cover image Mutant Aliens

Mutant Aliens

Bill Plympton. Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, $10.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-1-56163-236-7

Released in anticipation of a full-length animated feature of the same name, this is the hilarious comic story of an astronaut, Earl Jensen, stranded in space by Dr. Frubar, a money-hungry politician who's hatched a plot to increase funding for the space program. Twenty years later, Earl crash-lands back on Earth with a ship full of huge mutant creatures. Drifting in space these two decades, Earl has liberated the ship's lab animals and turned the whole enterprise into a weird, orbiting, genetic Garden of Eden. While under the influence of a wacky space home-brew, Earl and his animal pals party a little too hard. He returns to earth with a mutant species in tow, descended from the pig, dog, duck, guinea pig, snake and alligator on board, and--now it gets really kinky--from Earl himself. Drawn in pencil in Plympton's familiar overheated cartoon style, the black and white panels read like a highly detailed film storyboard, leaving the reader with the impression of having witnessed the artist in the midst of the creative process. (Sept.)