Lower Regions, by Alex Robinson, published by Top Shelf Productions, 2007
The first thing I really noticed about Alex Robinson’s Lower Regions is that the nameless warrior-woman protagonist appears to have armpit hair. She also has a fairly genre-standard set of women’s armor – something with a short skirt and a low neckline – but I’m so used to seeing that kind of outfit in fantasy media that my eye tends to skip right over it. But armpit hair? Really? Couldn’t be, I thought. It must be her somewhat unkempt tresses peeking out from behind her arm. But still…
I scanned the image again, taking in all of the details. Yes, the heroine’s ample cleavage is on display, but she’s also sporting a serious scowl and her posture is unequivocally aggressive. Her first appearance in the comic (aside from the cover art, shown here) is both a nod to conventional fantasy art and a neat subversion of genre expectations.
This pattern of genre celebration and subversion is continued through the rest of the short, wordless graphic novel. There’s plenty of over-the-top fantasy violence and a love interest in need of rescuing, as one might expect from a dungeon-crawl story. But the rescuer is a woman who not only does all of the hard work on her own, but does it while looking tough and capable, instead of sexually idealized.
Though some of the slaying and maiming in Lower Regions grossed me out, and a highly-sexualized sequence featuring a female demon gave me the creeps, the exuberant and ultimately light-hearted and very funny violence appealed to the veteran gamer in me. The straightforward, kill-all-the-monsters plot reminded me of many an enjoyable dice-rolling session.
Lower Regions, with a more-than-generous helping of gore and featuring full-frontal monster nudity, is definitely not for everyone (and especially not for young readers), but those who enjoy dungeon adventures with plenty of mayhem and great heroines should give it a try.
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