Customer Reviews

Essex County Volume 1: Tales From The Farm (Essex County)

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Lonely ten year old Lester whose mother has just died of cancer goes to live with his uncle on a remote Ontario farm. Uncle Ken is uncomfortable that Lester wears a mask and cape to do his farm chores, go to school, everywhere, but is unable to talk with him. Jim, who works at the local convenience store/ gas station, and once played for the Leafs, befriends him. This slight story is enhanced by its spare drawings, where the lack of dialogue jumps off the page, and the passing seasons dramatize the searing emotions the characters are unable to express verbally.

Lester, a young boy, is sent to live with his Uncle Ken, a farmer, when his mother dies of cancer. Both are struggling with grief and are awkward around each other, not knowing what their relationship is yet. Lester strikes up a friendship with a lonely gas station clerk called Jimmy who once played hockey for the Toronto Maple Leafs before an accident brought his hockey career to an end. Lester sometimes dresses up as a superhero and draws comics, while he and Jimmy play hockey and prepare for an alien invasion.

I can't get over Lemire's artwork - it's so beautiful. The comic is drawn in black and white and is so subtle with its use of shading and it's use of no dialogue and stasis. For example, one page has stuck in my mind since reading it a couple of years ago and re-reading it today: Lester and Uncle Ken are sitting down, eating dinner. Nothing is said for 2 panels, we see the awkwardness and sadness of their situation, the cross on the wall, starkly white against black. Then Ken asks Lester how his day was, and Lester says fine. The last panel has Lester asking to be excused. We see two people thrust together into a situation neither wanted and both trying to come to terms with it. It's sad not in a manipulative, sentimental way, but in a real way, depicted so memorably.

The book is filled with moments like this and the ending is so well done, so out of the blue, you'll be thinking about this comic for days after.

This is Lemire's best work, from an artist whose talents seem boundless. "Essex County" is such a great series but "Tales from the Farm" is truly breathtaking, it really is an amazing comic book. Hugely recommended, and if you've got the dough I urge you to buy the "Complete Essex County" for the whole series.

When defenders of the comics medium say that great art, story telling and depth are possible in comic form, they should cite Lemire's work as a prime example. Lemire's melancholy tale of an orphaned boy and his appointed guardian is as emotionally deep and moving as anything by Dickens, Salinger or Spielgelmen.

I can't wait to read the next two volumes.

This is such a great little graphic novel and clearly illustrates that Lemire is among the most talented writers working in any genre, the comic or GN market among the top ten. Managing to pack in tons of emotion into black and white and very still drawings is difficult to do at best but Lemire makes it seem simple. I envy those who get to read this, I wish I could go back and read it for the first time again.

Jeff Lemire is one "Crazy Canuck" or should I say sly. He burrows into his past life of Essex County, Ontario in a rural town that could be a stunt double for any other little town all over North America and gives us a pleasure trip into the innocence of childhood and pristine fantasy. Taking a page from Ontario's other hero Seth, who reveled us with It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken. With a hint of Montreal's Mordecai Richler's Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang and Jeff's recounting of his purloined youthful latency. Jeff has a winning story here and is worth reading.
Read also It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken