Jessica Farm is by turns fragile, juvenile, meandering, gruesome, and incredibly exciting. I say these things earnestly and with joyful affection.
Created at the pace of one page per month for the past 24 years, Jessica Farm is a project conceived by an ambitious child with big dreams and a desire to create a masterpiece. That youthful naivety is evident not only in the 25-year-old pages, but also in the very structure of the story. As cartoonist Josh Simmons gets older, more accomplished, and more experienced (his cartooning career is progressing at its own pace outside of this book), this book becomes more adept and more experienced. It’s more aware of itself, but it doesn’t completely deviate from the content. It’s a coming-of-age fairy tale on an epic scale.
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The book follows the titular Jessica Farm as she goes on a massive and chaotic journey on Christmas Day. The journey introduces us to the farm’s strange (and sometimes terrifying) inhabitants. What starts out as a funny little monkey, escalates to a horde of life-threatening monsters tearing flesh apart by the end of the book.
At first glance, Jessica may be a young fantasy protagonist, a kind of semi-manic Dorothy or Alice, but as the story progresses she becomes (like her creator in the real world) a semi-competent He has grown into a great hero and is working hard. sexual and unafraid of the raucous absurdity of her existence. The world opens up as she progresses from her bedroom through farmhouse towers and secret underground caverns. Neither she nor her adventures will be limited by early trappings.
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If you could say that Jessica Farm is similar to anything, it would be to compare it to the proliferation of webcomics in the early 2000s. Many strips began as simple compositions and quickly evolved into multi-act epics created by young enthusiasts who became more adept at their craft day by day and month by month. Many of these graphical evolutions were born out of a kind of lack of foresight on the part of their creators. The strip was created without a direct narrative plan. No overview or endpoints are assumed. As the creator grew, so did his storytelling ambitions.
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Simmons acknowledges this very trend in the book’s afterword. Although the book’s conclusion was a vague notion of an end, he resisted the urge to constrain his story. Uniquely paced, the book becomes a kind of hyperactive narrative spread, the movement of which is created by the whims of the moment. Mr. Sugarcock, an incidental character, was introduced as a setup for a gag with no planned punchline, but evolved into a heroic supporting character, missing the joke entirely by simply being a member of the party. Masu. Initially naked – an excuse for a joke – he finally realizes, nearly 50 pages later (almost four years in the real world), that he’s clothed.
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It’s this kind of unpredictable, crazy progression that defines Jessica Farm’s journey, making it less a masterful tale and more a compelling chronicle of its creator’s evolving mind. While you’ll grow attached to the characters (yes, even Mr. Sugarcock) and absorbed in the little pockets of strange inhabitants, the book’s most appealing aspect is its indecipherable diary-like quality. is. This means that artists evolve and become creators. It’s a spectacular event.
Originally scheduled to conclude in 2050, the book only represents what Simmons believes to be the first chapter of the trilogy. This is a monumental achievement that has yet to be fully realized. No matter how chaotic and manic this book is, it feels like an honor to witness it.
‘Jessica Farm’ is a manic, absurdist document of artistic growth.
jessica farm
Developed monthly over a decade and a half, Jessica Farm is a rambling and exciting journey that is as much a document of its creator as it is its own story.
A document of the sophisticated underground comic sensibilities.
Strange and exciting.
A monumental project.
The unscripted nature creates an almost disjointed and unstructured narrative.
