Alien Nation

March 15, 2021
An artist from Venezuela debuts a wordless picture book in which creatures are obsessed with their mobile phones. At first glance, the characters appear to be, as the title suggests, extraterrestrials. Bipedal figures have oversized heads, each unique--sporting spikes, cubes, bulbous growths, geometric shapes, an elephantine trunk, an upside-down cone, or tentacles. Closer inspection reveals light-skinned human bodies dressed in contemporary winter clothing. The juxtaposition of some bare human arms with the heads raises questions about these travelers, who pass through a railway station, then board an underground train. The station is named "La Nacionalien." The setting and compositions, rendered in black and white with detailed crosshatchings, recall Brian Selznick's graphite work in The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007). Bassi is a skilled draftsman. His foreshortened close-up of a child in a stroller reaching toward a seat on which sits a clunky, early-model handheld phone focuses attention on the object that will change everything. After the pudgy finger pushes a button, everyone's phones signal interference/dysfunction and heads explode--literally. Sequential panels portray individual eruptions; dramatic double-page spreads display co-mingling springs, cubes, sprockets, and tentacles. Then the child's mother extends her hand, and order (and service) are restored. Viewers who studied an earlier map will ponder the purpose of that vintage phone. Those who ruminate on the title and the still-distracted phone gazers will have a eureka moment. A clever, enigmatic glimpse at first-world alienation. (Picture book. 4-8)

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