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Written by Byron Kerman Thursday, 15 November 2007 17:00

Best known for his lengthy slice-of-life comedy Box Office Poison, Alex Robinson's first foray into fantasy keeps it short and sweet.

56 pgs. B&W; $6.95

(W / A: Alex Robinson)

I wish I could tell you I'm one of those guys who played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons as a kid. I know what a Lurker Above is, I've just never battled one. Truth be told, I only played a handful of times. That's because it was always the same thing: fighting monsters and collecting plunder.

Sure, it sounds glamorous. But it managed to get boring pretty fast, actually. Confront the terror, fight the terror, roll the dice, get hurt, survive (usually), keep moving, confront the next terror, and so on. It just wasn't the cerebral exercise I guess I figured it would be.

It seems like Alex Robinson (Box Office Poison) had more fun than I did in the dungeon. His new wordless mini-comic, Lower Regions, follows a nameless heroine as she cripples and/or kills monster after monster in her quest.

Is she after treasure? A plus-seven sword-of-unmaking? More hit points? I'd be happy to tell you, but the object of her search is the only real surprise here, so you'll just have to read it for yourself.

Robinson has a ball with the axe-wielding protagonist as she cleaves her way through a sequence of hideous and evil beasts. His cute drawing style is juxtaposed with buckets of blood; the effect is juvenile and fun. And, it turns out, Robinson drew this mini as a kind of Recherche du Temps Perdu: it's a tribute to the times he spent drawing scary monsters at his kitchen table as a ten-year-old, totally immersed in the act of drawing and having a blast.

You might try listening to some death metal while reading this mindless romp. It'll add to the atmosphere of goofy savagery. | Byron Kerman

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