Worth A Thousand Flavors
Highly Recommended!
Duh, its Chew. The.Best.Comic.Ever. So, yeah, I am biased, but why wouldn't I be? In fact, I am sure you would be biased too, if you sat down and consumed all things Chew, to date. Seriously, I haven't met anyone, who could put this series down once they picked it up. Most people think it is better than sliced beets and openly state that it is the best thing ever. I joined the bandwagon a little while back and I do not plan on departing from this stance, ever. Even after the series has long ended.
We have arrived, finally at Issue #26. What does that mean? Well if you have read Chew for any period of time, you know that a little over a year ago the creators did something uncanny - they gave us a glimpse of the future - Issue #27, Space Cakes, Chapter 2. That future is now. They missed the date by a little, but that is certainly no reason to fault these fine fellows in any way - they came through, the fulfilled their promise, they successfully filled the time gap with hundreds of skillfully drawn and expertly written panels. All this AND the continuity has stayed successfully intact.
I realize that every review I write for this series simply praises the great work of John and Rob. Can you blame me? Just the fact that everything lines up perfectly from one year ago (and change) to now, proves how well planned this series actually is. Planning like this deserves praise. If that is not enough reason to convince you to go get your hands on the first five traded volumes of this series, then just look at the associated interior panel image - look at what this single panel has to offer...
- Some of the BEST art in the business. Period.
- Primary story character interaction with perfectly expressive, facial expressions.
- Expert onomatopoeic usage.
- Background details that should not be overlooked! Seriously, consider the depth that is added to the hospital management's attitude by those two signs...
- And though you cannot grasp how wonderful the writing is from this one panel, it is, so deal with it.
I obviously have strong feelings for the masterpiece that is Chew. Never before have I been completely and utterly blown away by any one piece of work. It is THE comic I look forward to most each month.
Wow. That is more of a blog post than an actual review, but apparently I felt that I had to defend my position on this book... for no reason though. Strange... But enough about the series as a whole, and back to this oddly numbered Part 1 of 1 Chapter of Space Cakes...
Dealing with the prolonged effects of being continually beaten for an entire story arc, Tony is still out of commission for this issue. And as foretold in Issue #27, it Sux to be Tony (I know this because a balloon told me so) - and now we know why (refer to Major League Chew). But enough about Tony (with a "Y") and more about Toni (with an "I") - because that is apparently what Space Cakes is all about!
Boy oh boy, do we learn a lot about Toni in this issue! More than all the other issues combined (including Issue #27). We also gain even more insight into someone that needs no introduction, Toni and Tony's brother, Chow. For as much as this issue is all about Toni, the orchestration of much of her actions is guided by Chow - and his artful revenge over Barnabas Cremini - scoundrel extraordinaire (and that is scoundrel from Chow's perspective - so let that sink in). Aside from being leveraged to lick some paintings at the behest of her brother, more of Toni's personal life is uncovered as we discover the source of all the tension portrayed in Issue #27 between her and Paneer. It is not like we can blame her, Cibovoyant and all...
Learning the details of Toni's special ability is not the only discovery unveiled in the known Chewniverse - we also learn of the abilities of another food related super-human, the Sabopictor (providing every reason to lick a painting). These are simply the two newest additions to the ever-growing Chew-ability list, and just another couple reasons to love Chew.
If this wasn't enough, we see another brief appearance by "the Vampire" - which makes for a very bad night for an unsuspecting, yet delicious, person...
Finally, I wanted to just say how awesome John and Rob are... they interact with the community via Twitter and other social media sites - so much so that they glean some insight from the masses... a select few of the masses to be sure, but still the masses (a sub-set, though). The example I have stems from the following tweet by @themightylayman on April 13th, 2012: "What's the sound effect for sobbing?" - While I am sure there were many responses, John picked one and tweeted: "Went with "HUH-BLUH-BLUB-BLUBB *sob*" Thanks, @shanehoughton!". I just think it is pretty awesome that we get to see this kind of interaction, live, in real time. Watching sausage being made has never been so appealing... (For those of you who thing I am crazy for finding and referring to these tweets, it was just a matter of remembering that he asked, received an answer and chose/tweeted an answer - then I just needed to search for the word "BLUB" in some back-dated tweets, simple really - especially when you could imagine that I wanted to know if he was actually asking for input on the most awesome comic ever.)
