Fran

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.

Winner of the 2014 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize

“"...Mr. Woodring [has] extraordinary gifts as a draftsman, storyteller and creator of hilarious characters and hallucinatory situations.... Over the nearly 100 pages of Fran, Frank goes on a picaresque, surrealistic journey to try to retrieve his lost love in a world populated by all kinds of monsters, demons, and bizarre objects and architecture. Its black-and-white sequences of frames are drawn in a style that owes something to antique European woodcuts, Walt Disney, Looney Tunes and R. Crumb and other underground, psychedelic comic artists who emerged in the 1960s."”

...Mr. Woodring [has] extraordinary gifts as a draftsman, storyteller and creator of hilarious characters and hallucinatory situations.... Over the nearly 100 pages of Fran, Frank goes on a picaresque, surrealistic journey to try to retrieve his lost love in a world populated by all kinds of monsters, demons, and bizarre objects and architecture. Its black-and-white sequences of frames are drawn in a style that owes something to antique European woodcuts, Walt Disney, Looney Tunes and R. Crumb and other underground, psychedelic comic artists who emerged in the 1960s.--Ken Johnson "The New York Times"

Jim Woodring lives on Vashon Island in Washington State's Puget Sound with his wife, Mary. The recipient of numerous award -- including The Stranger's Genius Award for Literature -- he is an animator and a fine artist as well as a cartoonist.

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