Awesome Con is always a blast, and not just because it brings back memories of the first comic book convention I attended a lifetime ago when I was only 15. But also because I get to chat with creators I’d never encounter elsewhere on my more science fictional con circuit. This time around I got to dine with and you get to eavesdrop on Jarrett Melendez, author of the graphic novel Chef’s Kiss, which was a 2023 Alex Award winner as well as both an Eisner Award and GLAAD Award nominee. The sequel, Chef’s Kiss Again, will be released in 2026.

As a cookbook author and food journalist, Melendez has written countless articles and developed hundreds of original recipes for Bon Appetit, Epicurious, Saveur, and Food52. He’s written seven cookbooks to date, including My Pokémon Baking Book, RuneScape: The Official Cookbook, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Official Cookbook, The Official Wednesday Cookbook, The Official Borderlands Cookbook, and others.

Melendez is currently working on Tales of the Fungo: The Legend of Cep, to be published by Andrews McNeel, plus Fujoshi Warriors, an action comedy comic miniseries, and a love letter to both fujoshis and magical girl anime and manga. Melendez has also contributed to award-winning and nominated anthologies, including Young Men in Love, All We Ever Wanted, and Young Men in Love 2: New Romances.

We discussed how his loves of food and writing combined into a career, the way running comic book conventions gave him the contacts he needed when it was time to create comics of his own, which franchise inspired his sole piece of fan fiction, the comics creator whose lessons proved invaluable, how he knew Chef’s Kiss needed to be a graphic novel rather than a miniseries, the way he balanced multiple plot arcs so they resolved in parallel, the magical pig whose taste is more trustworthy than any chef you’ve ever met, his early crush on Encyclopedia Brown, how he cooks up recipes connected with franchises such as Pokémon and Percy Jackson, the traumatic childhood incident which became the catalyst for his upcoming graphic novel, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Supra Georgian restaurant in Washington, D.C. — (more…)