Books in series
#6
Frank, Vol. 1
1995
Book by Woodring, Jim
#7
Frank, Vol. 2
1995
Written and illustrated (in stunning full color) by Lewis Trondheim, the hottest European cartooning talent to emerge in the 1990s, Harum Scarum mixes sardonic wit with a genuinely thrilling story that involves a plague of monsters, a fake paleontologist, a secret formula, the search for a perfect headline, and more The second book, The Hoodoodad, continues in this farcical vein, mixing elements of Tintin and The Three Stooges in a way that will thrill children and adults alike.
#8
Frank
Manhog Edition
2002
#11
Pupshaw and Pushpaw
2004
A colorful children's book by cartoonist, Jim Woodring. Two characters from his well-known comic series, Frank, set out on a fun-filled day of adventure. It is a book with no words, just pictures.
#12
The Lute String
2005
Los anteriores volúmenes del personaje fueron recibidos con entusiasmo en nuestro país (Mejor Novela Gráfica en 2011 y segunda Mejor Novela Gráfica en 2012 para EL PAÍS). Pero FRANK se ha convertido poco a poco en un fenómeno que ya no abarca solo los tebeos, también coquetea con las bellas artes (exposiciones cada vez más frecuentes en distintos países), la literatura (aparición en listas anuales de numerosas revistas literarias y medios generalistas y premios como el Genius of Literature de The Stranger), el cine de animación (Visions Of Frank) y el documental (The Lobster And The Liver), la música (colaboraciones con artistas como Bill Frisell o Mika) y hasta la juguetería (las figuras diseñadas por Woodring alcanzan hoy precios de vértigo entre los coleccionistas). Convertido en algo parecido a un clásico en vida, Jim Woodring está entregando en los últimos tiempos lo mejor y más personal de su producción. Mientras esperamos la que será su novela gráfica definitiva, FRAN ?cuya aparición coincidirá en nuestro país con la edición norteamericana?, este volumen concluye la publicación de las historias cortas del icónico y amoral personaje. Junto a muchas de sus narraciones clásicas (Frank en el río, Pupshaw, Gentlemanhog) y de más de sesenta páginas no publicadas en Estados Unidos, el libro presenta un apéndice que incluye una entrevista en exclusiva para esta edición, una bibliografía completa y un catálogo detallado de todos los juguetes inspirados en el personaje. Loor a Jim Woodring. Vuelve Frank.
#14
The Portable Frank
2008
A visionary work of comic art for all-ages! Readers who haven’t discovered Jim Woodring’s Frank stories have a colossal treat waiting for them in this all-ages gem collecting the character’s greatest adventures. Frank is a unique, visionary comic, exquisitely drawn and so fully realized that adults and children alike find themselves drawn deeply into Woodring’s hallucinatory mindscape. The stories, almost entirely wordless, unravel like a good puzzle, rewarding re-reading, providing an experience as immersive as that first love affair, that first samadhi, or that first breath. Simply put, the world of Frank must be experienced to be understood. Frank is an 11-year-old generic anthropomorph who lives in a force-laden landscape called the Unifactor. He is curious but not smart, naive but not noble, and his most outstanding character trait is his ineducability. Along with Pupshaw, Frank’s semi-subservient housedog-like godling, the two traipse across their surreal landscape, occasionally encountering Manhog, the bloated bladder of sin with a heart of radiance who exists to thwart their prosperity. And then there’s the platonic Jerry Chickens, and the lachrymose Lucky, as well as Frank’s Real Pa and Faux Pa, each a part of one of the great cartoon achievements of the 20th century. For all its mystery, the world of Frank is a simple, delightful, mesmerizing example of world-building at its most fanciful, surely to delight parents and children alike.
#16
Weathercraft and Other Unusual Tales
2010
#17
Congress of the Animals
2011
Readers of the "Frank" stories know that The Unifactor is in control of everything that happens to the characters that abide there, and that however extreme the experiences they undergo may be, in the end nothing really changes. That goes for treble for Frank himself, who is kept in a state of total ineducability by the unseen forces of that haunted realm. And so the question arises: what would happen if Frank were to leave The Unifactor? The question is answered in Congress of the Animals, Jim Woodring's much-anticipated, second full-length graphic novel. In this gripping saga an act of casual rudeness sets into motion a chain of events which propels Frank into a world where he is on his own at last; and like so many who leave home, Frank finds himself contending with realities of which he had no previous inkling.
In Congress of the Animals we are treated to the pitiful spectacle of Frank losing his house, taking a factory job, falling in with bad company, fleeing the results of sabotage, escaping The Unifactor in an amusement park ride, surviving a catastrophe at sea, traveling across hostile terrain toward a massive temple seemingly built in his image, being treated roughly by gut-faced men and intervening in an age-old battle in a meadow slathered in black and yellow blood. And when he finally knocks on opportunity's door he finds... he finds... The answer, my friend, is blowin' into bookstores in April, 2011.
#18
Fran
2013
For the past 20 years or so, Jim Woodring's beloved trilobular chuckbuster Frank has enjoyed one mindbending catastrophe after another in the treacherous embrace of The Unifactor, the land into which he was born and from which escape seemed neither desirable nor likely. And then, abruptly, in 2011's acclaimed Congress of the Animals (the second Woodring original graphic novel, following Weathercraft) Frank did leave the Unifactor for uncharted lands beyond—where, after a string of trials, he acquired a soulmate named Fran. This development raised far more questions than it answered. Would Frank become placid and domesticated? Would he be jilted? Would he turn out to be a dreadful cad? Would he become a downtrodden and exhausted paterfamilias staring vacantly into the dimming fire of life as obnoxious grandchildren pulled his peglike ears and stole his porridge? The answers to these fruitless speculations and many more are delivered in a devastatingly unpredictable fashion in Fran, which is in effect part two of Congress of the Animals. Fans of Frank, connoisseurs of bizarre romance, and spelunkers in the radiant depths of graphic metaphysical psychodrama will want to add this singular cartoon adventure story to their lifetime reading list.
Author
Jim Woodring
Author · 16 books
Jim Woodring was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and enjoyed a childhood made lively by an assortment of mental an psychological quirks including paroniria, paranoia, paracusia, apparitions, hallucinations and other species of psychological and neurological malfunction among the snakes and tarantulas of the San Gabriel mountains. He eventually grew up to bean inquisitive bearlike man who has enjoyed three exciting careers: garbage collector, merry-go-round-operator and cartoonist. A self-taught artist, his first published works documented the disorienting hell of his salad days in an “illustrated autojournal” called Jim. This work was published by Fantagraphics Books and collected in The Book of Jim in 1992. He is best known for his wordless comics series depicting the follies of his character Frank, a generic cartoon anthropomorph whose adventures careen wildly from sweet to appalling. A decade’s worth of these stories was collected in The Frank Book in 2004. The 2010 Frank story Weathercraft won The Stranger’s Genius Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for that year. The most recent Frank book, Congress of the Animals, was released in 2011. Woodring is also known for his anecdotal charcoal drawings (a selection which was gathered in Seeing Things in 2005), and the sculptures, vinyl figures, fabrics and gallery installations that have been made from his designs. His multimedia collaborations with the musician Bill Frisell won them a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006. He lives in Seattle with his family and residual phenomena. -Walter Foxglove
