Jessica Farm (Paperback)

~ Josh Simmons (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Simmons's eerily bizarre sophomore graphic novel about a teen-aged girl who lives on a farm represents the first installment of an extremely ambitious life-spanning project: Simmons plans to create a singe page per month for the next 50 years. The mammoth story begins simply enough when the titular character wakes up on Christmas morning. She proceeds to talk to her monkey friend, shower with a miniature lounge band performing in her soap dish and get abducted by a foul-mouthed vagrant living under the stairs. And then things get weird: menacing monsters float through the hallways and, more startling, her monkey is savagely knifed to death. Despite a mounting number of mysteries, there's only a hint of a plot line, and the story unfolds as a series of weird encounters. The grainy black and white illustrations lend an additional layer of atmospheric disquiet to the stark narrative that includes full nudity, bloody violence and at least one image of grotesque infant mutilation. Despite the fragmented nature of the tale, the unique story is captivating because it is odd in the fullest sense of the word: there's no sign of the ordinary, usual and expected. (May)
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Product Description

The creator of House embarks on a life-spanning epic.

Hot on the heels of his first graphic novel, House, Josh Simmons' Jessica Farm fuses serialized adventure, fantasy and psychological horror and stamps it with his signature macabre sensibility in this atmospheric new graphic novel. Like a Lynchian take on Alice in Wonderland, Jessica Farm opens with an exterior of what could be any Midwestern farmhouse. Once inside, we track our titular heroine as she bounds out of bed on Christmas and goes about her morning routine, eventually breakfasting with her grandparents. The banality of the situation is subverted by a ratcheting sense of dread, however, as we discover that Jessica's increasingly nightmarish house is filled with creatures around every corner: some whimsical, some sexual, some despairing and some malevolent. Most terrifying of all is Jessica's father, whose promise of presents under the tree is loaded with the threat of violence. As in Simmons' debut graphic novel, House, a large portion of the tension in this book is generated not only by the sudden acts of brutality and the fear of the unknown, but by the dynamics of Jessica's relationships.

Jessica Farm is an ambitious experiment in world-building as conceived by Simmons. This book is the first volume of a life-spanning comics project in which he drew one page every month for the past seven years, starting in January 2000—and will continue this project for 50 years in total, making up the story as he goes and releasing 96-page increments every 8 years until he amasses a 600-page body of work.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (April 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560979135
• ISBN-13: 978-1560979135
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,469,940 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hallucinatory, improvisatory but, utlimately, coherent, November 23, 2008

By	Gavin Lees (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

The first installment of Simmons's proclaimed "life's work", "Jessica Farm" is a surreal journey into the life of an extraordinary young girl. With her talking toys, labyrinthine house and hidden worlds, there will no doubt be comparisons drawn with "Alice in Wonderland", but this is a much darker, adult tale.

Beautifully rendered in Simmons's obsessive etching, it is a narrative that throws us into a childhood dominated by a menacing father figure, making us wonder whether Jessica's adventures are actually the product of psychological dissociation. The comic is never a light, easy experience, but is definitely rewarding.

To the detractors who will say this is a rambling, incoherent mess - the book does demand work on the reader's part to dissect what happens between the lines and panels. I have recently read Simmons's ideas for a self-contained "Jessica Farm" film and, believe me, this story is headed towards a very satisfying resolution.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read, November 22, 2008

By	Jeffrey S. Flowers (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Jessica Farm is a very unique and entertaining book. It reads like a lucid dream from the moment the title character, Jessica, awakens on Christmas morning. We get to see many bizarre and disturbing things, though none are more disturbing than the fear and dread Jessica feels of her father, a shadowy figure who's only visible feature are white Mickey Mouse like gloves.

Readers should note that Jessica Farm does have some adult language and nudity, both male and female, but it should be manageable by anyone living in the 21st century.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not even worth the paper it is printed on!, July 18, 2008

By	Carolina O'Neil "Devoted Mom" (Aiken, SC United States) - See all my reviews

I got a publisher's preview copy of this from work. Josh Simmons drew 1 page every month for 8 years and will continue to do so as he creates other volumes. The problem with this is that he seems to have lost all concepts of what the story would be. This graphic novel make absolutely NO sense! It is full of characters who are there for one or two pages and never properly introduced. It is full of violence, sex and nudity that has NOTHING to do with the story. I have yet to figure out who the heck Jessica is and whether these things are happening in her imagination or in her real life. Maybe in 42 years when the whole series is finished it will make sense, but I seriously doubt it. All I know is that in 2016 I will NOT be reading volume 2.