About

Absence is a comic book. Based on the writer’s experiences over 30 years adapting to a life with epilepsies: puberty, first jobs, college and “sorting it out”. Ten thousand copies of the booklet were produced and distributed with funding from the UnLtd Millennium Award Scheme. The strip was adapted as a digital application free-of-charge by OxiComics.com and can also be read online at http://www.absencecomic.com

UPDATE: Hosting the domain costs £15 per year. Donations are welcome: and I’ll include a permalink to those who keep us up and running. If you’d like to help email drew.luke at gmail.com or Paypal at that address with a note marked ‘Absence DNS’

Sponsors: 2011-2014 UnLtd  /  2014-2021 Andy Luke   / 2021-2023 Aaron McCorry

Excerpts in the text were taken from Chapter 1 of Dr. J. Morrow’s Epilepsy: A Patient Handbook (2010), NSHI and Chapter 3 of S. Fletcher’s The Challenge of Epilepsy: Complementary and Alternative Solutions (3rd ed, 2004) Published by Aura. If you’d like to find out more about epilepsy these works are recommended starting points.

You may also wish to contact the organisation Epilepsy Action (www.epilepsy.org.uk/), or the UK Epilepsy and Pregnancy Register, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast (www.epilepsyandpregnancy.co.uk)

The comic was written by Andy Luke (Gran, Don’t Get Lost) and illustrated by Stephen Downey (Cancertown, Torchwood), both based in Belfast. The creators assert their creative and intellectual ownership of the property.

The authors would like to thank Mum and Dad, Dr. Jim Morrow, Bronagh Lawson, Hitesh Bansal, Dr. Tom Tyler, Sally Fletcher, Aimee Durkin, Richard Barr, David Campbell, Morten Thomsen and Oxicomics.com, Meabh Cormacain and The UnLtd Millenium Awards Scheme.