Farmhand, Volume 1: Reap What Was Sown by Rob Guillory Review

Old Jedidiah had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O,
And on that farm he grew some human body parts,
… Eeeeeeeeee!

Jedidiah Jenkins has figgered out a way to grow human body parts, like crops, on his farm, ready for transplantation. Surprisingly, there’s some controversy around his franken-farming and he has to contend with multiple rivals in the form of industrial espionage, jelly rednecks, demented former colleagues and the gosh-dern-gov’mint! And then there’s the problem with his crops – they’re… changing… their new owners…!

Chew artist Rob Guillory writes and draws his first creator-owned Image series, Farmhand, and it’s not bad but you can tell Guillory isn’t the most experienced writer from the somewhat clumsy execution of the story. The main problem for me was the lack of focus in general.

There’s a lot of characters: Jed, the mercurial patriarch of the Jenkins family who walks the line between hero and villain a la Walter White; his estranged son Zeke (essentially Guillory, being a black thirtysomething comics artist) and his family; Andrea, his daughter and business partner who’s got some secrets; and a whole mess of others. But who’s the protagonist – who’re we meant to be rooting for?

Which segues into the unclear overall storyline. What exactly are the characters’ storylines/motivations/goals? Zeke wants to reconnect with his dad – is that it? Jed’s… chuntling along with his organ-growing, easily dealing with the occasional problem? Andrea’s up to something but… why? And the others – eh, they got nothing. I suppose Monica Thorne, the elderly Poison Ivy, is the villain but only because that’s how she’s framed – I’m not really sure why she’s the villain though. Or even why the organs turning on its transplantees are a bad thing – are they shortening their lives? Turning them into monsters? One dog gets monstrified but nobody else is affected quite so dramatically so was that a freak one-off?

Guillory hints at sinister goings-on but doesn’t really give any real reason to the reader what the implications are. And then there’s the overall lack of anything happening. Besides the monster dog and an attempted abduction, it’s an entire book of table-setting which doesn’t even set the table all that well!

That said, it’s great to see Guillory’s art again. It was arguably the best part of Chew and his style is remarkably eye-catching, imaginative and playful (not to mention the gleefully sarky comments inserted in the backgrounds!). In what I’ll generously call a “storyline”, Zeke’s kid sees this weird caterpillar dog everywhere, which goes nowhere but the caterpillar dog design is so delightful, I can easily see this being the next Chog fans will want to buy toys/plushies of. If nothing else, Guillory has a bright future as a toy designer!

And I don’t want to seem too down on the writing. There weren’t any obvious clunkers in the dialogue and, while I didn’t feel that strongly toward any of the characters or was all that taken by the premise, I wasn’t that bored and parts of it were entertaining.

It’s a little shaky and feels like an average opening episode to an average TV show, but Farmhand, Volume 1: Reap What Was Sown is an ok read and the series could well grow into something great – or not.