"Chew - Volume 1: Taster's Choice" is a perverted trip into the culinary world of the surreal

Rob Guillory and John Layman's comic book creation, Chew, is a terrific example of the culinary bizarre.  Implementing elements of detective stories, world wide flu outbreak that wipes hundred million plus souls, government conspiracies and a "super" hero who's got the most unusual gift: he can feel the origin, the history and life of anything his taste buds devour once it's in his mouth.  Author and creator Layman calls him a cibopath, which is a term used for a person with such aforementioned abilities.

The hero in question here is none other than Tony Chu, a detective who, after a case he's assigned to goes awry and results in unnecessary casualties, is immediately fired from the Philadelphia Police Department.  However, having displayed his "cibopathic" abilities in great measure to an undercover FDA agent, he's immediately hired by that same agency to work as a taster of evidence in order to discover the perpetrators of any food-related crimes.  Working along with Mason Savoy, a large and ominous looking fella who resembles a bear, Tony tackles all sorts of different cases, some that even involve uncovering a great government conspiracy in which millions died due to a case of bird flu - or did they?

Rob Guillory's artwork is reminiscent of the goofy and caricaturistic style found in Sunday Newspaper comics.  His characters are mostly disproportional, giving them a dimension of the surreal and the bizarre, but never turning them into cartoonish types that we can't take seriously.  There is plenty of gore, both of the bloody and of culinary kind, and the readers can practically sense and feel some of the awfully disgusting products that Chu has to taste while on duty.  The result is a marvel for multiple senses: we can see, smell and even taste some of the items in question on the very page in front of us.  Chew is a comic for those who want something different than the ever growing science-fiction (Saga) or horror (The Walking Dead) that have so commandingly taken over the  American graphic novel landscape as of late.  It's a delicious nightmare into all things tasty and disgusting, but also with a brain and imagination to spare.
B+