[[quoteright:221:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/woodringfrank.jpg]]

''Frank'' is a comic series by Jim Woodring.

''Frank'' began as a doodle. A doodle of a FunnyAnimal who wasn't rabbit-like or duck-like, but just ... funny looking. It was hard to tell what to do with it, but there was something about it that made it keep coming back in his mind. Maybe it was a snub given to the doodle by a coworker. First, the creature - dubbed Frank - was given human eyes and drawn into a cover of Jim's mildly successful comic autojournal ''Jim''. Later, around this creature Woodring wrote a short comic. The human eyes were dropped, too! Woodring at first wrote the dialogue purposefully [[PurpleProse so flowery as to be incomprehensible]]. That didn't work right, so he wrote it [[ClusterFBomb with so much profanity that it made his eyes bleed to read it]]. That didn't work, either. In a lucky flash of brilliance, Woodring decided he'd just erase the speech bubbles entirely and tell the story in pantomime. And it became the most popular comic he ever drew.

But what about Frank himself? Frank is a young purple generic anthropomorph, he is covered with short dense fur, he is innocent but not noble, and one day he will die. He lives in a land called The Unifactor along with [[ButtMonkey Manhog]], [[SatanicArchetype Whim]], the geometrically shaped [[ThoseTwoGuys Jerry Chickens]], his pet [[PhysicalGod Pupshaw]] and her boyfriend [[BoisterousBruiser Pushpaw]], the radially symmetric [[OurSoulsAreDifferent Jivas]], and many other one-shot characters. He finds himself on fairly independent episodic adventures, from as simple as seeing an outdoors house of horrors to getting embroiled in the complex machinations of Whim.

Has nothing to do with the 2014 Irish-English [[{{Film/Frank}} film of the same name]] about an avant-garde rock band.

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!!Tropes:

* AnAesop - Jim Woodring claims that every story has one. Some are more clear than others.
* AlienGeometries - The strict adherence to ''Euclidean'' geometries makes the Jivas and Jerry Chickens look bizarre.
* AuthorAppeal: Frogs are Jim Woodring's favorite animal, and they appear frequently in ''Frank''.
* BeneathTheEarth - [[PhysicalHell Where Whim lives]].
* BodyHorror: It's a OncePerEpisode thing.
* ButtMonkey: Poor, stupid Manhog...
* CartoonCreature: Frank's what we call a "generic anthromorph".
* DadaComics - Woodring says this is his most deliberately plotted comic. This tells you more about how freewheeling his other comics are, than about how much conventional sense ''Frank'' makes.
* EldritchAbomination - Several. One [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu gets eaten]] by Pushpaw. Whim is hinted to be something like this.
** Whim [[spoiler: eats their souls.]]
* FamilyUnfriendlyViolence - From everybody. Even Frank can be shockingly cruel.
* GeniusLoci - The Unifactor, maybe. Also, remember that monster Pushpaw ate?
* GenreBusting: Well, what the hell would ''you'' classify this comic as?
* ItRunsOnNonsensoleum
* LemonyNarrator - in one episode.
* PigMan - [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Manhog.]]
* PunnyName:
** Frank's Pa has an impostor- he's a ''Faux Pa''.
** Whenever a ''Carte Blanche'' occurs, a white cart is somewhere on the scene.
* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: Frank's Pa.
* NegativeContinuity: There's no real story to speak of, and the strips can be read in any order. This is canonically a property of the Unifactor setting.
* TransformationTrauma - Whim loves to inflict this on [[strike:people]] the inhabitants of The Unifactor.
* ThoseTwoGuys - The Jerry Chickens, in particular the conic one.
* {{Satan}}: Whim is based on the traditional cartoon devil- except he's colored ''bright blue''.
* SilenceIsGolden
* StatusQuoIsGod: The Unifactor is a place where nothing ever changes.
* SurrealHorror: It's a ''really'' weird comic, to say the least, and occasionally, things get messy.
* WhiteGloves: Frank has them, due to being a cartoon thingie.
* WildTake - Having a cartoon biology, Frank does this often.
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