Essex County, vol. 1, Tales from the Farm...

[fajrdrako]

I just read Jeff Lemire's comic Tales from the Farm, which I'd heard was good. It's better than that. It's superb.

I have a weakness for stories about the milestones of growing up, and this captures childhood experience beautifully. It also had the whiff of autobiography about it: like his protagonist, Les, Jeff Lemire is from Essex County, Ontario, and the story is that of a ten year old who has lost his mother and has to live with his Uncle Ken - a farmer who has never had much experience with children. Les works on his own superhero comic book in secret, and befriends an ex-hockey player who was damaged in his one big game.

It's about what we do when we are lonely and life goes wrong, and what we make of it.

Though I have never been to Essex County, and though I don't know a lot of farmers, it's a story that made me feel as if I was seeing people I knew, people just like those I might meet on any given day. The way I felt when seeing Bon Cop, Bad Cop or Slings and Arrows.