The Regulators utilizes the convention of parallel, or alternate, realities: fiction in which different versions of the world exist simultaneously. The Regulators embodies two kinds of alternate realities: a fantasy world that becomes tangible and travel to a different time period.

In The Regulators, Seth combines his MotoKops and cowboy action figures in fantasy games. From this incongruous alliance, the demon that possesses the child "builds" a cartoonish reality that entraps the residents of Poplar Street. To name a few of many possible analogs, Ursula Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven (1971) and Kim Newman's The Night Mayor (1989) feature characters whose dream or fantasy worlds become concrete enough for other characters to walk around in.

What Tak has created on Poplar Street is a kind of virtual reality simulation without the computer. In Harlan Ellison's story, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," a computer traps...