Lost Levels
Lost Levels is the first chapbook published by Cool Skull Press. Written and designed by Chicago-based writer-comedian-filmmaker Alec Robbins, this chapbook is a pocket-sized culture-jamming jumble of glitch art, screen captures, neurotic poetry, fan fics, erotica, and iPhone texts. An answer, both pragmatic and prismatic, to the questions: what happens when our digital and physical realities overlap? How does heartbreak develop and die in the world of Tinder and Nintendo? How can one reclaim their childhood among its pixelated ruins?
56 full-color pages
Second printing, 100 copies
$7.00 + $3.00 shipping
“I enjoy Alec Robbins’ first collection of poems. These poems are all at once funny, intimate, poignant, exhilarating and endearingly neurotic. After reading Lost Levels I felt a little less alone.”
ee scott, of Boost House
“Lost Levels knows about McDonald’s and dating. It pays tribute to the criminally unappreciated classic, Donkey Kong Country, and knows the beauty of the great fairy fountain song. It reexamines the many quiet details of scrolling through our phones, turning these analog stats into art. Dare I say, this first collection from Cool Skull Press takes writing about video games to the next level.”
Christopher Morgan, Nostrovia! Tavern
"Here are things, in the order I thought of them, which I like about Lost Levels: random Wikipedia snippets; a sad poem about Yoda; 'I escaped the map once in Donkey Kong 64 / DK reverted to his swimming animations in a / black void but I couldn’t maneuvre him back.'; an ad for the Gameboy Colour; Depression; erotic King of the Hill / Digimon crossover fanfiction; an iPhone conversation: 'I think a good name for a pokemon would be Bigpig / There’s one named Grumpig / Eh… *puts hands in pockets, kicks dirt*… / …I guess I don’t understand why they can’t just have a big pig;' and the place where my cat threw up."
Philip Gordon, Navigator