Chu #4 Review

Writer: John Layman / Artist: Dan Boultwood / Image A proper Chu #3 review got lost in the shuffle of September, but I will just briefly say as a prologue to this review of Chu #4 is that the series began to feel more comfortable with itself. Layman’s comedic narration felt like it had a little more spice to it. The additional backstory of the Chus’ grandfather was hilarious. The plot felt a little bit more focused and I had a greater sense of where the story was going from the information in the panels rather than the information in the solicit information.

Chu #4 continues this upward trend, and I feel like the opening pages of issue 4 feel like a true start of the series, the origin of a new vector that follows the parallel vector of Saffron from the original Chew’s narrative of Tony. We get some slideshow styled summaries of how the in-universe Avian Flu pandemic (a sentence which is still hard to write given that we are still experiencing a current and real pandemic at the time of writing) and see the cascading series of incidents all caused by the illness and how the world seemed particularly ready to say #$@% you to Saffron. But after the prologue passes, we’re left to continue on her way and the crime aesthetic of Chu really begins to flourish. Bloutwood’s noir styling and femme fatale costuming of Saffron captivates the eyes with an appropriate of fan service and dazzling colors. Boultwood’s playfulness with sepia tones juxtaposed against pink highlights, and then…