Chew: Omnivore Edition, Volume 2

Just Desserts and Flambé
written by John Layman
art by Rob Guillory

In the elevator to Amelia Mintz's office floor at the Mercury Sun there's a memo posted:  "Vomit bags can be found near Amelia's desk.  —Mgmt" (Chew: Omnivore Edition, Volume 2: 61 [Chew #13: 7]).  Undoubtedly is a little (mostly) teasingly hostile office revenge for her nauseating reviews of D-grade restaurants in Taster's Choice, but it's also a nice anticipation for Colby's reaction to Tony and Amelia's kiss hello:  "Egad.  Where's a barf bag when ya need one?" (62 [8]).  Really, it's the little things.

Layman and Guillory have made a point to speckle their series with self-referential in-jokes, clever pop culture references (Fringe, in particular, is the gift that keeps on giving), and delightfully absurd background detail as a complement to the already delectable, bombastic physical humor, sardonic but often sweet dialogue, and often daffy plot action.

And John Colby is my favorite:

"Look, dickhead.  I just spent the better part of the morning convincing your current girlfriend you're not some sort of nutcase--  because you're holding on to the toe of your ex--who actually was a nutcase.  Don't go ruining all my hard work by starting a shit-fire--on our day off--with your family--who already hates you."  (Vol. 2: 121 [#15: 17])

He's simultaneously a loose cannon, who would fit comfortably in most rebel cop dramas, and one of the most personally intuitive and considerate characters in Chew.  Colby's defense of his partner Tony in his showdown with Savoy at Montero's mansion—and Tony's equally heartbreaking appreciation of his loyalty, holding his battered and unconscious body—exemplify just how strong a hold Layman has on his tonally expansive series.

Just Desserts is quite a personal departure for Chew's protagonist.  His romance with saboscrivener journalist Amelia Mintz is in its early blush, and his rivalry with former partner and rogue cibopath Mason Savoy returns to the fore.  But in the collision between Tony's compartmentalized lives, his family has to win:  bitter older sister Rosemary, her matchy-matchy husband Tang Shen, their children Chip and Bree Chu-Shen, Tony's effervescent twin sister Toni (Antonelle) Chu, older brother and black-market poultry cook Chow, transvestite—or transsexual—younger brother Harold (aka, Miso Honey), younger sister Sage, mother Bao, and grandfather Ong.  Their Thanksgiving dinner together is borderline epic, and not just because it ends with flaming alien writing across the sky, worthy every bit of Guillory's "Last Supper" spoof cover.  The biggest surprise, however, is Olive, Tony's very teenage daughter.  She's a surprise—and potentially a deal-breaking complication for their relationship—to Amelia, but in the moment of fear, staring into the fire-writing across the Thanksgiving sky, Tony, Amelia, and Olive find themselves holding hands with all the promise of a very real (if culinarily unconventional) family.

Ostensibly about the mysterious—perhaps alien—fiery message in the sky, Flambé explodes the poultry conspiracies even as it shies away from enforcement of the poultry prohibition with the apocalypse seemingly at hand.  Tony's new partner Caesar Valenzano is Savoy's old partner, and they're still in illicit cahoots; former FDA agent and self-destructing voresoph Daniel Migdalo has apparently eaten himself into perfect, genius understanding of the whole thing but flings himself out of his apartment lunging for breath mints; an angsty high-schooler with a new food power apparently takes down a space station studying zero-gravity food, including a gallsaberry targeted by the mysterious "vampire"; anti-prohibition revolutionaries making meteor-metal bullets; solar-mutated, zero-gravity babies conceived by NASA scientists in a panicked directive to save the human race during the avian flu pandemic; and an egg-worshipping cult with scripture in a mysterious language.

But in all of the potentially world-ending machinations, Flambé's most victorious turn comes from a death-wielding gamecock: "Concentrated mayhem.  Feathers, rage and hate. *P*O*Y*O*!!!*" (Vol. 2: 196 [#18: 21]).  He's taken down innumerable rooster peers, a fighting cock crime boss and his muscle, and now the army of bio-terrorist General Jontongjoo.

[unnamed]:  someone who can determine all the constituent ingredients (chemically) of a food dish only by its taste.

Voresoph:  someone whose intelligence is directly correlated with how much food he or she ingests.  The more one eats, the smarter one gets.

[unnamed]:  someone who can compose recipes that control other people.

Collects Chew #11-20

ISBN: 978-1607064268