It is always tough to try to sell you people a comic book. People have tried recently, and judging by the lack of comments, perhaps not succeeded terribly well. (Although I amy look into Gaiman's Eternals after recent review).

Anyone still here, good, because you're in for a treat.

Chew is a monthly comic book published by Image comics, and Taster's Choice is teh first collection of this, covering the first five issues.

It describes an America where the FDA has become the most powerful government agency following a pandemic of Bird flu. After the disease, the sale or eating of poultry has become outlawed and a thriving black market exists.

In this world we meet Tony Chu, initially a beat cop, quickly recruited to the FDA after it becomes apparent that he is a cibopath- when Tony eats something he gets an impression about the origins of that food - if fruit he can see the tree it was grown on, the pesticides prayed on it, the mould in the storage containers - for a burger he would see the cow, how it was raised, what it was fed, how it felt as it was slaughtered. He comes to the attention of the FDA when he bites chunks off a murderer's face to gain information about who his victims were and where their bodies are hidden.

The plot follows Tony's adjustment to his new situation as he and another cibopath investigate the murder of a government official who was investigating black market chicken dealers. The action is frequently bizarre - visits to an observatory in the arctic circle where the budget is spent on drink, drugs and girls and our hero eating part of a well decomposed dog to get to the truth are the highlight images from a wealth of options. The humour is black as can be, as you might expect from a title about what amounts to psychic cannibals.

This is one of the most playfully original works of fiction I have read in a long time. The art serves the story well, achieving the blend of gritty noir and gruesome oddness required by the script.

You've read this far, and I suspect that by now you know if you're interested enough to read this. I recommend you do.

Nine out of ten well thumbed comic books.