we are so close to getting through all these chews! and i'm actually going to say a little more about this volume than that boilerplate thing i've been putting up (but if you love the boilerplate thing, don't worry - it's gonna be included here as well - phew!) because i think this one, along with volume 6 (as heartbreaking as that one was) is probably my favorite so far. i love all the callbacks and mirroring this series indulges in, i love all the background jokes, i love when they have crossovers both subtle and overt 
 i love how fucking violent tony has become 
 i love how weird it is 
 and in this one, i even liked the little side stories that i'd resented in previous volumes for breaking up my STORY. i mean, there are some amazing vegetable wars here... 
 i also love poyo, naturally. 
 and this one has both a dinosaur-unicorn and a man with a shark head growing out of him. i mean, this is basically courtship, in my book... 
 and SO MANY DEVELOPMENTS! 
 and this little guy, only mentioned because it made me laugh with memories of reading about him in the world of monsterporn: 
 also included is the answer to the age-old question: 
 and some pretty horrific hubris 
 but this is all getting too close to being an actual review, which is going to be SO CONFUSING to anyone who has been anticipating these lazy-lazy chew-reviews of mine. so, to get back to the lazy: 
 i burned through all ten published volumes of this series in a matter of months, and while i managed a fairly coherent review of the first volume, i am overwhelmed by the thought of going back and reviewing volumes 2-10, trying to recapture that innocent mindset that didn't know what happened in subsequent volumes and trying to stay within the lines of the volume i'd be reviewing. 
 my hat is off to you serial comic book/graphic novel reviewers who are able to consistently churn out smart, comprehensive, and entertaining reviews that manage to discuss the book itself as well as its place within the larger universe of the series or character's existence. 
 i can't do that. i read these so compulsively and so quickly - like jamming cookies into a mouth that was already crammed with cookies - that it's just too much road to backtrack and too many metaphors to mix and since i have so many other books that i have to review, i'm going to take a totally cheap opt-out review path and just post pictures from each book that i enjoy for reasons pertaining to the plot, or just cuz i like the damn pictures. 
 and maybe now that i have to wait a couple of months until volume 11 comes out, i'll be able to do that one proper review-style, but right now - too full of stress and anxiety and just wanting to make this stack of books needing reviews go down LGM. 
 only one more to go - phew!