Seeing Things

by Jim Woodring

"A lovely, thought-provoking book that fans simply won't be able to live without."― Juxtapoz . Jim Woodring's charcoal drawings take the otherworldly qualities of his comics ( The Frank Book ) to a higher level of clarity and nuance. These crisply rendered images reflect his life-long obsession with hidden worlds, alternate realities and the inexplicable resonance of the unprecedented and irrational in lucid art.

Seeing Things collects the most toothsome of these drawings and arranges them in four sections. "Lazy Robinson" is a series of portraits of forms taken by a cognizant object during the course of a specific and identifiable stream of thought. "Frogs" celebrates the tender proclivities of the most noble of all animals, by placing them in situations that would dismay a horde of saints. "The Visible World" is a roundup of appalling scenes of sub-rational political activity involving catalytic entities with a high ratio of motivation to altruism. And "The Portfolio in Color" appears like a rainbow at the end of all this exalted storminess to send readers out into the world whistling with delight. Many of these images were created for "Mysterio Sympatico," Woodring's multimedia stage collaboration with guitarist Bill Frisell. There is plenty of echoless, glowing furniture to add to that already crowded storeroom which is briefly, but brilliantly, illuminated in the pages of this stately book. Color and black-and-white illustrations throughout

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Art, Graphic Novels Comics

104 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2005

About the author

Jim Woodring was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and enjoyed a childhood made lively by an assortment of mental an psychological quirks including paroniria, paranoia, paracusia, apparitions, hallucinations and other species of psychological and neurological malfunction among the snakes and tarantulas of the San Gabriel mountains.

He eventually grew up to bean inquisitive bearlike man who has enjoyed three exciting careers: garbage collector, merry-go-round-operator and cartoonist. A self-taught artist, his first published works documented the disorienting hell of his salad days in an “illustrated autojournal” called Jim. This work was published by Fantagraphics Books and collected in The Book of Jim in 1992.

He is best known for his wordless comics series depicting the follies of his character Frank, a generic cartoon anthropomorph whose adventures careen wildly from sweet to appalling. A decade’s worth of these stories was collected in The Frank Book in 2004. The 2010 Frank story Weathercraft won The Stranger’s Genius Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for that year. The most recent Frank book, Congress of the Animals, was released in 2011.

Woodring is also known for his anecdotal charcoal drawings (a selection which was gathered in Seeing Things in 2005), and the sculptures, vinyl figures, fabrics and gallery installations that have been made from his designs. His multimedia collaborations with the musician Bill Frisell won them a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006. He lives in Seattle with his family and residual phenomena.

-Walter Foxglove

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a lot of wordless graphic novels and collections from Jim Woodring so when I was picking up his latest I also got this, which is mainly a collection of bizarre cartoons owing as much to nightmares, the surreal and possibly madness as anything else. These charcoal drawings and one section of brightly painted images came largely out of multimedia collaborations he did with The avant-garde musician Bill Frisell.

One thing I like in the work as reflected in the title is the ambiguity of the phrase "seeing things." Artists look at things, and "see" them, but never quite objectively. As an artist you always see subjectively, and put that perspective into your representations of what you see. Then there is the idea of hallucination, or "hey, I think I must be 'seeing things'". Psychic phenomena, surrealist representations of "reality," schizophrenia, and so on. But also just the power of the imagination to see what is in your mind. Cool title once you know Woodring's richly weird work.

[Forrest · Rating 3 out of 5]

Take Stepan Chapman's pieces from Life on Earth and Common Ectoids of Arizona, mix in a dose of Woodring's own Weathercraft, then pump the images up in 3-dimensional depth through the skilled use of shading, and you have Seeing Things.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woodring's talent for beautifully rendered weirdness is undeniable.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really comics but lowbrow fine art. The writing is clunky and as strange as the images but interesting.

[Brian Bergen-Aurand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to Woodring's work with a skeptical eye and left it with a fan's enthusiasm.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a feeling I get sometimes, mostly when viewing art, rarely when watching movies, of the top of my skull coming off. This isn't a metaphor; that's exactly what I feel. I felt it more often as a kid, reading MAD Magazine -- especially the art of Basil Wolverton -- or at the volumes of Man, Myth & Magic my parents inexplicably kept. There's some quality to the artwork I've always found found both compelling and repulsive. With my skull opened, my brain exposed, what might be poured in there?

This book from Fantagraphics bmBooks, gives me that feeling. Seeing Things by Jim Woodring is a collection of his stand alone paintings and drawings. Best known for his cartoon cat, Frank, Woodring's art always feels like an explorarion of the common man, or cat, experiencing the divine. Though it can tend toward the grotesque, there is always that hint of a higher order at play. His artwork here is beautiful, and engrossing, and sometimes horrifying.

[Jesús · Rating 4 out of 5]

In contrast to his Frank strips, the paintings and illustrations collected in this book show Jim Woodring’s imagination at its absolute best. In single images, Woodring’s aesthetic influences are much more obvious and more interestingly varied (Dada, Surrealism, the Incoherents, and more).

His ideas and figures are much more alive and commanding without the burden of narrative. Everything is in motion: eating, dying, vomiting, climbing, twirling, and so on. The shapes, figures, and exchanges between them all make every image filled with dynamism and unfolding biological processes. It’s remarkable work from a remarkable talent.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jim Woodring's Frank stories are defined by the surrealist landscapes, objects and entities that Frank interacts with. Collected in Seeing Things are many of Woodring's bizarre illustrations that serve as the backdrop to his many works. Stripped of a narrative, this is basically all sorts of ephemera and doesn't really have the same impact as Woodring's comics do, but it's still really interesting to peruse.

[Morpheus Lunae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection showcases Woodring's visual style much better than what is possible in his comics. We definitely need something like this but almost two decades later to see how much better he has artistically become. Speaking of which. I hope he's still alive. It seems there hasn't been news for over a year now.

[J Poolner]

I love the Frank series, but I just couldn't dig into this collection—that's just me, though. I have a tendency to skip over most "sketches/how i wrote this/bonus footage" author-provided content. I'd rather read the finished product.

[Marek · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.0
Jim widzi rzeczy. A ja, widząc je, czerpię z tego radość. Choć wolę podziwiać prace Woodringa w komiksowej narracji, to "Seeing Things" jest ciekawym dodatkiem do świata, jakim jest frankowy Unifactor. Jak zawsze jest dziwnie.

[Karrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how art style so much

[Hillary · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's pretty impressive that my attention can be held by this book, the first Woodring I dove into, because it has no narrative. Sure, there are hints of something like the make-up of a world in individual drawings, but there's no dialogue and there are no explicit connections between more than two panels at a time. Still, Woodring's obsessions (symmetry, pattern, bulginess) are fascinating to look at, and look one does. It's a short book, but each picture takes some time to look at. I'd recommend it even to the unartistic and impatient, especially if the power's out, like it was when I read it.

[Whatsupchuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not really a comic, but that's where it was shelved in our local library and Jim is most well known for this Frank comics. This is a collection of Jim Woodring's charcoal drawings and a few other stand alone arts. Within the pages are 3 or 4 short essay-like writings that were either dreams Jim has had, or dream-like surrealist shorts. I'm not sure, but those were great too.

[Eric T. Voigt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the Frogs section most of all and wish the entire thing was about 1,000 pages longer. And that there were three more short stories/autobiographical tellings AT LEAST. Zillions more would have been acceptable.

[Kevin Ho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool artwork from Jim Woodring. Froggy froggy froggy MANHOG!

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woodring’s dark, surrealistic artwork is something that must be experienced rather than described.

[Diedre Poellnitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author have a weird imagination but I like it... It is quirky and odd and pictures are unlike anything I ever seen mostly in black and white....