A.L.I.E.E.N. #[nn]

Lewis Trondheim's A.L.I.E.E.N. announces itself immediately with that wonderfully unsettling cover creature — a squat, blue alien whose enormous tooth-lined mouth gapes open to reveal what appears to be a tiny tree growing inside. Published by Reprodukt in 2006, this is Trondheim working in a deceptively simple, cartoonish register that somehow manages to feel genuinely strange and inventive. If that grinning little monster is any indication, the humor and weirdness inside are in very capable hands.