Fran - Hardcover

Woodring, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1606996614 ISBN 13: 9781606996614

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books, 2013

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

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

From Booklist:

In Congress of the Animals (2011), Woodring’s longtime protagonist, the childlike feline Frank, left the Unifactor—the surreal realm in which he and his friends and foes reside—and explored an equally strange new world where he seemed to have found his soul mate, a female doppelgänger named Fran, who happily returned home with Frank. But the course of true love runs no more smoothly in the Unifactor than it does anywhere else, and in a foolish argument, Frank childishly drives Fran away. Immediately regretting his rash behavior, Frank sets out to find her with the help of his loyal pets, Pupshaw and Pushpaw. Frank’s quest takes him through dazzlingly rendered hallucinogenic landscapes and to encounters with bizarrely menacing beings, as Woodring’s fans have come to count on. But the heightened emotional stakes are new: Frank’s followers have watched him shrug off violent treatment with the resilience of a Warner Bros. cartoon character, but the loss of Fran seems more devastating than the worst punishment he’s received at the hands of the devilish Whim. --Gordon Flagg

About this edition

• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1606996614
• ISBN 13: 9781606996614
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 120