When The Stranger gave cartoonist Jim Woodring a Genius Award for literature last year, several poets threw tantrums: How can a man whose books often don’t contain a single word, they whined, win a literature award? Here’s how: Every one of Woodring’s comics is an epic poem, a psychedelic novel, and a deeply personal memoir. If you can’t identify with his protagonist, the innocent-but-fickle Frank, there’s something wrong with you. And if we didn’t give him a Genius Award last year, we would have given it to him this year—Congress of the Animals is his best book yet. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, 7 pm, free)
Jim Woodring
Comments are closed.
Take that, poets!
Poets should move to Canada or Italy.
Just one frame of Jim’s books can be more expressive than the entire word count of most books of poetry.
If only there was some pithy way to explain this to people.
See you tonight genius.