Good Cop, Extrasensory Perception Cop

At times it seems that the comic world has exhausted its store of superhero powers. Telekinesis, super strength, lightning speed, laser eyes, even some of the weirder stuff like mutant wings or feet or the lamest of all, talking to fish.

Well, someone finally found a super power that hadn’t been used yet. CHEWING! Yay originality!!!

How could masticating comestibles save helpless citizens from super villains? A little thing called cibopathy. And what the hell is that? It’s something I assume was made up by John Layman and Rob Guillory, the creators of the graphic novel “Chew.” Cibopathy is a extra sensory ability where a single bite of food can tell that person where an apple was grown, or how horribly a cow felt during slaughtering. It also helps the hero of “Chew” solve crimes…by tasting blood and eating pieces of bodies.

Yeah, okay, so that’s pretty gross, but it’s also wicked cool. Such is the power of Tony Chu (haha, it’s funny because his name is Chu and the book is called CHEW! I love word play!) Tony Chu starts off as just a cop in the Philadelphia PD, until he uncovers a serial killer after eating a bowl of soup tainted with the murderer‘s blood.

Tony then gets a job working for the FDA, which in this world has expanded its reign of power due to a nationwide bird flu epidemic. Now, instead of busting drug rings or weapon smugglers, the regular policeman go after poultry dealers and chicken speakeasies, and the FDA trumps all other law enforcement officers.

Everyone thinks Tony is a freak, which I think is part of the appeal of his character. He’s a good cop, who would rather just play by the rules instead of eating decomposing human toes. His timid, awkward behavior irritates most of his coworkers, but makes him the perfect type of hero readers will root for. He’s truly a good guy, just socially inept, somewhere along the lines of a shyer, quirkier, Asian Peter Parker.

“Chew” is strange, dark and has been known to make me shriek with laughter in the middle of a crowded laundromat. For example, John Colby, Tony’s former partner in the Philadelphia PD, is an obnoxious renegade cop. Think every 1980s action film hero that played by his own rules. At the beginning of the first volume, Colby takes a butcher knife to the face. Normally, people die in that situation, but not Colby. No, he is too cool to die, and so he becomes a cyborg. I think Colby is probably the funniest character in my opinion, or at least has the best one liners. Like this little gem: After the now bionic Colby takes Chu to a bar, he warns him saying “Don’t go using your crazy hoodoo to tell me my drink has trace amounts of rhino snot or pterodactyl jizz -- or anything else that’s gonna ruin my good time.” If a man said that to me in a bar, I think I’d take notice. If that man was also a hot graphic novel character who was part cyborg, then I’d probably propose marriage. But I guess I’m just that kind of girl.

I don’t want to give away the entire story, so I’ll conclude by saying that you really ought to read “Chew” now, before Showtime turns it into a TV series and either does such an amazing job it ruins the reading experience for you, or does such a horrendously nauseating job that it ruins the reading experience for you. It’s allegedly being made by Stephen Hopkins, the director of “Predator 2” and “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” so make of that what you will. I’ll keep my snarky judgments until it airs. Until then, I have one more volume to read, “Chew: Just Desserts.” Sounds delicious.