The irony of this book being released in time for Thanksgiving is not lost on me...

Premise: Tony Chu is a detective who gets psychic impressions from almost anything he eats. As an agent for the FDA (which has grown into a powerful agency in the wake of a devastating case of bird flu), he gets involved in cases that are even weirder than his psychic powers.

I tried describing this book to my girlfriend and she was revolted, so I’ll tell you up front that this book is not for everyone. However, if you are a fan of black humor, surrealism, and procedurals, this is a book that you cannot miss. Writer John Layman economically establishes a rich setting with a minimum of exposition (vital information is usually delivered with brief, Pushing Daisies-style flashbacks).

The most important characters are well-rounded and fully realized, and the cliche characters (such as Chu’s antagonistic superior officer) still manage to be entertaining. Plus, he is as deft with moments of side-splitting humor as he is moments of jaw-dropping horror.

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Supergod #1 Cover

So as many of you long time readers of DTC (and you fellow writers) know, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a review. A really long time. Honestly, I’ve been busy, but I’m sorry. I wasn’t really even planning on writing a review today. But then I read this issue. About 4 pages into this issue, I had made the decision that I had to write a review of this soon. By the end, I knew that I had to stop reading comics tonight and push this thing out NOW. And by the end of the review, you’ll hopefully know why.

So, I’m a pretty big Warren Ellis fan. I pick up pretty much every Avatar title that he writes (and there are a lot). Most of them are pretty good. Some are really excellent. So naturally, I picked up Supergod #1. I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, but when I went to the comic book shop today, the owner, Kirby, specifically said “oh, this is really good”. Now, a little back story on Kirby. He’s a great comic book shop owner and a good guy, but I’m pretty sure he has never told me that he liked a comic. Actually, up until today, I wasn’t even sure if he still read current comics. So I immediately knew that this book had to be at the top of my read stack this week. And boy, was he right about it being really good.

I’ll go into depth about why it is so good after the break.

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