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.

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.

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. He is curious but not smart, naive but not noble, and his most outstanding character trait is his ineducability. Frank is an 11-year-old generic anthropomorph who lives in a force-laden landscape called the Unifactor. Simply put, the world of Frank must be experienced to be understood. 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. 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. įantagraphics is proud to present a new edition of this timeless classic.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. The new and metaphysically expanded Manhog sets out for a final battle with Whim. He wants to go to celestial realms but instead altruistically returns to the Unifactor to undo a wrong he has inadvertently brought about: The transformation of the evil politician Whim into a mind-destroying plant-demon who distorts and enslaves Frank and his friends. After enduring 32 pages of almost incomprehensible suffering, Manhog embarks upon a transformative journey and attains enlightenment. As it happens, Frank has only a brief supporting appearance in Weathercraft, which actually stars Manhog, Woodring’s pathetic, brutish everyman (or everyhog). Woodring’s undulating landscapes, his hypnotic linework, and his spiritually rich iconography resonate together like the tantric harmonics of Tibetan monks. ' Weathercraft is acclaimed cartoonist and painter Jim Woodring’s first fulllength graphic novel from 2010, set in the lush, wordless milieu - the Unifactor - of his most popular anthropomorph, the guile-less Frank.

Weathercraft by Jim Woodring