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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
THAT was messed up.
This series has shifted; it's more Invader Zim + One Piece insanity than it was when it first started out. It's taken some time to ease me into that fact, but I think I like it.
This series has shifted; it's more Invader Zim + One Piece insanity than it was when it first started out. It's taken some time to ease me into that fact, but I think I like it.
I haven't been good about keeping up with Chew in the past few months and I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy it! Awesome artwork and fun story as usual.
Remember that time I was worried about all the stuff that volume 7 failed to accomplish in terms of moving the plot forward in any meaningful way, given the end of volume 6, which came as the ultimate shock after all the zany preceding bits?
Well, as it turns out volume 8 does exactly what I hoped it would do and picks up that slack. Not only do we see the vague hint of the main plot's climax on the horizon (including not only the 'vampire' but also the conspiracy), we also see more development of Tony's badly tended relationships, for about the second time ever in a positive direction.
The nice part, too, is right there on the cover: guess who our favorite grumpy detective is getting a visit from throughout this entire book?!
As I mentioned in my review of vol. 6, Antonelle's NASA-fuelled insanity was the perfect foil to Tony's obsession with the rules and being all singleminded anger management basket case what have you. So it's good to see her again, especially with the layer of *extra* that also made an appearance in volume 6. This time, of course, things are more complicated—I'd consider the middle chapters here the first appearance of serious, show-stopping feels—but, you know what, they fit well and to be honest it's hard to sustain something with a serious plot on comedy alone. I'm glad they didn't try to lighten things up with this one: the tension has been coming to a head for a while, and it's nice to finally see it go somewhere.
So yeah, in my opinion the main strength of this volume is actually the personal side of things, even as events start clicking into place and humor is had. It's a well-constructed volume in a series that has, by and large, been well-constructed but not bothered to display as full a range.
From an art standpoint, the inks/colors look good. I noticed more dynamism in the movements than before, but I don't know if it's just a matter of who they chose to show in action poses, or the fact that the action alternated more so it was more obvious when it happened.
Well, as it turns out volume 8 does exactly what I hoped it would do and picks up that slack. Not only do we see the vague hint of the main plot's climax on the horizon (including not only the 'vampire' but also the conspiracy), we also see more development of Tony's badly tended relationships, for about the second time ever in a positive direction.
The nice part, too, is right there on the cover: guess who our favorite grumpy detective is getting a visit from throughout this entire book?!
As I mentioned in my review of vol. 6, Antonelle's NASA-fuelled insanity was the perfect foil to Tony's obsession with the rules and being all singleminded anger management basket case what have you. So it's good to see her again, especially with the layer of *extra* that also made an appearance in volume 6. This time, of course, things are more complicated—I'd consider the middle chapters here the first appearance of serious, show-stopping feels—but, you know what, they fit well and to be honest it's hard to sustain something with a serious plot on comedy alone. I'm glad they didn't try to lighten things up with this one: the tension has been coming to a head for a while, and it's nice to finally see it go somewhere.
So yeah, in my opinion the main strength of this volume is actually the personal side of things, even as events start clicking into place and humor is had. It's a well-constructed volume in a series that has, by and large, been well-constructed but not bothered to display as full a range.
From an art standpoint, the inks/colors look good. I noticed more dynamism in the movements than before, but I don't know if it's just a matter of who they chose to show in action poses, or the fact that the action alternated more so it was more obvious when it happened.
The Lost Phenomenon is when a serial story such as a comic or TV show (such as, say, "Lost") starts out with a really cool premise that involves a central mystery or series of small mysteries that the audience is invested in seeing solved. They get attached to the characters, and they are willing to accept a barrage of new mysteries, so long as there is a promise of a cool resolution to the overall storyarc, and the little mysteries start to get solved in a satisfying manner. And then the story falls apart, the characters act against their own interests in a perplexing way that is never satisfyingly explained, and ultimately, the audience feels betrayed that the writer(s) either didn't know what the mysteries were really about, and thus threw some half-baked macguffins in, or worse, they always knew what the ending would be, but the ending sucks (sometimes referred to as the Battlestar Galactica Frustration).
With volume eight of Chew, they mysteries start to be explained, and they're far-fetched in an entertaining way that aligns not only with the narrative structure but includes many small detail stories that seemed like they could have been inconsequential to the overall plot. With this volume, it seems clear that every character we've met, and every weird sidetrack we've taken has some use in the main plot of the book.
With volume eight of Chew, they mysteries start to be explained, and they're far-fetched in an entertaining way that aligns not only with the narrative structure but includes many small detail stories that seemed like they could have been inconsequential to the overall plot. With this volume, it seems clear that every character we've met, and every weird sidetrack we've taken has some use in the main plot of the book.
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced