Deze serie volgt het leven van een gewone man wiens bestaan een onverwacht humoristische en vaak absurde wending neemt. Lezers zijn getuige van zijn pogingen om alledaagse situaties te doorgronden die, door zijn unieke perspectief en een reeks ongelukkige gebeurtenissen, veranderen in buitengewone avonturen. Het is een geestige en inzichtelijke kijk op de menselijke natuur, vol charme en herkenbare chaos.
When Pupshaw and Pushpaw depart for the orgiastic delights of Poochytown, the forlorn Frank is thrown by a twist of fate into an unlikely friendship, propelling him down a long road of escapades and trials that ends in one of the most shocking acts ever depicted in the Frank canon.
In honor of Frank’s 20th anniversary Fantagraphics is re-releasing the massive, long out of print Frank Book omnibus, which collected all the Frank material up to the mid-aughts, including several jaw-droppingly beautiful full-color stories, literally dozens of lushly-delineated black-and-white stories, and a treasure trove of covers and illustrations. The Frank Book also features an introduction by one of Frank’s biggest fans (himself a Frank, or almost): Francis Ford Coppola.
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.
Fantagraphics is proud to present a new edition of Woodring's classic graphic novel.