The stories have their own internal logic and sort of make sense while you’re reading them, and come to some kind of resolutions that also make sense. This collection starts with a gushing introduction by Francis Ford Coppola who does his best to explain some things to us, such as that these stories are textless pantomimes, and exist on their own bizarre terms. But Frank is stuck in a strange surrealistic, hallucinatory fantasy world and is doomed every story anew to go out and explore the nature of reality around him.

This will be one of the strangest and most disturbing comics that you will ever read, even though Frank himself looks like a regular anthropomorphic comic character, something like Felix the Cat for example. The production and design make it an outstanding gift for enthusiasts, and it assembles all the Frank material since the 1991 debut, including covers, illustrations, trading cards and ephemera for the completist.The Frank Book is the essential collection of the first phase of Jim Woodring’s Frank comics, collecting 37 short stories. Woodring's talent is finally captured in a definitive collection that lives up to his genius. His escapades also include a recurring parade of characters: Pushpaw, Frank's faithful pet the repulsive Manhog, perennially unlucky liege of Whim (a sinister figure with a devilish barbed tail) Faux Pa and Real Pa and the Jerry Chickens, geometrically shaped fowl who play cards. The mostly wordless vignettes chronicling his misadventures are actually meditations on friendship, fear, consequence and cruelty, with a mixture of pathos, humor and gore that is often disquieting. For director Coppola, Woodring's work is magical and 'maliciously oblique.' While innocent Frank is principally defined by his curiosity, he isn't without guile. Many of the stories are in b&w, but when color appears, the palette is a cheerful kaleidoscope. Woodring uses cartoon grammar brilliantly: within a single panel, he captures the round, loose style of classic animated cartoons and conjures the best of early Disney, while simultaneously acting as master engraver, with a quality of line work and elegant shading reminiscent of Gustave Doré. This book's hero, Frank, is a catlike anthropomorph who lives in a surreal, exotic world. Woodring's hallmarks are inventive, often bizarre creatures who inhabit otherworldly landscapes and dreamlike narratives. Woodring, a modern master of hallucinatory cartoon fables, specializes in comics that look normal but aren't.

The frank book jim woodring