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Quacky
296 pages
First published August 11, 2026
About the author
Jim Woodring
132 books248 followersJim 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 8, 2025
Wacky Tobacky Quacky.
Jim Woodring has been living in the world of Frank for more than 35 years, a weird fantasy with recurring characters. Or maybe it is better to say that Frank and his entourage of weirdness have been living in Woodring’s head for that long or more. Frank is some kind of catlike? mammal, and has two animals himself, Pushpaw and Pupshaw. Living in a world where events seem to be somewhat controlled by a mode of existence or something called the Unifactor, his key nemesis is Manhog.
“You could do a lot worse than to live in the Unifactor.”
In this volume (Fantagraphics 8/26) an old duck-like friend named Quacky gives Frank a gift, a dog-like creature called Nopper that grows and grows and transforms into. . . a Temple. You heard that right, folks, a temple. But such is the wild and rambling and hallucinatory imagination of Jim Woodring.
And though Frank now has a temple, Nopper is now. . . dead:
“Love always ends in tears.”
So the Frank work has never reached anything like what one might call popular appeal, because it is so weird and kinda off-putting and sometimes scary and confusing, but it is has a cult following, for sure, among alt-comix nerds. Many of the volumes about Frank are wordless, and sort of random, meandering narratives, but with Quacky, Woodring adopts the format of 1930s Big Little Books with his own trademark surrealist madness. This is more recognizably narrative as each facing page is text, the alternative page a captioned illustration. So it has more coherence than other Frank tales, and it feels somehow less foreboding, sinister, seems lighter and more peaceful to maybe (somewhat) fit the Golden Book vibe?
This feels still very recognizably Frank world, very sixties, Keep on Truckin’/Kim Deitch/Crumb/Bill Griffith psychedelic comic nightmare invention, preparing the way for Charles Burns and Daniel Clowes and many others.
But what’s the point?
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Frank said. “It’s just a lot of hogwash.”
I liked it just fine, a new way to read Frank’s world. Wacky Tobacky Quacky, indeed.
Jim Woodring has been living in the world of Frank for more than 35 years, a weird fantasy with recurring characters. Or maybe it is better to say that Frank and his entourage of weirdness have been living in Woodring’s head for that long or more. Frank is some kind of catlike? mammal, and has two animals himself, Pushpaw and Pupshaw. Living in a world where events seem to be somewhat controlled by a mode of existence or something called the Unifactor, his key nemesis is Manhog.
“You could do a lot worse than to live in the Unifactor.”
In this volume (Fantagraphics 8/26) an old duck-like friend named Quacky gives Frank a gift, a dog-like creature called Nopper that grows and grows and transforms into. . . a Temple. You heard that right, folks, a temple. But such is the wild and rambling and hallucinatory imagination of Jim Woodring.
And though Frank now has a temple, Nopper is now. . . dead:
“Love always ends in tears.”
So the Frank work has never reached anything like what one might call popular appeal, because it is so weird and kinda off-putting and sometimes scary and confusing, but it is has a cult following, for sure, among alt-comix nerds. Many of the volumes about Frank are wordless, and sort of random, meandering narratives, but with Quacky, Woodring adopts the format of 1930s Big Little Books with his own trademark surrealist madness. This is more recognizably narrative as each facing page is text, the alternative page a captioned illustration. So it has more coherence than other Frank tales, and it feels somehow less foreboding, sinister, seems lighter and more peaceful to maybe (somewhat) fit the Golden Book vibe?
This feels still very recognizably Frank world, very sixties, Keep on Truckin’/Kim Deitch/Crumb/Bill Griffith psychedelic comic nightmare invention, preparing the way for Charles Burns and Daniel Clowes and many others.
But what’s the point?
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Frank said. “It’s just a lot of hogwash.”
I liked it just fine, a new way to read Frank’s world. Wacky Tobacky Quacky, indeed.
July 14, 2026
A Frank book with words?! Yeah, that'd be great.
And it is. But it's also weird. Frank books are almost completely wordless.
I'd read that Woodring really liked Big Little books and Quacky was inspired by them. I didn't think to find out what that might mean, so if you're like me, then allow me to do the thinking for you by saying: Look at this web page and its photos. Or if you're afraid of external links, then know that this Little Giant book is 3.5 inches by 4.4 inches and 296 pages thick, ie, roughly the size of a pack of playing cards but thicker.
Which is great. But it's also weird. Frank books are taller and wider than most books.
You should also know that a nontrivial amount of pages at the end of the book are for a story about Cunningham and friends.
I think Mr Woodring has revealed a lot about himself with the words and pictures inside the covers of Quacky. Judge for yourself.
And it is. But it's also weird. Frank books are almost completely wordless.
I'd read that Woodring really liked Big Little books and Quacky was inspired by them. I didn't think to find out what that might mean, so if you're like me, then allow me to do the thinking for you by saying: Look at this web page and its photos. Or if you're afraid of external links, then know that this Little Giant book is 3.5 inches by 4.4 inches and 296 pages thick, ie, roughly the size of a pack of playing cards but thicker.
Which is great. But it's also weird. Frank books are taller and wider than most books.
You should also know that a nontrivial amount of pages at the end of the book are for a story about Cunningham and friends.
I think Mr Woodring has revealed a lot about himself with the words and pictures inside the covers of Quacky. Judge for yourself.
September 14, 2026
Such a joy to read! Mr. Woodring is as talented a prose writer as he is an illustrator. I think this is about as successful he could’ve been with this format.
The resolution of the Manhog storyline got a real laugh out of me.
The Cunningham story was puzzling.
The resolution of the Manhog storyline got a real laugh out of me.
The Cunningham story was puzzling.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Adults of a certain age will probably fondly recall Big Little Books. Written for kids 7 to 13—the stage when kids start choosing books themselves to read—the books stood about 4.5” x 3.5”, verso page all text, the recto all illustration, together making for a story (adventure, mystery, or cartoon character-based) about 1.5” thick; i.e., ~300 pages.
Illustrator and comic artist Jim Woodring has decided to tackle the constraints of the Big Little Books—named here LITTLE GIANT BOOKS—using his usual anthropomorphic cast of characters—including Frank, Pupshaw and Pushpaw, and Manhog.
Frank, the Pups, and Manhog live in the Unifactor, which incorporates both the creating god and the entirety of its creation. Frank—hapless and universal in a Chaplinesque way—often stares in awe of what the Unifactor hath wrought. In the Unifactor’s sparsely populated world, the architecture is Orientalist Art Deco, which, along with the Unifactor’s plants and animals betray an inordinate fondness for rounded edges. Our protagonist, Frank, a bipedal anthropomorphic cat, sports a “trilobular” (Woodring’s word) noggin and two buck teeth. Pushpaw and Pupshaw are his pets—dog-sized but looking more like geometric blocks on tiny legs. Manhog, Frank’s nemesis, is a self-centered, acquisitive materialist, half man, half hog.
Once an old friend named Quacky sends Frank an invitation to come over and talk over old times, the story starts to get weird. (Readers new to Woodring may have thought it was already weird.) The Unifactor never fails to surprise, and Frank again must adjust his ways of thinking in an unpredictable world.
The book’s “SECOND BIG FEATURE,” “Cunningham,” published under the pen name Slim Davenport, uses realistic sets and a new set of characters, drawn in a more traditional style of depicting bi-pedal anthropomorphized pigs in human clothes. Cunningham—“The clever pig who helps all his friends”—receives a call from the police that his friend Hoggy has been arrested “for every crime in the book!” This doesn’t sound like the Hoggy Cunningham knows, so he sets out to solve the mystery.
Frank and Hoggy are opposites, embracing different visions of how to be in the world. Although readers unfamiliar with Woodring’s style may find the illustrations “cute,” Quacky deals with death, greed, and covetousness as well as trust, friendship, and appreciation. Woodring makes serious points with delightful craftsmanship.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
Illustrator and comic artist Jim Woodring has decided to tackle the constraints of the Big Little Books—named here LITTLE GIANT BOOKS—using his usual anthropomorphic cast of characters—including Frank, Pupshaw and Pushpaw, and Manhog.
Frank, the Pups, and Manhog live in the Unifactor, which incorporates both the creating god and the entirety of its creation. Frank—hapless and universal in a Chaplinesque way—often stares in awe of what the Unifactor hath wrought. In the Unifactor’s sparsely populated world, the architecture is Orientalist Art Deco, which, along with the Unifactor’s plants and animals betray an inordinate fondness for rounded edges. Our protagonist, Frank, a bipedal anthropomorphic cat, sports a “trilobular” (Woodring’s word) noggin and two buck teeth. Pushpaw and Pupshaw are his pets—dog-sized but looking more like geometric blocks on tiny legs. Manhog, Frank’s nemesis, is a self-centered, acquisitive materialist, half man, half hog.
Once an old friend named Quacky sends Frank an invitation to come over and talk over old times, the story starts to get weird. (Readers new to Woodring may have thought it was already weird.) The Unifactor never fails to surprise, and Frank again must adjust his ways of thinking in an unpredictable world.
The book’s “SECOND BIG FEATURE,” “Cunningham,” published under the pen name Slim Davenport, uses realistic sets and a new set of characters, drawn in a more traditional style of depicting bi-pedal anthropomorphized pigs in human clothes. Cunningham—“The clever pig who helps all his friends”—receives a call from the police that his friend Hoggy has been arrested “for every crime in the book!” This doesn’t sound like the Hoggy Cunningham knows, so he sets out to solve the mystery.
Frank and Hoggy are opposites, embracing different visions of how to be in the world. Although readers unfamiliar with Woodring’s style may find the illustrations “cute,” Quacky deals with death, greed, and covetousness as well as trust, friendship, and appreciation. Woodring makes serious points with delightful craftsmanship.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
Review of advance copy
The Adventures of Frank as a Big Little Book, sorry, Little Giant Book, have proven highly revelatory and delve deep into our silent protagonist’s psyche.
Cunningham is just plain weird.
Okay, quick story. I had to pretend that I received an advance copy in order to rate this because this site says inaccurately that it won’t be published until tomorrow. But I bought yesterday at OddMart in Minneapolis.
The clerk, very new on the job, showed me her Frank tattoo. Very cool. I told her of my brief interaction with Jim online which led to his wife yelling at me for not paying for a piece of art promptly. I also asked her how much it cost. Oh, he drew it for her for free. And that is why Mary Woodring exists.
I know that was really two stories and not that brief.
Cunningham is just plain weird.
Okay, quick story. I had to pretend that I received an advance copy in order to rate this because this site says inaccurately that it won’t be published until tomorrow. But I bought yesterday at OddMart in Minneapolis.
The clerk, very new on the job, showed me her Frank tattoo. Very cool. I told her of my brief interaction with Jim online which led to his wife yelling at me for not paying for a piece of art promptly. I also asked her how much it cost. Oh, he drew it for her for free. And that is why Mary Woodring exists.
I know that was really two stories and not that brief.
September 25, 2026
Woodring's "Little Giant Book" has two stories in it, one with characters you know if you've followed any of Frank's adventures in the Unifactor, and one with new personalities (all pigs) in a totally different (and darker?) world. More text than any of Jim's previous books, which is a delight in this case. And with plenty of his signature art to go along with the completely unpredictable stories, this is once again a singular experience from the master. Nobody like him.
August 20, 2026
Completely different format from his previous books !
& Not for The better — I appreciate experimentation, but when you’re making explosives in The kitchen, don’t expect The most favorable results ( ? )
The story with The pigs at The end is particularly disturbing, very very unlike anything previously witnessed, I suspect Woodring’s schizophrenia may be ripening up ( ? )
& Not for The better — I appreciate experimentation, but when you’re making explosives in The kitchen, don’t expect The most favorable results ( ? )
The story with The pigs at The end is particularly disturbing, very very unlike anything previously witnessed, I suspect Woodring’s schizophrenia may be ripening up ( ? )
September 21, 2026
3.5/5 rounded up. More books should be this size!!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews