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Saturday, August 2, 2014

On the Coffee Table: Just Desserts

Title: Chew, Volume Three: Just Desserts
Writer: John Layman
Artist: Rob Guillory
via Amazon
For me, the most important test of a comic book series is whether or not I'm left caring about what happens in the next issue.  I think that's a fair measure of a serialized medium.  Sometimes, I'll get to the end of a comic and realize that I've had enough.  My read wasn't unpleasant.  However, I am satisfied and that is all I need.  But every once in a while, I encounter a writer with a gift for stringing the reader along and planting cliffhangers large and small at the end of each story.  John Layman is such a writer.

Just Desserts, which includes issues 11-15 of Chew, ends extremely well.  This collection does not have a self-contained story as the previous volume did (review here; and for Volume One, go here).  Instead, we get loads of character development for the protagonist, Tony Chu.  His romance with Amelia Mintz advances most pleasingly.  We learn about his crazy ex-girlfriend and, in the last chapter, his family.  The best is saved for very last (don't worry, not really spoiling anything).  On the final three pages, we first get something weird in the sky - don't even know what it is yet but I certainly want to know, need to know - then a new character who instantly changes the landscape of the entire narrative.

This guy's good.

As explained in previous posts, part of Chew's appeal for me is the food powers various characters possess.  We get another new one in Just Desserts, though it's not named.  A man, hired by a gangster as a food-taster, sits in a diner booth, rattling off the list of ingredients for each morsel he eats: "thiamin hydrochloride, hydrolized soy protien, mono-sodium glutamate..."

More, please.
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8 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 2, 2014 at 10:27 PM

    I've never heard of food powers. Interesting concept.

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    1. The Armchair SquidAugust 2, 2014 at 11:14 PM

      They are very prevalent in Chew. John Layman has invented all of them, and named quite a few. Tony Chu is a cibopath. He instantly accesses the back story of anything he eats.

      Delete
  2. SuzeAugust 3, 2014 at 1:25 AM

    It's like a new world opening up, the idea of food powers.

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    1. The Armchair SquidAugust 3, 2014 at 8:11 AM

      It's a fascinating premise, rich with possibility.

      Delete
  3. PickleopeAugust 3, 2014 at 8:18 AM

    Jonathan Layman and Rob Guillory do such a great job of world building, especially for such a strange concept, it's hard not to be drawn in (no pun, I swear). It's also genuinely funny. I don't often laugh at things I read, but these issues are so packed with jokes, even in the background, that they get me every time. Glad you're promoting such clever, original work.

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  4. CherdoAugust 5, 2014 at 12:18 PM

    "For me, the most important test of a comic book series is whether or not I'm left caring about what happens in the next issue." BINGO. That says it all. Very interesting concept, too. Cool cover art.

    Cherdo
    www.cherdoontheflipside.com

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    Replies
    1. The Armchair SquidAugust 5, 2014 at 12:35 PM

      The art for the series is quite funky. The characters are too angular for that poured out of a bottle feel you get with some - more like really skinny paper dolls with taped-together joints.

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