People often forgot how much more perceptive the other senses are. Your olfactory (smell) and auditory (hearing) memories last much longer than your visual ones and, I suppose, your sense of taste could reveal a lot more if you paid proper attention to it. That notion’s the foundation of Chew, a series about a “cibopathic” cop who solves mysteries by eating parts of the crime scene--including human cadavers sometimes--because he’ll telepathically learn everything about whatever he ingests.
Chew has been an unabashed blockbuster for Image Comics for the past three years and, now, the AV Club says that motions for a TV show are crystallizing like so much jello in the fridge. Showtime’s picked a TV adaptation of the comic with Stephen Hopkins attached as producer/director. We’re still a ways off from any casting announcements, of course, but the creators have expressed a desire to see Ken Leung of Lost play Agent Chu.
As it happens, I know John Layman and Rob Guillory, the creators of Chew, through the comic convention circuit. They’re two awesome guys who definitely deserve all this success. I’m sure we’ve got a lot of comics readers in the Screened community, so I heartily recommend you all check out the trade collections of Chew--particularly the Omnivore edition. It’s accessible, it’s hilarious and it’s going to put you well ahead of the curve when your buddies crow about this show in a year or two.
