Why I’ve Given Up on Chew (the series)

     Chew, the graphic novel series by writer John Layman and artist Rob Guillory, has won lots of awards recently. I thought I should give it a shot.
It’s the story of Tony Chu, who becomes an investigator for the FDA. In this world, the FDA has a lot of power–it needs that power to crack down on illegal chicken after chicken was banned from the US after a virulent bird flu. Chu is aided in his investigations by a special power–the power to experience what his food–animal and vegetable–experienced before being eaten by him. (It’s not a fun power–he’s way skinny. Unfortunately for him, his investigations often involve cannibalism.)
The reading is quick. I like having an Asian-American hero. I like his quirky family and his partner.
However, 3/4ths of the way through the fifth volume, I’m giving up.
While I like some of the characters, I don’t care about what’s going to happen to them. One is kidnapped right now–I don’t really care if she gets out okay. The characters are quirky, but not engaging enough to keep going.
I’m tired of the tits. There’s really only one character without giant knockers–a young women whom it would be creepy to objectify (a few other members of Tony’s family are also more realistic looking). All other women–young and old–have huge tits. Please, comic book artists, remember that some of your readers are women too. And if you have a good story, then only *some* of your characters need to be smokin’ hot–not all.
I’m not really invested in the world. Most of the characters–bad guys and good–believe that the government is lying about the chicken’s connection to the bird flu. I’m 5 volumes in–this hasn’t made our good guys question what they’re doing. It also hasn’t added up to anything other than lots of characters simply repeating the rumor–there’s no speculation about what the government is up to. There’s no smoking man, no hint beyond repetition that the rumor might be something to pay attention to.
I’m also confused by how Tony Chu is supposed to be super-freak because of his power. True, only a few other characters have it, but it seems like half the characters we meet have some food-related power (a guy who’s brilliant if he’s eating, a woman who can write about food so well that a reader can literally taste it, etc.) If Chu is such a freak, then what about these other people? Why are there so many of them? Why so many different powers? Why are none of them being studied if people don’t understand the cause of their powers but yet those powers are public knowledge?
It’s not a bad series, but it’s just not working for me.