The Squirrel Machine #[nn]

Hans Rickheit's The Squirrel Machine is a singular work from Fantagraphics that announces itself with an atmosphere unlike anything else in 2013 comics. The cover draws you immediately into a dimly lit, cluttered room where a solitary figure sits slumped on the floor, connected by tubes to a bizarre apparatus — all surrounded by strange machines, a bubbling fishbowl contraption, and unsettling mechanical devices that hint at something deeply weird and wonderful within. Rickheit's densely cross-hatched linework rewards slow, careful looking, making this one of those covers you keep returning to before you've even opened the book.