Copyright John Layman and Rob Guillory
In honor of the fourth volume being released, I thought I’d review Chew, a recent favorite of mine and one of the cleverest series out there. Chew follows the exploits of Tony Chu, an agent for the FDA who happens to be a cibopath, or a person who gets psychic impressions from the food that he eats. Tony uses this bizarre power to solve crimes, which often involves eating a small piece of a dead body, much to his chagrin.
The writing in Chew is top-notch, and every volume has me laughing out loud the whole way through. That said, the story doesn’t take a back seat to the jokes, and it’s impressive how over the span of the issues so far Layman has woven together an intricate story of intrigue, government conspiracies, betrayal, and, of course, food. Chu and the other strange people that populate the world of Chew are all excellent, each with their own quirks and foibles. It’s hard to find such multifaceted characters in a comedy series, but Chew absolutely delivers.
More than the humor, the big selling point for me is the series’ art. The dark yet cartoony art is perfect for the story’s dark humor, and the colors are just awesome. Guillory often uses color screens to help set the mood in scenes and it’s just so cool. Plus his work on the characters does a lot to make them even fuller, with some really priceless expressions and physicalities.
Chew only started in 2009, and it’s already won a boatload of awards and has been getting a lot of buzz. So what are you waiting for? A TV adaptation is supposedly in the works, so if you go read the comic now you can complain about the show when it comes out.
Happy reading,
-Nate
Tired of Superheroes 