Cosmic pizza party

A scrappy intergalactic team runs a traveling pizza restaurant in a food-based universe. With narration provided by Cosmic Pizza Party's android intern AL-N (pronounced "Allen"), each chapter serves as a stand-alone short story in this graphic novel. A helpful tip on the best cheese in the universe ends up being a trap; an advertising gimmick (a quantum-reality machine video game) goes rogue at a Calzonia royal birthday party; a bad review prompts them to fix a pizza crisis for a planet full of Plegans (who eat plastic and are sickened by organic materials); the hostile weather of a planet in the Marinaris System leads to destructively pyrrhic delivery attempts (this is the weakest chapter by far); and finally the team goes head-to-head against rival Papa Roni on the reality game show The Slice Is Right. The silliness of the concept--pizza ingredients as natural resources--is echoed in the shape of the ship (a food truck with wings, illustrated in a curvy retro-futuristic aesthetic), the punny humor, and wild character designs. Delivery pilot Meg, an anthropomorphic sloth, and pizza chef Suzie, a mecha-slug, both use female pronouns; robot AL-N and money-minded Mohs, a rocklike being, both use male pronouns. Despite the wackiness, the characters take their pizza business seriously, and they invite readers to as well--lengthy backmatter features additional art, profiles, quizzes, and pizza recipes. Like an out-of-this-world pizza: cheesy, saucy, and delicious. (Graphic science fiction. 7-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.