Chew volume one: Taster's Choice

Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice by John Layman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Detective Tony Chu is a cibopath, meaning he gets psychic information from everything he eats. When he and his partner bust a black market chicken operation, he finds himself recruited by the FDA. But his new partner, Mason Savoy, is more than he seems...

I've had my eye on Chew for years and finally bit when the first volume went on sale for six bucks. It was well worth it.

As somebody who thinks about food quite a bit, the core idea behind Chew intrigued me. Imagine finding out where your food comes from when you bite into it. The only thing Chew doesn't get information from his beets so he eats a lot of beets. Anyway, Chew's world is one where millions died of bird flu and it's illegal to sell or eat poultry. Or, that's what the government says.

Intrigued yet? Tony Chu finds himself in hot water when he's caught biting a dead suspect's face to learn the names of his victims. The FDA recruits Chu shortly after and it's off to the disturbing races.

Imagine tasting a finger someone found in a sandwich to figure out where it came from. Or taking a bite out of a dead dog to find out what happened in the apartment where it lived? Yeah, Chew is not for the faint of heart. That being said, I liked this crazy shit quite a bit.

Chu is an interesting lead. He's not brave, not great with the ladies, but he's a good detective and a good man. The setting is pretty novel, a world where the FDA is in charge of a great deal more than it is in ours, cracking down on illegal chicken and things of that nature. I even like Mason Savoy quite a bit. Oh, and fuck Applebee, Chu's boss.

John Layman's writing plays things surprisingly straight for the most part, even though some ridiculous shit happens. Rob Guillory's art reminds me of Sam Keith's on The Maxx quite a bit, something I'm a big fan of. John Layman and Rob Guillory created something special here, something that easily could have been a one and done affair, but are clearly playing the long game with Chew. I'm in for the duration. Four out of five stars.

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