Challenge 19 Second Chance: Casting

Practical Cannibalism: a Chew comics casting picspam

I've tried to set this picspam up as a bit of a primer on the characters, so it will contain certain spoilers up to issue #10, but the spoilers are intended to be tantalizing, not plot-ruining. Also contains mild spoilers for the LOST episode "Recon".





Ken Leung as Tony Chu


Tony Chu is a Cibopath. This means that his tastebuds are psychic. He immediately knows the entire history of any organic matter he puts in his mouth. Except beets. Beets are just beets. Tony eats a lot of beets. Tony used to be a cop, but some stuff happened and now he works for the FDA, investigating poultry-related crime. Oh, yeah: chicken is totally illegal. Unfortunately, his investigations involve more corpses than KFC family-sized buckets, which means that Tony has to put a lot of things in his mouth that most people couldn't even stand to share a room with.

Tony Chu has a partner:





Josh Holloway as John Colby


John Colby is kind of a dick, but in a fun, entertaining way. He is also kind of a cyborg, having undergone a serious facial overhaul after an encounter with an axe left him a comatose mummy. He got better. John Colby now spends most of his time covering for Tony and having surprise sex.

Ken and Josh are pretty much the only choices here. The moment the LOST episode "Recon" aired, fans of Chew started writing "OMG! MILES AND SAWYER!!" notes to the letters column, and the Chew creators started writing back, "OMG! WE KNOW!!" It helps that there have been various LOST references throughout the comics so far, as well :)





Colm Meaney as Mason Savoy


Mason Savoy is also a Cibopath, one of three known individuals in the world with the ability. When the FDA first recruits Tony Chu, he and Savoy are paired up as a kind of taste-testing task force of crime fighting, eating their way into an enormously convoluted conspiracy. Savoy has a lot of secrets. His recent whereabouts are unknown.





Angela Kinsey as Amelia Mintz


Amelia Mintz is a restaurant reviewer who also happens to be a Saboscribner. This means that she can make you experience everything about a meal 100% accurately just by writing about it. Amelia Mintz also has a sick sense of humour and occasionally gets bored with only writing positive reviews. Tony Chu has been obsessed with her ever since he first read her writing. It was the first time he'd ever tasted anything without the accompanying crazy psychic flashes. In other words: a match made in heaven :)





Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Applebee


Applebee is Tony Chu and John Colby's boss at the FDA. He hates Tony and considers him a total freak of nature and spends most of his time finding the most disgusting cases possible to assign to him. His other pastimes include yelling and sweating profusely, although his mood seems brighter lately. In the grand tradition of bosses everywhere, he has absolutely no clue what's going on.





Fisher Stevens as the Governor of Yamapalu
Ken Jeong as Chow Chu


The Governor of Yamapalu is a tiny, tiny man with big, big dreams. He's trying to bring international attention to his small island nation by providing the world with the most accurate chicken substitute the universe has ever seen.

Chow Chu is Tony Chu's big brother, and a professional chef. He used to host his own cooking show, Cooking With Chow, until a Network-style on-air breakdown over chicken restrictions lost him his job. He has two basic settings: nebbishy, and HOMICIDAL RAGE.





James Marsters as The Vampire
Dichen Lachman as Lin Sae Woo


The Vampire is not actually a vampire. He is, however: crazy, Russian, and the third Cibopath in this story. He enjoys sharpening his fake fangs, being out of his mind, and eating human flesh.

Lin Sae Woo is a USDA agent also engaged in uncovering the poultry conspiracy. She is actually not a huge character in the comics, but she is pretty badass, and she has a super-genius pet rat who wears a monocle, so I pretty much had to include her. Plus, I like to imagine Dichen Lachman kicking Ken Leung in the face.



The End, for now... who knows what kinds of characters might show up in the remaining 50 issues?