Chew #48

Rob Guillory's cover for Chew #48 ditches the usual scene-setting in favor of a delightfully deadpan engineering blueprint, rendered entirely in classic technical-drawing blue. Labeled diagrams break down a robotic horse (complete with "titanium spine," "hydraulic tendons," and an "access panel"), a heavyset figure with "awful sweat pits" called out with mock-clinical precision, a lean character holding a hydraulic claw, and a duck-billed "sophisticated power adapter" — all stamped with a cheerful "USDA Patent Pending" seal. John Layman and Guillory's willingness to turn an issue cover into a straight-faced product schematic is exactly the kind of off-kilter wit that makes Chew one of Image's most distinctive ongoing series.