Beets The Rest
Highly Recommended!
This has got to be one of the best series I have ever read. There are no super-heroes, no cosmic heroics, and no non-sense. It is pure entertainment. It takes place in a universe where millions have perished at the hands of a "bird flu epidemic" (or so they say), some people have special food related abilities, and at one time life existed outside the milky way. Oh, and yeah, there is cannibalism - but it is not the, "fava beans" kind of cannibalism you may be imagining - it is the "I have to taste you to solve a crime" kind of cannibalism.
It stars Tony Chu, an unlikely detective-turned-agent-turned-hero-anti-hero. He is the one with cibopathic ability. An extra-sensory mechanism that boils down to the ability to see the truth behind something that he eats. Whether that truth is where an apple was grown or the circumstances of someone's death - it is all the same to Tony, well aside from the after-taste. This goes for everything except one food. Can you guess which food that is?
Not only is the story around Tony's life, work and the world around him fascinating, every minute detail that the creators put into this book, makes it perfect. All the detail demonstrates a great passion for the story, by its creators - something that as a reader both impresses me and instills confidence in the series as a whole.
It is not for the faint at heart. It is pretty gory, and even a bit gratuitous, but the art is so well done and the story is so well written, the "gore" actually comes off as an expertly used tool - a device that drives the point home. I would describe the entire work as "charming", even with all the violence, gore and (at times) vile imagery.
By the way, you do not have to look very hard for the "detail" I speak of... check the backgrounds of some of the larger panels - it is like an easter-egg hunt for subtlety, detail and mixed metaphors!
One final note - I have to make a special call out to how wonderfully onomatopoeic all the "action" is in this book. I got a kick out of every "CHOMP", "SLUTCH" and "TOK A TOK A TOK A"... :)