.com, www.addingcombe.wordpress.com, www.myspace.com/mickweller, www.egnep.blogspot.com