For more than twenty years, Jim Woodring’s elegantly wordless “Frank” comics have immersed readers in a dreamlike, richly allegorical milieu which is equal parts unsettling and whimsical. 2010’s Weathercraft is Woodring’s first long-form work and possibly his best-realized. It follows one character’s ascension from total debasement into a kind of unexpected nobility.
Check It Out Category: Picks by John
John’s Pick: The Sandbaggers
Running from 1978 to 1980 on British TV, The Sandbaggers was essentially the antithesis of the James Bond movies. It replaced exotic locations and outlandish action sequences with a John le Carre-flavored down-to-earth emphasis on the political and emotional cost of espionage work, and was never less than totally absorbing.
John’s Pick: Paranoia Agent
Paranoia Agent was the late anime master Satoshi Kon’s sole foray into television; this enigmatic, visually arresting and borderline Lynchian series follows a disparate group of Tokyo residents whose lives are impacted by a string of mysterious assaults.
John’s Pick: Field Music (Measure)
With their third album, Field Music (Measure), UK indie-rock outfit Field Music have definitively mutated beyond their conspicuous XTC influences, taking apart their compelling guitar-pop melodies and reassembling them into a magnetically complex double-disc, kaleidoscopic epic.
John’s Pick: Phase IV
Phase IV was the celebrated graphic designer Saul Bass’ lone film as a director, a cerebral and visually assured science fiction exercise depicting an ordinary ant colony unnervingly transformed into a genuinely alien intelligence.