By: John Layman (writer & letters), Rob Guillory (art and colors) and Taylor Wells (color assists)
The Story: What has Mason Savoy been up to in prison?
Review (with SPOILERS): This run of issues in the 30s has been a time of transition for Chew. It has gone from being a comic where the story was there to service the humor and visual gags to a series where the story itself is beginning to be more important.
Probably the best way to get readers wrapped up in the story isn’t to have a two-month break between issues. Chew #37 came out back in October and I really didn’t remember what was going on in this issue. That problem was probably exacerbated by the nature of Chew #37 being a semi-stand alone issue with Tony Chu finally eating his sister’s toe and having a kind of final day with her. So, to really get reoriented with the series you have to go back to Chew #36 from September (which is kinda like doing archaeology at this point). I know that things come up in creators lives. The folks behind Chew obviously have an intense work ethic because this series has been coming out like clockwork for several years. I’m just saying that right when you’re ramping up the story isn’t the best time to have a stand-alone issue followed by a two-month absence.
So, what does this issue hold? Does it remind me of what is going on? Well…..we get to see Agents Colby and Valenzano breaking Mason Savoy out of the FDA’s supermax prison. And we get the impression that all of this is happening without Tony Chu’s knowledge. Hmm…. I don’t remember why they would hide this from Tony? Oh well…the point of the issue is that Savoy comes out of the prison with some special knowledge about what has caused the bird flu that caused all the chickens to be slaughtered (and empowered the FDA). I strongly suspect that this will tie together the hints of alien visitation, weird cults and strange alphabetic characters in the sky and I am looking forward to that (even if I don’t really know what is going on right now).
I also didn’t feel very connected with the story elements having to do with Tony Chu and his daughter. I guess I’ve just never really understood what her significance is within the bigger story. And then we see that the daughter and Tony’s girlfriend prepared this funky tentacled food for him to eat…and I think that food has something to do with the aliens??? But – honestly – that was so long ago that I don’t remember.
In fact, this whole review could be titled, “I don’t remember what is going on!” What I’ve learned over the years of reviewing comics online is that when I say I didn’t remember the story, there is a hardcore fringe of readers who questions your competence as a reviewer, but the bulk of the readers are in the same boat as me.
My suggestion would be a recap page. Not a paragraph! Do what Marvel is doing in a lot of their books: Pull out panels from previous issue and re-letter them as needed to remind readers of the story. When you make the collected editions, those recap pages can come out. But, us single-issue folks would appreciate the reminder.
The issue wasn’t a total miss for me. The art was still lovely and it still had cool new food-powers among the inmate population. A guy with super-farts? Lovely! Let’s get him out of prison asap! There are still sight gags galore. I especially liked the one where the prison cafeteria tables had a little folded cardboard thing saying that there are no deserts in prison (as compared to the folded cardboard thingies at an Applebees-quality restaurant that advertise the deserts). But, it wasn’t as easy to laugh along to these items because I was clinging to the story by a thread.
Conclusion: Enjoyment of this issue may be hampered by not remembering the story. I’m probably not the only one.
Grade: C
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion