Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Chew #23Chew #23
Image Comics
Layman & Guillory

Chew rolls on with the middle issue to the Major League Chew arc with another outstanding comic book. Layman and Guillory continue to surprise, delight, humor and shock with their unique story. This particularly issue explains why Tony was captured and it puts a new twist on Tony's former partner, Colby, and his new career. It's fantastically creative read in what is one of my favorite all-time series.

Tony is tied to a chair, beaten and bloody. What we learn is that it is Tony's girlfriend's ex-boyfriend is behind the capture. However, he's not after revenge. Instead, he's writing a book about the sexual exploits of baseball players. Naturally, the next step is to capture Tony so that Tony can eat dead ballplayer's body parts to learn their past conquests. It's simply brilliant. Not to mention that it's hysterical.

Colby, now partnered with a lion, solves a case of counterfeiting using food as the pulp. The scenes are terrific and are enhanced by the back-office interactions of Colby and his boss. This all ties nicely to how things were when Colby worked with Tony.

I'm not doing either plot justice and that is intentional. The book's plot elements are funny but the execution is where the true treasure of the book resides and that is for the reader to digest for themselves. It's the perfect mix of story and visuals.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsGuillory continues to excel on art. Guillory manages to take a funny and entertaining script and bring it to the absurd level. Whether it's the notes in background on the wall or a computer screen or the lion pouncing on the copy counter, Guillory makes every single panel memorable. I simply have no idea how Guillory comes up with half of what he draws.

Chew is a title that should be read from the very beginning. However, I truly believe that anyone could pick this issue up and be highly entertained. It's got great writing, a fast and entertaining story and distinctly amazing artwork. There is no reason to not pick this book up, unless you simply will only read comics with capes in them.

5 out of 5 Geek Goggles