Winnie The Pooh And Shiva Too

As a child, artist Jim Woodring suffered from frequent hallucinations of floating heads hovering over his bed, among other strange phenomenon flickering out of the corners of his eyes. After several years in the 80's toiling away in the Saturday morning cartoon gulag and drinking himself into an uncreative stupor, he cleaned himself up and charged out of the gates at the beginning of the 1990's with his seminal comic book series JIM, which hatched one of his most enduring creations, Frank. The wordless titular character, a "generic anthropomorph " that seems to be neither cat nor mouse nor beaver, silently wanders the landscape of the verdant Unifactor with his loyal pet demigod Pupshaw, falling tits over ass into one inexplicably surrealist situation after another. Sometimes in original black and white and sometimes in vivid color, Woodring's Frank is a pulsating world of shape-shifting jivas and characters of dubious alignment, like the seemingly malevolent devil-like Whim and his collection of twisted inventions, and the Id-driven Manhog who often appears as a constant torn in Frank's side. I've been reading it for years, and picking it up again for the first time in forever reminds me of how beautiful and incredible Woodring's imagination really is.

Over the years, Japanese fans of Frank have animated several comic episodes of varying styles, both black and white and color, and it's fascinating to see how other people interpret Frank's world in their choice of music and animation style.



In this short fan-clip based loosely on one of Woodring's stories, Frank and Pupshaw are confronted by their adversary Whim who tries to lure Frank into using one his his dangerous inventions, but is thwarted by Pupshaw, who kills Whim with one bite, causing Whim's jiva to spring from his head and bounce straight up into Frank's tail. This creates a sequence of uncontrollable shape-shifting on Frank's part that in my eyes captures much of how I interpret Frank's world as well as the motion and action in Woodring's still panels. Lots to look at here. And for a great compilation check out Jim Woodring's The Frank Book (with a forward by Frances Ford Coppola). Guaranteed to give one interesting dreams if read right before bedtime.