Dungeon Quest: Book One: Book One - Softcover

Daly, Joe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 160699347X ISBN 13: 9781606993477

Publisher: Fantagraphics, 2010

Synopsis

A surreal suburban role playing game yarn from the creator of The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book.

One day Millenium [sic] Boy decided to grab his hobo stick, his bandana, and his Swiss Army knife, bid his mom goodbye, and head off on a quest for adventure. Joined by his best friend Steve (weapon: baseball bat; clothing: wife beater, cargo pants and sandals), they soon find themselves in a violent altercation with two other adventure seekers. It ends badly for their antagonists (“Whoa, check it out, dude! You actually knocked this dude’s brain right out of his cranium!”) and Millenium Boy and Steve become the proud owners of fancy weapons upgrades (a crowbar and a steel chain). So on they trek, and the next inductee to their group is the muscle-bound Lash Penis.

And then things start getting weird!

Readers of 2009’s Red Monkey Double Happiness Book will recognize Joe Daly’s delightfully unique stoner/philosopher dialogue and distinctive character designs, but the hilarious over-the-top Role Playing Game action (complete with periodic updates for each character’s status in ten criteria, including “dexterity,” “intelligence,” and “money”) propel this new story into a heretofore unachieved action-comedy realm. By the end of this book (the first chapter of a projected four-part epic), the trio has been joined by Nerdgirl the Archer, Lash Penis has nearly had his arm cut off, they’ve acquired a whole new nifty bag of tricks, and the menaces have become increasingly surreal and lethal. Where will it end?

Stay tuned for Dungeon Quest Book Two in Fall 2010! 136 pages of black-and-white comics

About this title

About the Author

Joe Daly is a cartoonist from South Africa. Born in London, he studied animation for two years at Cape Town’s City Varsity College. His work has been described as “Tintin Meets the Freak Brothers in the Cape of Good Dope.” His books include Scrublands, The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, and Dungeon Quest.

Reviews

Frustrated by homework, Millennium Boy, whose head is shaped like an enormous lightbulb, dons swim trunks and wellies, loads a “hobo stick,” and takes off on an adventure. He rounds up thirtyish slacker Steve, bodybuilder Lash Penis, and Japanese archer Nerdgirl. Each gears up before joining in, and all get upgraded after each dangerous exploit. If it seems no fair that MB and Steve start upgrading earlier because they fight crowbar- and chain-wielding thugs and furry Molelocs before they get to Lash's and Nerdgirl's houses, well, Lash and Nerdgirl are better equipped to begin with. Finally, they're off through a graveyard where pirate skeletons attack, a healing pool in which Lash's near-severed arm is made whole, and a shamanic encounter with Redman, to the edge of Fireburg Forest. Daly's parody of the trek adventure—the template for ripping yarns from King Solomon's Mines to King Kong to Indy Jones to scads of video games—is a kind of slackers' SpongeBob Squarepants, earthier (of course) but as ingenuously absurd, slightly boring but magnetically amusing. --Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Fantagraphics
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 160699347X
• ISBN 13: 9781606993477
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136