Jim Woodring
Encyclopedia
Jim Woodring is a Seattle-based cartoonist
, comic book
author, artist
and toy designer. He also produces fine art works in a variety of other media, including painting and charcoal.
He is best known for the dream-based comics he published in his magazine Jim
, and as the creator of the anthropomorphic cartoon
character Frank
, who has appeared in a number of short comic stories and in two graphic novel
s.
Woodring has won or been nominated for a number of awards, and on The Comics Journal
s list of the 100 best comics of the century, the Frank
stories ranked #55, and The Book of Jim
(a collection of some of Woodring's earlier work) ranked #71.
. He suffered from hallucination
s (which he called "apparitions") of floating, gibbering faces over his bed (among other visions) when he was a child, and "was obsessed with death at a tender age" and was afraid his parents would come into his bedroom and kill him. He had behavioral problems, finding himself unable to stop himself from doing things he knew he should not be doing, which he says he did not bring in line until he got married.
He graduated from high school in 1970 and went to Glendale Junior College for about two months. While there,
Woodring dropped out
of college and spent the next year and a half as a garbage man
. During this time he developed a serious drinking problem
, which lasted about eight years. He eventually quit drinking because he felt it was interfering with his growth as an artist.
studio. He did "[s]toryboards during the production season and presentation work during the off-season." He did work for the cartoon shows Mister T
, Rubik the Amazing Cube and Turbo Teen
, and he has often said that these were the worst cartoons ever produced. At that time, he formed friendships with and was somewhat mentored by celebrated comic book
artists Gil Kane
and Jack Kirby
, who were both disgruntled with the comics business and were working in animation at the time.
, an anthology of comics, dream art
and free-form writing which he described as an "autojournal". In 1986, Woodring was introduced by Gil Kane
to Gary Groth
of Fantagraphics Books
. Jim was published as a regular series by Fantagraphics starting in 1986, to critical acclaim if less than spectacular sales, and Woodring became a full-time cartoonist. Frank
, a wordless surrealist
series which began as an occasional feature within Jim, became his best-known work, eventually spinning off into its own series in 1996. Most of the content of the first of the two volumes of Jim were collected as The Book of Jim
in 1993, which was subsequently ranked as #71 on The Comics Journal
's100 best comics of the century list.
Woodring created a short-lived comics series for children, Tantalizing Stories
, with Mark Martin
. This was the place in which his character, Frank, first featured prominently, in stories that "have a dreamlike flow and an internal logic to them" written in a "symbolic visual language" that is "defined by thick, unforgiving cartoon lines that marry Walt Kelly with Salvador Dali."
Most of the Frank stories have been done in black and white, but a number are notable for being in (usually painted) full color. In particular, Woodring was nominated for "Best Colorist" at the 1993 Eisner Award
s for the story Frank in the River
. The Comics Journal
ranked the Frank stories #55 in its list of the 100 best comics of the century.
He has also worked as a freelance illustrator and comics writer, adapting the film Freaks
with F. Solano Lopez for Fantagraphics
and writing comics based on Aliens
and Star Wars
for Dark Horse
.
Woodring produced a new Frank book in 2005 (The Lute String) and in 2010 his first graphic novel
-length Frank book, Weathercraft
, which found itself on a number of "Best of 2010" lists. This is being followed up with another, Congress of the Animals
, in May 2011. Woodring says that, while he had been away from comics, he built up a backlog of new stories, and he intends to complete a total of four 100-page books like Weathercraft
and Congress of the Animals
, and then return to the types of stories had done in Jim
.
In 2010, a 92-minute documentary of Woodring was made entitled The Lobster and the Liver, directed by Jonathan Howells.
As of April 2011, Woodring keeps an infrequently-updated blog, where he sometimes posts panels from works-in-progress, including Weathercraft
and Congress of the Animals
, as well as other projects, such as new paintings and the construction and demonstration of a working seven-foot dip pen
.
Woodring and his wife, Mary, have one son.
world Woodring calls the Unifactor.
Frank
:A bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph
" and "naive but not innocent", "completely naive, capable of sinning by virtue of not knowing what he's really about." The character design is reminiscent those of old American animated shorts from the 1920s and 1930s, such as from Fleischer Studios
. Usually he appears in black and white, but when he appears in color his fur is purple.
Pulque:A perpetually drunken, man-sized, Spanish
-speaking frog-creature. Pulque inexplicably hangs around with a group of suburban American children, despite the fact that he and the children cannot understand each other and are drawn in markedly different styles.
Chip and Monk:Boyhood friends...
Big Red:A large street cat who hunts and kills with an appropriately cat-like gusto. This is made chilling by Red's dialogue with his prey: "I'll kill you," shrieks a terrified possum, "I killed the old owl!" Red mutters an amused response, "That's nice," as he moves in for the kill.
s: Woodring keeps a dream journal and has turned several of these dreams into comics, which he "tr[ies] to make it as verbatim as possible." Most of these were in published in Jim
. Since the mid-1990s he has turned away from stories explicitly based on real dreams, later saying: "I got sick of drawing myself. I don't ever want to draw myself again.". He has since focused primarily on stories based in the Unifactor, the surreal
Frank
universe.
Frog
s : feature prominently in Woodring's comics, and their symbolism
seems to change from story to story. Often they are spiritually-minded but rather pompous creatures, but they can sometimes be sinister and alien. At other times, they are "average joes", struggling to protect their homes or their families from predators. A giant cartoon painting of a frog leaning against a wall made up the cover of the first issue of Jim
in 1986, and frogs framed the cover of Weathercraft
in 2010.
Jiva
s : appear frequently in Woodring's autobiographical dream comics and in Frank
, where they appear as floating, flexible, colorful, occasionally radiant bulbous spindles resembling children's top
s, and are both cognizant and motile, and neither vaporous nor altogether benevolent. Woodring has occasionally referred to them as "angel
s" and "conditioned soul
s". In some Jim stories the Jivas can speak, and in one he accidentally pierces one's skin and it deflates like a balloon
.
The Unifactor : The world in which Frank
and associated characters appear, "a world where concepts like justice and logic read as alien", "a picturesque but occasionally sinister world inhabited by alien plantlife and mischievous creatures, dream-logic and unknowable forces".
The Unifactor functions under its own internal logic; death, destruction and mutilation in one story do not necessarily have any bearing on subsequent storiesManhog removes the skin from his own leg in Manhog Beyond the Face, which seems to leave no mark on him in other stories; and in a single issue of Jim
, he has all his limbs, skin, and most of his facial features removed, becoming a mutilated jiva
-like figure in one story, only to reappear later on in a separate story, apparently "normal", only to be killed, stuffed and sewn back up again.
and other classic cartoonists for The Comics Journal. He also interviewed cartoonist Jack Davis
for the publication.
Woodring illustrated Microsoft
's Comic Chat program, an IRC client employed in the creation of the daily web comic Jerkcity. The Museum of Love and Mystery is available as an iGoogle
theme.
He illustrated the front cover, endpapers and the song "Toy Boy" in singer-songwriter Mika
's extended play Songs for Sorrow
.
For years, Woodring ran ads for "Jimland Novelties" in the back of his comics. These toys, books and oddities included a kit to make a frog's (severed) legs swim by hooking them up to a little motor, and another kit for leaving Woodring's own fingerprints around your home. For a time, Woodring was sending his readers free drawings, his "jiva
portraits" of what he imagined their souls looked like. A sample of the "Jimland Novelties" pages can be glimpsed in the back of The Book of Jim
.
stories Snake, Watching the Media Watchers and Sheiboneth Beis Hamikdosh for American Splendor
. http://joshcomix.home.mindspring.com/and/pekar_artists/: and for Introducing Dennis Eichhorn
which appeared in Real Stuff #1.
Woodring did the artwork for Dennis Eichhorn
's The Meaning of Life in Real Stuff #3, and contributed the cover to issue #8.
Woodring wrote the scripts for the comic-book adaptation of Freaks
, illustrated by Francisco Solano Lopez and colored by Mary Woodring.
In the 1990s, Woodring wrote a number of stories for Dark Horse Comics
that were based on the Aliens
franchise. The stories were illustrated by Kilian Plunkett, Jason Green and Francisco Solano Lopez, and have been collected as Aliens: Labyrinth in 1997 and Aliens: Kidnapped in 1999.
and are available in American comics shop
s. In a 2002 interview with The Comics Journal
, Woodring said that he was gradually leaving comics behind because they simply were not lucrative enough, and he was increasingly concentrating on individual paintings. He made his return to comics at the turn of the decade, however, producing two new graphic novel
s.
surreal
quality. Woodring told The Comics Journal
that under the right circumstances he is capable of "hallucinating
like mad." The desire to draw something that "wasn't there" was always of "paramount importance" to Woodring.
style in the black-and-white
Frank
stories has often been mistaken for brushwork due to the greatly varying thickness of the linework typical of brush cartooning, but he has insisted,"...I could never, ever, in a trillion years do what you do with a brush and paper. (PenJ.W.)".
Letter from Ivan Brunetti
in Jim
Vol. II, #5, pg 18 (May 1995). Fantagraphics Books
and indeed demonstrated, that it is done with a dip pen
. He has said, "pen and ink
for me is the ne plus ultra of drawing
."
In his Frank
stories, Woodring employed a style that combined 1920s-30s Fleischer Studios
-like character designs with an Eastern architectural and design flavor. He also makes heavy use of a distinctive controlled wavy line that adds contour and texture to the backgrounds, which has become his trademark.
Woodring also works in charcoal and paint
(mostly in watercolor). A selection of these works (mostly charcoal) appeared in the collection Seeing Things in 2005. His paintings are notable for...
, and aspects of this philosophy often appear in his stories. He says, "Meditation
is the uber-skill. It ought to be taught in elementary school."
, Justin Green, Rachel Bell
, John Dorman, Mark Newgarden
, Roy Thomkins, Peter Bagge
, Terry LaBan
, Chester Brown
, Seth, Joe Matt
, Robert Crumb
, Charles Burns
, Gilbert Hernandez
, Jaime Hernandez
, Lat, Gil Kane
and Jack Kirby
(Woodring inked and colored Kirby's designs during his time at Ruby-Spears). He considers Kim Deitch
to be "the most under-appreciated comic artist working today."
, 17th Century Dutch painting
, Ingres
, Salvador Dalí
by Malcolm Lowry
and Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo
are two works that he has mentioned more than once in interviews.
, Bill Frisell
as musical favorites, but also "schmaltzy, potent, cheap pop music with strings from the late 50′s and early 60′s, the Theme from A Summer Place
, Holiday for Strings, the theme from Midnight Cowboy
...that sort of dreck." He also listens to a lot of classical musichis brother, with whom he's close, is a classical musician and has introduced him to much of what he listens to.
Bob's Comic Reviews, February 1999
Fellows. His work was featured prominently at the Centre National de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image in Angoulême, France as part of the international comics festival
held there in January 2007. The following year, Woodring received an Inkpot Award
at the 2008 San Diego Comic Convention, and he was awarded an Artist Trust
/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship in the fall of 2008.
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
, comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
author, artist
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
and toy designer. He also produces fine art works in a variety of other media, including painting and charcoal.
He is best known for the dream-based comics he published in his magazine Jim
Jim (comics)
Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987...
, and as the creator of the anthropomorphic cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
character Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
, who has appeared in a number of short comic stories and in two graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s.
Woodring has won or been nominated for a number of awards, and on The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
s list of the 100 best comics of the century, the Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
stories ranked #55, and The Book of Jim
The Book of Jim
-Sources:*Woodring, Jim. The Book of Jim. Fantagraphics Books, 1993. ISBN 1-56097-091-X*Groth, Gary. with Gary Groth from the Comics Journal #164 Jim Woodring interview], page 54-87. The Comics Journal #164. Fantagraphics Books, December 1993....
(a collection of some of Woodring's earlier work) ranked #71.
Biography
The elder of two children, Woodring was born in Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. He suffered from hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
s (which he called "apparitions") of floating, gibbering faces over his bed (among other visions) when he was a child, and "was obsessed with death at a tender age" and was afraid his parents would come into his bedroom and kill him. He had behavioral problems, finding himself unable to stop himself from doing things he knew he should not be doing, which he says he did not bring in line until he got married.
He graduated from high school in 1970 and went to Glendale Junior College for about two months. While there,
Woodring dropped out
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
of college and spent the next year and a half as a garbage man
Waste collector
A waste collector is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and remove refuse and recyclables from residential, commercial, industrial or other collection site for further processing and disposal...
. During this time he developed a serious drinking problem
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, which lasted about eight years. He eventually quit drinking because he felt it was interfering with his growth as an artist.
Animation Industry
In 1979 he was persuaded by his best friend John Dorman to take work as an artist with the Ruby-Spears animationAnimation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
studio. He did "[s]toryboards during the production season and presentation work during the off-season." He did work for the cartoon shows Mister T
Mister T (TV series)
Mister T was an animated series that aired on NBC from 1983 to 1986. A total of 30 episodes were produced during the first two seasons, with the final season consisting entirely of reruns...
, Rubik the Amazing Cube and Turbo Teen
Turbo Teen
Turbo Teen was an animated series about a teenager with the ability to literally transform into a sports car. It aired Saturday mornings on the ABC Network for twelve episodes between 1984 and 1985...
, and he has often said that these were the worst cartoons ever produced. At that time, he formed friendships with and was somewhat mentored by celebrated comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
artists Gil Kane
Gil Kane
Eli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...
and Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
, who were both disgruntled with the comics business and were working in animation at the time.
Comics
While working at Ruby-Spears he began self-publishing JimJim (comics)
Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987...
, an anthology of comics, dream art
Dream art
Dream art is any form of art directly based on material from dreams, or which employs dream-like imagery.-History:References to dreams in art are as old as literature itself: the story of Gilgamesh, the Bible, and the Iliad all describe dreams of major characters and the meanings thereof...
and free-form writing which he described as an "autojournal". In 1986, Woodring was introduced by Gil Kane
Gil Kane
Eli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...
to Gary Groth
Gary Groth
Gary Groth is an American comic book editor, publisher and critic. He is editor-in-chief of The Comics Journal and a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books.-Early life:...
of Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
. Jim was published as a regular series by Fantagraphics starting in 1986, to critical acclaim if less than spectacular sales, and Woodring became a full-time cartoonist. Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
, a wordless surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
series which began as an occasional feature within Jim, became his best-known work, eventually spinning off into its own series in 1996. Most of the content of the first of the two volumes of Jim were collected as The Book of Jim
The Book of Jim
-Sources:*Woodring, Jim. The Book of Jim. Fantagraphics Books, 1993. ISBN 1-56097-091-X*Groth, Gary. with Gary Groth from the Comics Journal #164 Jim Woodring interview], page 54-87. The Comics Journal #164. Fantagraphics Books, December 1993....
in 1993, which was subsequently ranked as #71 on The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
's100 best comics of the century list.
Woodring created a short-lived comics series for children, Tantalizing Stories
Tantalizing Stories
Tantalizing Stories was a comic book series by Mark Martin and Jim Woodring published by Tundra Publishing. The contents of each black and white issue were divided between the two cartoonists and featured a variety of comic short stories, illustrations and text pieces...
, with Mark Martin
Mark Martin (cartoonist)
Mark Martin is an American cartoonist known for lighthearted humor and satire.-Career:Martin's first major work in the 1980s was Gnatrat, a parody of Batman, featuring a rat who dresses as a gnat to fight crime...
. This was the place in which his character, Frank, first featured prominently, in stories that "have a dreamlike flow and an internal logic to them" written in a "symbolic visual language" that is "defined by thick, unforgiving cartoon lines that marry Walt Kelly with Salvador Dali."
Most of the Frank stories have been done in black and white, but a number are notable for being in (usually painted) full color. In particular, Woodring was nominated for "Best Colorist" at the 1993 Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
s for the story Frank in the River
Frank in the River
Frank in the River is a 24-page comic story by Jim Woodring.Like all Frank stories, Frank in the River is virtually wordless and the story is conveyed entirely in pantomime.-Publication history:...
. The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
ranked the Frank stories #55 in its list of the 100 best comics of the century.
He has also worked as a freelance illustrator and comics writer, adapting the film Freaks
Freaks
Freaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs"...
with F. Solano Lopez for Fantagraphics
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
and writing comics based on Aliens
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
and Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
for Dark Horse
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
.
Woodring produced a new Frank book in 2005 (The Lute String) and in 2010 his first graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
-length Frank book, Weathercraft
Weathercraft
Weathercraft is a 2010 graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring featuring his best-known characters Frank and Manhog. It is Woodring's first graphic novel-length work, and like all the other works in Frank's world of the Unifactor, the story unfolds entirely in pictures, with no dialogue,...
, which found itself on a number of "Best of 2010" lists. This is being followed up with another, Congress of the Animals
Congress of the Animals
Congress of the Animals is a graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring published on June 8, 2011. The book is Woodring's second book-length comic set in his fictional world, the Unifactor, and the first to star his most famous character, Frank....
, in May 2011. Woodring says that, while he had been away from comics, he built up a backlog of new stories, and he intends to complete a total of four 100-page books like Weathercraft
Weathercraft
Weathercraft is a 2010 graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring featuring his best-known characters Frank and Manhog. It is Woodring's first graphic novel-length work, and like all the other works in Frank's world of the Unifactor, the story unfolds entirely in pictures, with no dialogue,...
and Congress of the Animals
Congress of the Animals
Congress of the Animals is a graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring published on June 8, 2011. The book is Woodring's second book-length comic set in his fictional world, the Unifactor, and the first to star his most famous character, Frank....
, and then return to the types of stories had done in Jim
Jim (comics)
Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987...
.
Etc
A DVD called Visions of Frank: Short Films by Japan's Most Audacious Animators was released by Japan's PressPop in 2007. It is a collection of short films, each by a different artist or team interpreting a different Frank work. Aside from designing the packaging, Woodring had no input into their production, leaving their interpretation entirely up to the interpreters.In 2010, a 92-minute documentary of Woodring was made entitled The Lobster and the Liver, directed by Jonathan Howells.
As of April 2011, Woodring keeps an infrequently-updated blog, where he sometimes posts panels from works-in-progress, including Weathercraft
Weathercraft
Weathercraft is a 2010 graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring featuring his best-known characters Frank and Manhog. It is Woodring's first graphic novel-length work, and like all the other works in Frank's world of the Unifactor, the story unfolds entirely in pictures, with no dialogue,...
and Congress of the Animals
Congress of the Animals
Congress of the Animals is a graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring published on June 8, 2011. The book is Woodring's second book-length comic set in his fictional world, the Unifactor, and the first to star his most famous character, Frank....
, as well as other projects, such as new paintings and the construction and demonstration of a working seven-foot dip pen
Dip pen
A dip pen or nib pen usually consists of a metal nib with capillary channels like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted on a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and plastic, while some pens are made entirely of glass...
.
Woodring and his wife, Mary, have one son.
Frank Characters
The stories involving these characters occur in the surrealSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
world Woodring calls the Unifactor.
Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
:A bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
" and "naive but not innocent", "completely naive, capable of sinning by virtue of not knowing what he's really about." The character design is reminiscent those of old American animated shorts from the 1920s and 1930s, such as from Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
. Usually he appears in black and white, but when he appears in color his fur is purple.
Others
Jim: The artist himself featured prominently in most of his early dream comics.Pulque:A perpetually drunken, man-sized, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
-speaking frog-creature. Pulque inexplicably hangs around with a group of suburban American children, despite the fact that he and the children cannot understand each other and are drawn in markedly different styles.
Chip and Monk:Boyhood friends...
Big Red:A large street cat who hunts and kills with an appropriately cat-like gusto. This is made chilling by Red's dialogue with his prey: "I'll kill you," shrieks a terrified possum, "I killed the old owl!" Red mutters an amused response, "That's nice," as he moves in for the kill.
Themes and motifs
DreamDream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
s: Woodring keeps a dream journal and has turned several of these dreams into comics, which he "tr[ies] to make it as verbatim as possible." Most of these were in published in Jim
Jim (comics)
Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987...
. Since the mid-1990s he has turned away from stories explicitly based on real dreams, later saying: "I got sick of drawing myself. I don't ever want to draw myself again.". He has since focused primarily on stories based in the Unifactor, the surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
universe.
Frog
Frog
Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...
s : feature prominently in Woodring's comics, and their symbolism
Symbolism
Symbolism is the applied use of symbols. It is a representation that carries a particular meaning. It is a device in literature where an object represents an idea.A symbol is an object, action, or idea that represents something other than itself....
seems to change from story to story. Often they are spiritually-minded but rather pompous creatures, but they can sometimes be sinister and alien. At other times, they are "average joes", struggling to protect their homes or their families from predators. A giant cartoon painting of a frog leaning against a wall made up the cover of the first issue of Jim
Jim (comics)
Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987...
in 1986, and frogs framed the cover of Weathercraft
Weathercraft
Weathercraft is a 2010 graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring featuring his best-known characters Frank and Manhog. It is Woodring's first graphic novel-length work, and like all the other works in Frank's world of the Unifactor, the story unfolds entirely in pictures, with no dialogue,...
in 2010.
Jiva
Jiva
In Hinduism and Jainism, a jiva is a living being, or more specifically, the immortal essence of a living organism which survives physical death. It has a very similar usage to atma, but whereas atma refers to "the cosmic self", jiva is used to denote an individual 'living entity' or 'living...
s : appear frequently in Woodring's autobiographical dream comics and in Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
, where they appear as floating, flexible, colorful, occasionally radiant bulbous spindles resembling children's top
Top
A top is a toy that can be spun on an axis, balancing on a point. This motion is produced in the most simple forms of top by twirling the stem using the fingers. More sophisticated tops are spun by by holding the axis firmly while pulling a string or twisting a stick or pushing an auger as shown...
s, and are both cognizant and motile, and neither vaporous nor altogether benevolent. Woodring has occasionally referred to them as "angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
s" and "conditioned soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
s". In some Jim stories the Jivas can speak, and in one he accidentally pierces one's skin and it deflates like a balloon
Balloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
.
The Unifactor : The world in which Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
and associated characters appear, "a world where concepts like justice and logic read as alien", "a picturesque but occasionally sinister world inhabited by alien plantlife and mischievous creatures, dream-logic and unknowable forces".
The Unifactor functions under its own internal logic; death, destruction and mutilation in one story do not necessarily have any bearing on subsequent storiesManhog removes the skin from his own leg in Manhog Beyond the Face, which seems to leave no mark on him in other stories; and in a single issue of Jim
Jim (comics)
Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987...
, he has all his limbs, skin, and most of his facial features removed, becoming a mutilated jiva
Jiva
In Hinduism and Jainism, a jiva is a living being, or more specifically, the immortal essence of a living organism which survives physical death. It has a very similar usage to atma, but whereas atma refers to "the cosmic self", jiva is used to denote an individual 'living entity' or 'living...
-like figure in one story, only to reappear later on in a separate story, apparently "normal", only to be killed, stuffed and sewn back up again.
Other work
As a comics historian, Woodring has written about T. S. SullivantT. S. Sullivant
Thomas Starling Sullivant was an influential American cartoonist who signed his work T. S. Sullivant. Best known today for his animal caricatures, he drew political cartoons and illustrated children's books....
and other classic cartoonists for The Comics Journal. He also interviewed cartoonist Jack Davis
Jack Davis (cartoonist)
Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...
for the publication.
Woodring illustrated Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's Comic Chat program, an IRC client employed in the creation of the daily web comic Jerkcity. The Museum of Love and Mystery is available as an iGoogle
IGoogle
iGoogle , a service of Google, is a customizable Ajax-based startpage or personal web portal . Google originally launched the service in May 2005...
theme.
He illustrated the front cover, endpapers and the song "Toy Boy" in singer-songwriter Mika
Mika (singer)
Mika is a British singer-songwriter.After recording his first extended play, Dodgy Holiday EP, Mika released his first full-length studio album, Life in Cartoon Motion, on Island Records in 2007. Life in Cartoon Motion sold more than 5.6 million copies worldwide and helped Mika win a Brit...
's extended play Songs for Sorrow
Songs for Sorrow
Songs for Sorrow is the second extended play by singer Mika. It was released in digital form on May 15, 2009, and in a limited edition book & cd physical form on June 8, 2009. The song "Blue Eyes" was used to promote the EP, and was A-listed on the BBC Radio 2 playlist. The EP received the name...
.
For years, Woodring ran ads for "Jimland Novelties" in the back of his comics. These toys, books and oddities included a kit to make a frog's (severed) legs swim by hooking them up to a little motor, and another kit for leaving Woodring's own fingerprints around your home. For a time, Woodring was sending his readers free drawings, his "jiva
Jiva
In Hinduism and Jainism, a jiva is a living being, or more specifically, the immortal essence of a living organism which survives physical death. It has a very similar usage to atma, but whereas atma refers to "the cosmic self", jiva is used to denote an individual 'living entity' or 'living...
portraits" of what he imagined their souls looked like. A sample of the "Jimland Novelties" pages can be glimpsed in the back of The Book of Jim
The Book of Jim
-Sources:*Woodring, Jim. The Book of Jim. Fantagraphics Books, 1993. ISBN 1-56097-091-X*Groth, Gary. with Gary Groth from the Comics Journal #164 Jim Woodring interview], page 54-87. The Comics Journal #164. Fantagraphics Books, December 1993....
.
Collaborations
In 1991 and 1992, Woodring illustrated the Harvey PekarHarvey Pekar
Harvey Lawrence Pekar was an American underground comic book writer, music critic and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the same name.Pekar described American Splendor as "an...
stories Snake, Watching the Media Watchers and Sheiboneth Beis Hamikdosh for American Splendor
American Splendor
American Splendor is a series of autobiographical comic books written by the late Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the most recent in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular intervals...
. http://joshcomix.home.mindspring.com/and/pekar_artists/: and for Introducing Dennis Eichhorn
Dennis Eichhorn
Dennis P. Eichhorn is an award-winning American writer best known for his adult-oriented autobiographical comic book series Real Stuff...
which appeared in Real Stuff #1.
Woodring did the artwork for Dennis Eichhorn
Dennis Eichhorn
Dennis P. Eichhorn is an award-winning American writer best known for his adult-oriented autobiographical comic book series Real Stuff...
's The Meaning of Life in Real Stuff #3, and contributed the cover to issue #8.
Woodring wrote the scripts for the comic-book adaptation of Freaks
Freaks
Freaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs"...
, illustrated by Francisco Solano Lopez and colored by Mary Woodring.
In the 1990s, Woodring wrote a number of stories for Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
that were based on the Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
franchise. The stories were illustrated by Kilian Plunkett, Jason Green and Francisco Solano Lopez, and have been collected as Aliens: Labyrinth in 1997 and Aliens: Kidnapped in 1999.
Toys
Woodring's strange toy creations have been sold in vending machines in JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and are available in American comics shop
Direct market
The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for North American comic books. It consists of one dominant distributor and the majority of comics specialty stores, as well as other retailers of comic books and related merchandise...
s. In a 2002 interview with The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
, Woodring said that he was gradually leaving comics behind because they simply were not lucrative enough, and he was increasingly concentrating on individual paintings. He made his return to comics at the turn of the decade, however, producing two new graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s.
Stories
Woodring's work often has a nightmarishNightmare
A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, typically fear or horror, but also despair, anxiety and great sadness. The dream may contain situations of danger, discomfort, psychological or physical terror...
surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
quality. Woodring told The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
that under the right circumstances he is capable of "hallucinating
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
like mad." The desire to draw something that "wasn't there" was always of "paramount importance" to Woodring.
Artwork
Woodring's drawingDrawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
style in the black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
stories has often been mistaken for brushwork due to the greatly varying thickness of the linework typical of brush cartooning, but he has insisted,"...I could never, ever, in a trillion years do what you do with a brush and paper. (PenJ.W.)".
Letter from Ivan Brunetti
Ivan Brunetti
Ivan Brunetti is an American cartoonist and comics scholar based in Chicago, Illinois.Noted for combining blackly humorous taboo-laden subject matter with simplified and exaggerated cartoon drawing styles, Brunetti's best known comic work is collected in his largely autobiographical series Schizo,...
in Jim
Jim (comics)
Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987...
Vol. II, #5, pg 18 (May 1995). Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
and indeed demonstrated, that it is done with a dip pen
Dip pen
A dip pen or nib pen usually consists of a metal nib with capillary channels like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted on a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and plastic, while some pens are made entirely of glass...
. He has said, "pen and ink
Pen
A pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but...
for me is the ne plus ultra of drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
."
In his Frank
Frank (comics)
Frank is a cartoon character created by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. He is a bipedal, bucktoothed animal of uncertain species with a short tail, described by Woodring as a "generic anthropomorph". When shown in color, his fur is purple...
stories, Woodring employed a style that combined 1920s-30s Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
-like character designs with an Eastern architectural and design flavor. He also makes heavy use of a distinctive controlled wavy line that adds contour and texture to the backgrounds, which has become his trademark.
Woodring also works in charcoal and paint
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
(mostly in watercolor). A selection of these works (mostly charcoal) appeared in the collection Seeing Things in 2005. His paintings are notable for...
Beliefs
Woodring is a follower of VedantaVedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
, and aspects of this philosophy often appear in his stories. He says, "Meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
is the uber-skill. It ought to be taught in elementary school."
Cartooning
Woodring singles out for praise the cartoon work of Mark MartinMark Martin (cartoonist)
Mark Martin is an American cartoonist known for lighthearted humor and satire.-Career:Martin's first major work in the 1980s was Gnatrat, a parody of Batman, featuring a rat who dresses as a gnat to fight crime...
, Justin Green, Rachel Bell
Rachel Bell
Rachel B. Bell is a British actress.Bell has many television credits to her name and has been associated as a long-running character with three series: Margaret Holmes in Grange Hill ; Edith Pilchester in The Darling Buds of May ; and Louise, the overbearing chair of the divorcee support group in...
, John Dorman, Mark Newgarden
Mark Newgarden
Mark Newgarden is an American underground cartoonist. His work has appeared widely, and his influential shape-shifting weekly feature Newgarden, which appeared in alternative weekly newspapers like New York Press, created a cult following for the artist.Newgarden's work has appeared in a diverse...
, Roy Thomkins, Peter Bagge
Peter Bagge
Peter Bagge is an American cartoonist. He is the creator of Buddy Bradley, Hate, Neat Stuff, Martini Baton, and Sweatshop, Apocalypse Nerd and Other Lives. His stories often use black humor and exaggerated cartooning to dramatize the reduced expectations of middle-class American youth...
, Terry LaBan
Terry LaBan
Terry LaBan is an alternative/underground cartoonist and newspaper comic strip artist. He is probably best known for his comic book series Cud, and his syndicated strip Edge City....
, Chester Brown
Chester Brown
Chester William David Brown , is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian alternative cartoonist and, since 2008, the Libertarian Party of Canada's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in Toronto, Canada....
, Seth, Joe Matt
Joe Matt
Joe Matt is an American cartoonist. He started drawing comics in 1987 and is best known for his autobiographical work, Peepshow. In addition to his cartooning career, he is known for his large collection of vintage Gasoline Alley comic strips. Matt lived in Canada from 1988 to 2002...
, Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
, Charles Burns
Charles Burns (cartoonist)
Charles Burns is an American cartoonist, illustrator and film director.-Life:Burns is renowned for his meticulous, high-contrast and creepy artwork and stories. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, painter Susan Moore, and their two daughters Ava and Rae-Rae.His father was an oceanographer for...
, Gilbert Hernandez
Gilbert Hernandez
Gilberto Hernández, born February 1, 1957, in Oxnard, California, usually credited as Gilbert Hernandez and also known by the nickname Beto , is an American comics writer/artist...
, Jaime Hernandez
Jaime Hernandez
Jaime Hernandez is the co-creator of the black & white independent comic book Love and Rockets .-Early life:...
, Lat, Gil Kane
Gil Kane
Eli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...
and Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
(Woodring inked and colored Kirby's designs during his time at Ruby-Spears). He considers Kim Deitch
Kim Deitch
-Sources:* at Lambiek's Comiclopedia-External links:* Ford, Jeffrey. *Heller, Steven. **...
to be "the most under-appreciated comic artist working today."
Art
Harry McNaught, Boris ArtzybasheffBoris Artzybasheff
Boris Artzybasheff was an American illustrator active in the United States, notable for his strongly worked and often surreal designs....
, 17th Century Dutch painting
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
, Ingres
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...
, Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
Literature
Woodring has read widely in literature. Under the VolcanoUnder the Volcano
Under the Volcano is a 1947 semi-autobiographical novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry . The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac , on the Day of the Dead.Surrounded by the helpless presences of his ex-wife, his...
by Malcolm Lowry
Malcolm Lowry
Clarence Malcolm Lowry was an English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel Under the Volcano, which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list.-Biography:...
and Les Misérables
Les Misérables
Les Misérables , translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims), is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century...
by Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
are two works that he has mentioned more than once in interviews.
Music
Woodring frequently mentions Captain BeefheartCaptain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet January 15, 1941 December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12...
, Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...
as musical favorites, but also "schmaltzy, potent, cheap pop music with strings from the late 50′s and early 60′s, the Theme from A Summer Place
Theme from A Summer Place
The "Theme from A Summer Place" is a song with lyrics by Mack Discant and music by Max Steiner, written for the 1959 film, A Summer Place, which starred Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue. It was recorded for the film by Hugo Winterhalter...
, Holiday for Strings, the theme from Midnight Cowboy
Everybody's Talkin'
"Everybody's Talkin" is a folk rock song released by Fred Neil in 1966 that became a global success for Harry Nilsson in 1969, reaching #2 and #6 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and Pop Singles chart respectively and winning a Grammy after it was featured on the soundtrack for the film...
...that sort of dreck." He also listens to a lot of classical musichis brother, with whom he's close, is a classical musician and has introduced him to much of what he listens to.
Critical reception
Reaction amongst critics and fellow artists has generally been quite positive, despite low sales."But I read recently that only about 3000 copies of his comics are sold..."Bob's Comic Reviews, February 1999
Awards
In December 2006, he became one of the first group of United States ArtistsUnited States Artists
United States Artists is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles, California and dedicated to supporting the work of living American artists by the granting of cash awards, called USA Fellowships...
Fellows. His work was featured prominently at the Centre National de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image in Angoulême, France as part of the international comics festival
Angoulême International Comics Festival
The Angoulême International Comics Festival is the largest comics festival in Europe. It has occurred every year since 1974 in Angoulême, France, in the month of January.The four-day festival is notable for awarding several prestigious prizes in cartooning...
held there in January 2007. The following year, Woodring received an Inkpot Award
Inkpot Award
The Inkpot Award, bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International, is given to some of the professionals in comic book, comic strip, animation, science fiction, and related pop-culture fields, who are guests of that organization's yearly multigenre fan convention, commonly known as...
at the 2008 San Diego Comic Convention, and he was awarded an Artist Trust
Artist Trust
Artist Trust is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting Washington artists working in all creative disciplines. Artist Trust provides artists the time and resources necessary to prosper...
/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship in the fall of 2008.
| Year | Organisation | Award To | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Harvey Award Harvey Award The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are... s |
Woodring | Best Colorist | |
| Tantalizing Stories Presents Frank in the River Frank in the River Frank in the River is a 24-page comic story by Jim Woodring.Like all Frank stories, Frank in the River is virtually wordless and the story is conveyed entirely in pantomime.-Publication history:... |
Best Single Issue or Story | |||
| Eisner Award Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the... s |
Frank in the River Frank in the River Frank in the River is a 24-page comic story by Jim Woodring.Like all Frank stories, Frank in the River is virtually wordless and the story is conveyed entirely in pantomime.-Publication history:... |
Best Short Story | ||
| Best Colorist | ||||
| 1996 | Jim Jim (comics) Jim is a comic book series by Jim Woodring. Begun in 1980 as a self-published zine, it was picked up by Fantagraphics Books in 1986 after Woodring was introduced to Gary Groth by Gil Kane. The publisher released four magazine-sized, black and white issues starting in September, 1987... |
Best Cover Artist | ||
| Best Writer/Artist, Humor | ||||
| 1998 | Ignatz Awards | Frank Vol. 2 | Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection | |
| 2003 | Ignatz Awards | The Frank Book | Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection | |
| Artist Trust Artist Trust Artist Trust is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting Washington artists working in all creative disciplines. Artist Trust provides artists the time and resources necessary to prosper... |
Woodring | Gap Award | ||
| 2006 | United States Artists United States Artists United States Artists is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles, California and dedicated to supporting the work of living American artists by the granting of cash awards, called USA Fellowships... |
Woodring and Bill Frisell Bill Frisell William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more... |
Fellowship | |
| 2008 | Artist Trust Artist Trust Artist Trust is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting Washington artists working in all creative disciplines. Artist Trust provides artists the time and resources necessary to prosper... |
Woodring | ||
| Inkpot Awards | Woodring | Comic Arts | ||
| 2010 | Rasmuson Foundation and Artist Trust Artist Trust Artist Trust is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting Washington artists working in all creative disciplines. Artist Trust provides artists the time and resources necessary to prosper... |
Woodring | one month residency in Homer, Alaska Homer, Alaska Homer is a city located in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population was 5,364. One of Homer's nicknames is "the cosmic hamlet by the sea"; another is "the end of the road"... |
|
| The Stranger The Stranger (newspaper) The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991... |
Woodring | Genius of Literature |
Collected Works
Woodring has published a large number of short works in diverse periodicals and anthologies. Below is a list of collections of some of those works, but a large amount has yet to be collected in book form. As of April 2011, many of these works are out of print.Solo
| Year | Title | Publisher | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | The Book of Jim The Book of Jim -Sources:*Woodring, Jim. The Book of Jim. Fantagraphics Books, 1993. ISBN 1-56097-091-X*Groth, Gary. with Gary Groth from the Comics Journal #164 Jim Woodring interview], page 54-87. The Comics Journal #164. Fantagraphics Books, December 1993.... |
Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint... |
forward by Mark Martin Mark Martin (cartoonist) Mark Martin is an American cartoonist known for lighthearted humor and satire.-Career:Martin's first major work in the 1980s was Gnatrat, a parody of Batman, featuring a rat who dresses as a gnat to fight crime... |
|
| 1994 | Frank Vol. 1 | |||
| 1997 | Frank Vol. 2 | |||
| 2002 | Trosper (with music by Bill Frisell Bill Frisell William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more... ) |
|||
| 2003 | The Frank Book | forward by Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors... |
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| Oneiric Diary | Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book... |
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| 2004 | Pupshaw and Pushpaw | Press Pop | ||
| 2005 | Seeing Things | Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint... |
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| The Lute String リュートの弦 |
Presspop Gallery | |||
| 2006 | The Frank color stories | |||
| 2008 | The Museum of Love and Mystery | |||
| The Portable Frank | Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint... |
forward by Justin Green | ||
| 2010 | Weathercraft Weathercraft Weathercraft is a 2010 graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring featuring his best-known characters Frank and Manhog. It is Woodring's first graphic novel-length work, and like all the other works in Frank's world of the Unifactor, the story unfolds entirely in pictures, with no dialogue,... |
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| 2011 | Congress of the Animals Congress of the Animals Congress of the Animals is a graphic novel by American artist Jim Woodring published on June 8, 2011. The book is Woodring's second book-length comic set in his fictional world, the Unifactor, and the first to star his most famous character, Frank.... |
as writer
| Year | Title | Collaborator(s) | Publisher | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Aliens Aliens (comic book) The Aliens comic books were first published by Dark Horse Comics in 1988 and set in the Alien fictional universe.Some stories often feature the company Weyland-Yutani and the United States Colonial Marines. Originally intended as a sequel to James Cameron's Aliens, the first mini-series features... : Labyrinth |
Kilian Plunkett (Illustrator) |
Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book... |
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| 1999 | Aliens Aliens (comic book) The Aliens comic books were first published by Dark Horse Comics in 1988 and set in the Alien fictional universe.Some stories often feature the company Weyland-Yutani and the United States Colonial Marines. Originally intended as a sequel to James Cameron's Aliens, the first mini-series features... : Kidnapped |
Jason Green, Francisco Solano Lopez (Illustrators) |
See also
- Alternative comicsAlternative comicsAlternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...
- Dream journalDream journalA dream journal is a journal in which dream experiences are recorded. A dream journal might include a record of nightly dreams, personal reflections and waking dream experiences. It is often used in the study of dreams and psychology. Dream journals are also used by people trying to lucid dream....
- Mark MartinMark MartinMark Martin may refer to:* Mark Martin , American racecar driver* Mark Martin , American cartoonist* Mark Martin , American judge* Mark Martin , British murderer...
- Sri Ramakrishna
External links
- The Woodring Monitor (personal blog)
- Demonstration of 7-foot pen (2011)
- Close readingClose readingClose reading describes, in literary criticism, the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they...
of one panel of Woodring's work:
Interviews
- Rudick, Nicole. "The Mind of a Worldly Man Is Like a Fly": A Jim Woodring Interview part 1 2 3 4. The Comics JournalThe Comics JournalThe Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
. June 27, 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-28 - 2011 video interview. Seattle ChannelSeattle ChannelThe Seattle Channel, cable channel 21 in Seattle, Washington, USA, is a government-access television channel. It also operates an extensive web site....
. 2011-03-25. retrieved 2011-04-12 - 2010 Video Interview on The Dusty Wright Show (22 minutes)
- 2010
- Rudick, Nicole. "The Mind of a Worldly Man Is Like a Fly": A Jim Woodring Interview part 1 2 3 4. The Comics Journal