Jessica Farm

A Christmas morning spirals into an ordeal rife with lust and brutality in this surreal graphic novel from Simmons (Black River), which collects the comics he’s serialized for decades. Teenager Jessica leaps out of bed with visions of the holiday presents awaiting her downstairs, but her effort to join the celebration just a few rooms away is thwarted by a litany of strange encounters with the denizens of the Oz-like family farm. There’s a toy-size jazz combo performing in the shower, murderous thundercloud-like wraiths, a naked man shadowing her, and a talking tortoise-chicken. The weirdness snowballs further when Jessica’s grandparents give her a talisman and send her on a quest to save the farm—and all the “friends of the house” who also call it home. As the imperturbable heroine traverses secret passages into this expansive mini-universe and steeps herself in arcane lore, the tone swerves from whimsy to malevolence, with bursts of grisly violence and graphic sexual interludes. (“It may be difficult to clear my mind of all the death I saw today... so much blood,” Jessica reflects). Absurdism is built into the dream logic of the story, while an ambient dread and hints of domestic trauma trend ever more horrific. Simmons’s loose linework and wide-eyed cartoon figures belie the narrative’s transgressive tilt. Indie comics fans will relish this enigmatic mash-up of Lewis Carroll and Jim Woodring. (Oct.)