Critters: Wandering Monsters is the second and final graphic novel in a fantasy series about young monsters raised to be evil who learn to be friends. This campaign will help pay for printing this complete 190-page graphic novel.
Critters: Wandering Monsters is the second and final graphic novel in a fantasy series about young monsters raised to be evil who learn to be friends.
Set in a familiar fantasy world inspired by popular role-playing games, the story follows Eddy the ettercap, Lena the medusa, Sally the swamp hag, and Uriel the drider—captured as slaves and forced to confront prejudice, family legacies, and their own identities as monsters. As they journey from the black and white tunnels of the Underdark to the lush green surface world, they learn that friendship, empathy, and cooperation can overcome even the oldest rivalries.
This campaign will fund professional editing, publishing, and printing to bring this completed 190-page graphic novel to life.
Allan Dotson has been drawing monsters his whole life. An avid fan of all kinds of comics, science fiction, fantasy, and role-playing games, Allan often wondered about the secret lives of monsters. What would an evil monster's childhood be like? What would life be like for monsters in the dungeon when the adventurers are not around? Where do evil wizards get all those captive monsters to guard their towers and dungeons? Allan started by imagining train delivering baby monsters to a wizards' market, but once Eddy and his friends got loose, they started to take on lives of their own, and Critters was born.
Allan Dotson was born in Regina. He has traveled the world as a documentary assistant director, and worked as a video game tester. He earned his BA in Art and English from the University of Lethbridge, and an Arts Education degree from the University of Regina. He was a founding member of Regina's Valuable Comics collective (2006-2014), and as a game designer has self-published 10 role-playing games. He has created board games, festival wide games, video game art, animation, murals, giant puppets, and a sitcom pilot, but his first love is comics. Allan's artwork is held in the permanent collections of the City of Regina, Saskatchewan Legislative Building, SK Arts, and Regina Public School Board.
In his secret identity, Allan teaches art and science for an alternative elementary school. When he is not teaching, drawing, or reading comics, he enjoys climbing things and playing Dungeons & Dragons.
"How best to describe Regina writer, artist and teacher Allan Dotson’s monster-inspired graphic novel, Critters: Underdark … a 153-page, 10-years-in-the -making labour of love, and black and white demonstration of great talent? An equally touching and humorous allegory for our socially-fractured and racially- divisive times? A textual and artistic tour-de-force? Each of the above applies, but at the heart of this fantasy’s success is the creator’s unique imagination, his skill at storytelling, and his deft ability to create individuated “monsters” – both visually and literarily – that readers of all ages will quickly care about."
"Action-packed with tons of cute critters and lots of real-life problems presented in a non-threatening way, Critters: Underdark is hard to put down.
Whether it’s making new friends, taking on a challenge, or creating a comic, Critters shows you’re never too young to try! Educators will have an easy time encouraging thinking about judging a book by its cover, bullying, being a good friend, and doing what’s right even when it’s difficult, and exploring these situations in a safe way with students through creating comics of their own, including their own imaginative characters. Highly Recommended"
Crystal Sutherland, librarian at the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women, writing for Canadian Review of Materials
Critters: Underdark was a finalist for the Children's Literature Award at the 2020 Saskatchewan Book Awards.
Critters: Wandering Monsters is currently with my excellent editor Heather Nickel at Your Nickel's Worth Publishing. If all goes well I am hoping to print books this summer and fulfill pre-orders in September of 2025. That is an estimate, and I will keep this page updated as that timeline develops!
Some of the pledge-tier items and add-ons (Bethany Blackguard and Giant Robot Head books) are in various stages of development, and I plan to be working on finishing these mini-comics over the summer and fall. My hope is to have all items ready to ship by December of 2025. Again, this is an estimate! Thank you for your patience.
