A Comic that Looks Normal But Isn't

                   The Frank Book by Jim Woodring is one the most unique graphic novels in the market. It has absolutely no dialogue and sparse narrative text. What I find even more interesting, however, is that some scenes are impossible to describe verbally. If you do try to describe what is happening in the panels using words, whatever you say will come out as utter gibberish. As a result, The Frank Book highlights the one characteristic of  comics that separates them from all other forms of expression--a visual form of communication that uses universally understandable symbols and that does not need any previous schooling or knowledge to be understood. The only thing one needs to understand The Frank Book or any other comic, for that matter, is the ability to follow a narrative created by a series of images.

                  The protagonist of the Frank Book is Frank, a beaver-like hamster-like creature that has purple fur and that walks on two legs. Woodring's readers have determined that Frank is about 11 years old and that he is innocent but not noble. His best friend is Pupshaw. She has a canine-like loyalty towards Frank that causes her to follow him and to protect him from trouble. She is shaped like a triangular polygon, has eyes, lips, paws and a raccoon-like tail. Other characters are Pushpaw, the male counterpart to Pupshaw, Whim and Manhog. Pushpaw is also shaped like a polygon of some sort and has eyes, lips, paws and a stubby tail. Although most of the characters in the Frank Book are morally ambiguous, Whim is a truly evil character. He is a stick figure with horns, a moon for a face and often tries to get Frank into trouble. Woodring describes Manhog as a "lamentable father-figure". Although Manhog is often cruel and cowardly, the reader is at times tempted to feel sympathetic towards him because he endures cruelty from the other characters.

Frank

Pushpaw and Pupshaw looking at a bizarre creature holding flags.

Whim tortures Manhog.

            One of my favorite examples from the Frank Book is "Frank and the Truth About Plenitude". In this short novella, Frank interacts with these jellyfish-like creatures that float in the air (see picture below so you can see what I'm talking about). What I find really fascinating is that there is no way one can fully describe these creatures using words because they do not resemble any creature in nature or in our mythology. Yet, we are able to understand how Frank interacts with these creatures just by following the sequence of images.   Frank grabs them, opens a hole in one of them, places his feet into the hole and rides on the creature until it flies him to a building on top of a hill. We are able to learn a little bit about the nature of these creatures even though we have no idea what they are.

Frank watching "jellyfish-like" creatures