Readers of the “Frank” stories know that The Unifactor is in control of everythingthat happens to the characters that abide there, and that however extremethe experiences they undergo may be, in the end nothing really changes. Thatgoes treble for Frank himself, who is kept in a state of total ineducability by theunseen forces of that haunted realm. And so the question arises: what wouldhappen if Frank were to leave The Unifactor?That question is answered in Congress of the Animals, Jim Woodring's much-anticipatedsecond full-length graphic novel, and first starring his signaturecharacter Frank. In this gripping saga an act of casual rudeness sets into motiona chain of events which propels Frank into a world where he is on his own atlast; and like so many who leave home, Frank finds himself contending withrealities of which he had no previous inkling.In Congress of the Animals we are treated to the pitiful spectacle of Frank losing his house, taking a factory job, fallingin with bad comp