Another cluster of speculative fiction courtesy of Ireland's answer to Interzone. Via the short fictions of global authors, though, Albedo One asks its own questions, and here confidently musters entertaining response.

The 2007 Aeon Award-winning Angelus, by Nina Allan, is a sophisticated, masterfully executed piece of writing with unobtrusive conceit and literary aspirations, which allows a character-driven narrative uncover the relationship between two men once caught in the orbit of the same woman. Absent love and longing also fuel Alice & Bob by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles: through a series of self-mythologizing correspondences, two lovers-with-a-twist describe civilisations in extremis as a cosmic kink continues to randomly transport people about the planet, upending forever the longevity of interpersonal relationships and imposing on already-transient lives a philosophy of futility.

In Nassau Hedron's Siren an unspoken complicity exists between the many incarnations of a female seductress and the malevolent male General; automatically fulfilling their roles – her love directs his homicides through ages of social unrest – an unexpected arrival offers readers the prospect of upheaval and conflict, but frustratingly delivers it off-page. Incarnation has further use, this time in The Supplanter by James Steimle, wherein a modest Skeleton Key-like tale presents a struggling family in need of shelter – cue the remote shack and spooky occupant. Equally slight is Rebecca S Pyne's tongue-in-cheek Boneless, in which a faithless wife gets her comeuppance via a mobile lump of hellish phlegm.

More tongue-in-cheekery is provided by William R Eakin in LOOB: Love Only Oily Bodies. Here, a fluctuating, flitting intent exuberantly skips through a satire that entertains with a self-discovery prompted by the arrival to Hicksville of the substance-fuelled hedonism of Ibiza. Music as hedonism and, ultimately, solace, is in part explored in Larry Taylor's Isle Of Beauty, wherein earth finds itself at a loose end when faced with apocalypse. And The White Knight by Devon Code agreeably displays a touch of The Book Of Illusions as, in a bid to confer meaning on his life, a twenty-second century scholar nurtures an obsession with the role of chess as a motif in the film Casablanca.

There are captivating reviews too, a striking cover by Jane Chen, and Bob Neilson interviews Raymond E Feist, author of Magician and The Riftwar Saga. All in all then, a rewarding-enough issue, with a depth fit for delving.

60 A4 pages for £3.95 / €5.95, available from Albedo One.

For the anonymous creator/s of Fugger the bath of promise grows tepid, but the surface scum this publication filters through comics, prose and parody-pieces provides a good-humoured misanthropy and the kind of philosophy of bemusement familiar to the non-conformist and the cynically depressed. Peopled with disillusioned characters out-of-step with society, struggling either to fit-in or to drop-out, the strips of Fugger are underdeveloped and offer little crafting know-how; however, afflicted flashes of potential are in evidence, the cartooning is functional-enough and a voice that engages the adult ear bolsters one's reading stamina. The ragged prose of The League Of Super Bitter Scientists is equally at odds: a high concept – get God back for all the suffering in the world – is awkwardly delivered and devoid of guile; but in funny satire The Fugger Book Club a lyrical prose style is aided by an un-structure which presents four random pages of a book written in Dublinese – to persuasive effect. Ultimately then, Fugger's glaring flaw is a lack of storytelling polish, but with a satisfying focus and disarming, off-beat appeal, it provides agreeably diverting entertainment.

24 A4 pages, free around Dublin. Email: fugtheworld@gmail.com and/or download the PDF at http://osheamedia.com/comics.html

Revisited here is the 70s' Social and Political Reality of the DisUnited Kingdom, as authoritatively touched by the meticulously researched contra-history of Mike J Weller. Wog workers fight wog bosses; tactics learned in Northern Ireland are employed by police to subdue protesting shop stewards; a dark cloud of racial tension is ever-present. With no work, no shops, no cheap housing, and with energy-banks exhausted by an oil crisis, the UK has been reduced from an imperialist empire to a rat-infested Euro slum. Albion resembles Dis, and the Duke of Hell, Sir Michaeal Spearate, recognises an opportunity to breed a class of people who know little and care about even less.

There's no hazy nostalgic glow to this 70s, its legacy the epoch of an apathetic and gullible society. But then, expectations are resentments under construction, and after a grand start as regular Oz magazine graphix artist and rep as England's answer to R Crumb, obscurity followed for Captain Stelling, one of the Weller characters in Slow Science Fictions. "Did I simply reach my creative peak at the age of twenty-five and finish?" asks Stelling. Weller continues to pick at his personal odyssey – and at the publishing world that abandoned him – trying to make order from the disorder that is his careering through creative life. It's a fascinating surrealist self-portrait embedded in fantastical elaborations.

32 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

Like an equation consisting of complex narrative elements, the potted evolution presented in Slow Science Fictions #13 clarifies the intricate workings of the Wellerverse and thematically focuses the author's eccentric struggle for creative identity. Found here are fictions within a fiction, storytellers within a story, where writer and written sit face to face and the written becomes the writer, and where ambition and desire are irreconcilable for a writer thwarted by his own universe. Get writing or get written was the Shawshanked phrase introduced in Mike Weller's seminal work, Space Opera, but here again this sentiment is agreeably undercut with a sense of the author's stubborn fatalism as the first-person narrative voice wrestles with a personal odyssey driven by irrational forces and odd, obsessive desires, but with a niggling perception of success that is conditioned by yearned-for approval; or not, as the case most likely is – as ever, any attempt to fix Michael J Weller's prose series to convenient definitions is no more than a reductio ad absurdum of the work. What's certain is that it remains a joy for me to watch this mad series accrue.

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from Mike Weller, 3 Queen Adelaide Court, Queen Adelaide Road, Penge, London SE20 7DZ. 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

A fairly simple narrative with a central protagonist engaging in hedonistic indulgence.

The booklet is a gorgeous three-wrap colour card cover gives the book a very fancy art-shop feel. This hides as well as enhances the lesser stock paper comic inside. Two A4 sheets with drawings on one side, which is a very handy hint lesson for creators on how to make something look impressive.

Cliodhna's art-style is well...stylistic. Its in-your-face aesthetic beauty with a calligraphic filling. 'Cake Diving' appears to look for exploration. At times its jittery or telegenic, at others its bursting with energy and abandon.

A quick read, but certainly a pleasant diversion, and the sort of comic that will easily attract onlookers.
To enquire about getting your hands on a copy email cliodhna (at) ztoical (dot) com, though be patient about getting a response - these busy cartoonists !

The latest collection by small press luminary Douglas Noble - another communication of his distinguished cinematic style.

'A good turn, a locked door, a solitary child'

An agent without background on a mission which is kept hidden from all but the mysterious employer. The veiwer is chosen to identify with the protagonist through access to limited information, or perhaps to the employer from his observatory stand-point.

From the author's notes,
"A man must complete a number of mysterious actions on behalf of an equally mysterious employer. It’s a puzzle about identity, set in a world without names. Where no answers are supplied and the questions are left unsaid."

Douglas's narrative is strong, layered with phrases which tingle and move, like some fine live Pollack fever. Theres noteable changing pacing points, guilt and intimidation. I was left with the feeling by the end of the book that I should spend a heft of hours working for Amnesty International.

Literary, and visually its remarkable to see how much Douglas's work has grown. His collections back in 2001 were rich with a promise now fulfilled. The central traits remain: static imagery, inked by tool of variety, the essential feel of the experience of reading his books as akin to a worhtwhile education. The influence of Douglas's Rule of Death co-creator, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey can be felt in this new edition, and I see Noblle's own influence in Merlin's work. This sits very comfortably as an extension and evolution of style.

Printed on A5 with a lovely textured red cover. 'Something Happened' in this comic. For anyone serious about the dramatic powers of the form this is a book to look in on. It feels very now-ish.

You can order a copy through the Paypal function on Mr. Noble's site for the goodly sum of £2 plus postage.
http://www.strip-for-me.com/?p=346

And if you're smart you'll ask about the possibility of an autographed copy because, you know, its worth.

A piece of esoteric tongue-in-cheekery provides this twelfth instalment of Michael J Weller's Slow Science Fictions series with a good humoured opening, but the resultant giggles are soon smothered in a sombre fug of nightmarish oddness as the unnatural success of author MY Jolly – the series' JK Rowling-like figure – is darkly investigated. The bizarre-o-meter reading goes off the scale when Jolly is seduced by the cunt-tinglingly mysterious Duke Valentine and exposed to the salacious Love Museum, where a deviant technology chillingly screens other people's dreams: cocks are taken in the mouth; a black girl rubs herself off with both hands as boys spurt semen in her hair; an old gash is moistened. The unearthly edginess and sinister quality further intensify as Weller pointedly puts Jolly through hell to realise her writing aspirations, and though there is some convolution-overload toward the end as story fabric flips and folds a la David Lynch, SSF #12 ultimately proves a captivating if insubstantial reading experience.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from Mike Weller, 3 Queen Adelaide Court, Queen Adelaide Road, Penge, London SE20 7DZ. 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

A flip book, pocket size, 16 pages. Just as promising as the titles suggest. The perfect comic.

£1.50 plus £1 postage (ok, not quite perfect) from here

Dan Lester's third twenty-four hour comic has a bookish gift quality to it : except its not terribly well drawn or printed. Does this sort of thing really need to be ? Past that, this fakt comix be consistent in pacing, imagination and gags. A sure candidate for presents and a rollicking good read. My intuition tells me this will make for many additional printings. I certainly enjoyed it and I'd like you to also.

A pound, plus fifty pence postage and packing. Available contacting Dan at monkeysmightpuke dot com or call by Camden market stall, London Underground Comcis

Graham Bettany, best known for his rockstar demeanour,for one of his provocative comics getting him fired from his job, and for drinking with Bisley, the prize being Bilsey's comics expo badge. And way too many other sinful actions to mention !

Grave Graham's comics leap out of the page and bite the reader on the nose : somewhere between 3-D and 5-D, this frenzy of activity in defiance to 'glossing over'. Calls to an investigation, a deciphering of shapes and form, Graham Bettany's characters often lack social charms, sprouting excesses of shallow, sexist slander which makes for a difficult read. Challlenging is kind of the point. 'Grave Graham Presents' is loaded with street punk rock and its got attitude and swagger in spades.

To order a copy contact PeterLally at gmail dotcom - probably about two pounds and fifty. Usually on sale weekly at Camden. There are about three issues out.