Chew #13

Written by John Layman
Art by Rob Guillory

Regular readers of Chew have come to expect certain things - sharp humour, and compelling storytelling being the main attributes.  What's cool about this series is that the creators don't leave it there.  Layman has been increasingly experimental in the plotting and pacing of his stories.  Last issue began with a page that was 'out of order', effectively foreshadowing where Tony Chu was going to end up later in the book.

This month's issue takes place between the pages of last month's.  It's not a gimmicky Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead kind of thing, it's simply a creative way of telling a story that helps to fill in some of the mysteries that have been building around this title for some time now.

The comic opens with the Tarantino-inspired scene on the cover, as Caesar, previously seen as the black ops guy for a company that combines chicken and frog DNA (Fricken!), is revealed to be a deep undercover FDA agent (and that sentence right there is enough of a reason to go buy this book as far as I'm concerned).  Later, said Fricken (actually called Poultplus on the cans), is receiving a lot of attention, and Tony and his partner raid the facility.

There's a lot of crazy, funny stuff going on within this comic.  I particularly like the strained relationship between Tony and his boss.  This is a book that keeps getting better with every issue, and is well-deserving of the Eisner it won this year.