Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big

""From a long line of liars, there's none higher upper.../ Than my fibbing big brother,/ The Edwurd Fudwupper,"" laments Fannie, a timid girl with freckles and corkscrews of orange hair. She only wants some attention from Edwurd, a mutated Dennis the Menace with a red-striped shirt, monstrously large head and creepy grin. But Edwurd is too busy fabricating stories to be her friend. In a sequence too convoluted to recount fully, Edward breaks a ceramic pig, lies about the deed and draws hostile attention from a three-eyed alien whose purple potbelly could easily contain the entire Earth (""Oh, it was dreadful! A real world stopper!/ All from an Edwurd Fudwupper fat whopper!""). When Fannie tells a ""fat fib"" of her own and saves the planet, she finally earns Edwurd's affection. Breathed (A Wish for Wings That Work) alternates ink-and-watercolor caricatures with ultra-high-contrast images, but their caustic whites and poison greens exude an almost radioactive glow. The author may approach the meters of Dr. Seuss (""Who is this gnat? Point out where he's at!/ Show him to me and I'll swat him down flat!"" says the alien), but the tone, like the art, is mean-spirited and unfunny. All ages. (Sept.)