Frank Vol. 2 [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ Jim Woodring (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Frank: Volume Two is absolutely required reading for anyone who enjoyed Jim Woodring's Frank comic book. In these wordless, dreamy comics, Woodring weaves a tapestry with magic, spirituality, and pure emotions. In one story, a hooded woman gives Frank a mysterious top that spins and hovers in the air. When he tries to touch it while it is spinning, the top whips him around and knocks him up against a tree. Then Frank shows the top to his pet the Pupshah (an adorable creature that goes "LLLLL"), who also gets thrown against a tree. The two decide to show the marvelous toy to the Orwellian antagonist, Manhog, whose encounter with the top transforms him into a larvaelike state. Frank and Pupshah nurse Manhog back to health. When he is well, Manhog crawls out into the world and learns about the concept of approval. If, from this description, the story sounds odd or incomprehensible, that's only because it is difficult to provide a linguistic translation of a story that is meant to be "read" in images. This Frank tale, though, is a perfect example of the depth of Woodring's talent and vision.

Review

Neil Gaiman says that Jim Woodring's Frank will "take you to another world, rearrange your consciousness, and reprogram the inside of your head." You might think the description is fitting for any good literature, but this comic book is particularly adept at fulfilling that promise. Frank, which features stories from Woodring's and Mark Martin's series of children's comics, Tantalizing Stories, is written in what could be called the language of the subconscious. Frank is told against a landscape of recurring images and icons that are both foreign and familiar, and is almost entirely wordless except for occasional closing quotes--"Hush, now." or "His father was a great machine."--that serve as meditative tidbits. Don't expect to understand any of these stories in a traditionally narrative sense; instead, they appeal directly to the soul. (Amazon.com Review ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books; illustrated edition edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560972793
• ISBN-13: 978-1560972792
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,037,439 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and bizarre, December 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Frank Vol. 1 (Paperback)

These books (since this review will show up under Frank vol. 1 and Frank vol. 2) are amazing. Wordless stories drawn in all different styles, always beautiful. The comparison to Krazy Kat is certainly apropos. These stories usually involve just a few key characters playing off each other in each story in different and fascinating ways every time. Manhog, the loser; Jerry Chicken, the mercant; Pupshaw, the "godling" (Frank's pet -- "god" is obviously related to "dog" in this case); and Frank, "our hero" who isn't always moral. In the black and white stories, the backgrounds are drawn in a woodcut style, and the color stories are painted with a beauty that can be compared to (I wish I knew more about this stuff) Dali and such. FRANK is completely different from anything you'll ever read, and it's quite possible (as another reviewer says) that it is the only comic from Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, or anybody to show any real vision. Certainly it's the only one today to use original characters, doing interesting, cartoony doings and still be amazing art. Chris Ware is brilliant but seems capable only of one set of emotions; besides "Ghost World," Daniel Clowes really isn't that great; and I hate R. Crumb except for his very early greeting-card and sketchbook stuff, which amounts to just well-made funny comics (which were all over the place in the fourties, and aren't really that special except that no one is really doing them anymore).

Anyway, these books are wonderful. I give them four stars because I like better the current ongoing FRANK comic magazines from Fantagraphics (five so far, 12 or so pages each). They further simplify the characters and environment to the essence. And they have more PUPSHAW! I can't tell you how much I love Pupshaw and Pushpaw. I would buy an 800-page book if Pupshaw and Pushpaw were on every page.

Anyway, get these books because no one else today is doing work this brilliant.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sorcerous., May 25, 1998

By A Customer

In a field seeded with so many noxious weeds, a single precious flower blossoms all the more beautifully. The cognitively dissonant archgeeks who publish Jim Woodring have previously tried to convince us that pretentious, uninformed pop-culture soup is literature (the Hernandez brothers), that a sorry, self-absorbed jerk's deviant fantasies are art (Robert Crumb), that heavy-handed stories from British authors who seemingly contrive their ideas from the jacket blurbs on books they don't understand are writing (Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman), and that juvenile rants and bathetic posing are "alternative" (virtually the entire Fantagraphics catalog). Out of this unreformable nuthouse has emerged, somehow, this wizard Jim Woodring, a perfect, self-contained visionary genius, and the most (or only) significant cartoonist since George Herriman. His flavor might be described as a sort of cross between Dali and Carlos Castaneda, only Americanized and cartoonified (the better to deceive us with). If comic-book people had any taste or consciousness, they might realize this is the only one of their own who will be remembered into the next millinneum, and that promoting his work in the same breath with that of the warped midgets surrounding him serves only to detract from something so rare in this medium: a genuine creative expression of things worth expressing. Leave them, then, to their fannish cults, to their Peter Bagge, their Dan Clowes, their Roberta Gregory; they all deserve each other. This Woodring is the only cartoonist you need. (And for heaven's sake, do buy this book). END

4.0 out of 5 stars More woodchuck dreams from Jim Woodring, January 7, 2000

By	B. Wilcox (California) - See all my reviews

Whereas the first (excellent) volume of Frank tales tended to have a moody dreamlike quality, this second collection is a bit more dark and nightmarish--but then everyone who reads Frank has a different reaction; that's what makes Woodring's work so good. My only gripe is the editorial decision to present the first story, "Frank's Real Pa," in a large panel format, thereby taking up a whopping fifty pages when it could have just as easily taken up ten, leaving more room for other Frank tales.