Plastic Farm: Fertilizer
I’m going to start this review by going out on a limb and assume that everybody reading this has at least a passing familiarity with the story of Plastic Farm. The best thing I can compare the story to is a giant jigsaw puzzle where you only have a few of the edges complete, with maybe a chunk in the middle here and there, and no sense of the whole picture. As such, even somebody like me only has the barest idea of the whole story here anyway. This is an interlude in the main story, a chance for Rafer to tie up some loose ends and explain more thoroughly some confusing bits from before. This starts off with the preview issue, Plastic Farm 13.1, so if anybody caught that at a convention (or read the review right above this) you’ll know what’s going on. There are three stories in here: a significant expansion of that preview issue (with Chester’s parents getting married, the end of their cult and the beginning of the awakening of Jonathan), the story of an assassin named Eliza accepting her last assignment, and the two cops who were killed in issue 4 (or so my crappy memory says) coming back to consciousness and figuring out who and what they are… after some unfortunate experimentation. It sure looks to me like Rafer is inching towards bringing all these dangling threads together, but as long as he keeps the ride this much fun he’s welcome to take his time. We also get a much better sense of exactly what is keeping track of Chester although, like every time I read one of these comics, I feel the need to go back and read them all again to see how they all fit. Oh, and there is an excellent recap at the start here of everything that has happened, I just like catching all the details that those sorts of things leave out. If you know the Plastic Farm story this is an essential (if not directly connected to the “main” story) graphic novel, if you’re new to this universe, well, you might want to start at the beginning and work your way down. $14.95
