I like to read.

6th book of 2012: Jessica Farm 1 by Josh Simmons I came across this book as we were cleaning out our advanced reader shelves at the bookstore I used to work out as we were closing up shop last year.  It looked interesting enough, and heck, it was free.  As I read up on the author, the idea for Jessica Farm seemed even more interesting: since the year 2000 he has written/drawn one page of this graphic novel each month.  His plan is to publish a volume of it every 96 pages (or 7 years).  Jessica Farm #1 culminates his work from 2000-2007 and the back cover asserts that if you want to wait for the entire story, it will be available in 2050! So I read it.  In about 20 minutes.  And something felt not right about finishing something in 20 minutes that someone had spent 7 years on.  But at the same time, I was baffled.  I had no idea what I had just read.  Perhaps I just don’t “get it” but the bizarre goes beyond bizarre in this story, and oftentimes it felt forced to me.  (Take, for instance, the scene in which Jessica sits down to breakfast with her grandparents and a naked man approaches the table and dips his balls in Jessica’s food…her grandparents assure her it is the most delicious spice around…) There is also a notion of severe child abuse on the part of Jessica’s father, whom we only see once in shadow and otherwise only hear him screaming to come open her Christmas presents.  It made me very uncomfortable to see child abuse being made light of in this fashion, though I can understand if the world Jessica is a part of is a creation of her mind to escape the abuse. But still…I can’t say I enjoyed myself, and I am not really desperate for the second volume in 2014.

6th book of 2012: Jessica Farm 1 by Josh Simmons

I came across this book as we were cleaning out our advanced reader shelves at the bookstore I used to work out as we were closing up shop last year.  It looked interesting enough, and heck, it was free.  As I read up on the author, the idea for Jessica Farm seemed even more interesting: since the year 2000 he has written/drawn one page of this graphic novel each month.  His plan is to publish a volume of it every 96 pages (or 7 years).  Jessica Farm #1 culminates his work from 2000-2007 and the back cover asserts that if you want to wait for the entire story, it will be available in 2050!

So I read it.  In about 20 minutes.  And something felt not right about finishing something in 20 minutes that someone had spent 7 years on.  But at the same time, I was baffled.  I had no idea what I had just read.  Perhaps I just don’t “get it” but the bizarre goes beyond bizarre in this story, and oftentimes it felt forced to me.  (Take, for instance, the scene in which Jessica sits down to breakfast with her grandparents and a naked man approaches the table and dips his balls in Jessica’s food…her grandparents assure her it is the most delicious spice around…)

There is also a notion of severe child abuse on the part of Jessica’s father, whom we only see once in shadow and otherwise only hear him screaming to come open her Christmas presents.  It made me very uncomfortable to see child abuse being made light of in this fashion, though I can understand if the world Jessica is a part of is a creation of her mind to escape the abuse.

But still…I can’t say I enjoyed myself, and I am not really desperate for the second volume in 2014.

1 month ago