Review by Frank Plowright

The formalised subtitle and the author’s cover credit as Mr. Thomas Woodruff indicates the faux Victorian construction of Francis Rothbart, although any period comparisons are contradicted by the massive coffee table production.

At its most basic Francis Rothbart is a version of the ancient fable of a human boy raised by animals, with the story of Romulus and Remus the perhaps the best known. Woodruff’s variation is the infant Francis Rothbart, abandoned when his copulating parents are struck by lightning. That’s fair indication of what’s to come, as Woodruff delights in the juvenilia of screwing and shitting, but adorned with some phenomenal art and leaden prose. Woodruff takes the occasional break from flowery and complex language to present forced rhymes, and lapses into modern terminology when convenient, prompting the suspicion that the linguistic layers disguise a lack of confidence when it comes to writing. He certainly takes considerable time to say anything, in what’s a project led by the art.

Woodruff is on sturdier ground when it comes to visual complexity, the techniques illustrative and impeccable, his pages design-oriented and often exploring duplications around a theme in the way that the infant Francis arranges his turds in orderly grids or spiral patterns. However, there’s little consideration given to a story, which is like the Disney version of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book as an abandoned youngster explores his environment naturalistically without human convention for guidance. For a long time the only interruptions to Francis’ wanderings are items unleashing Woodruff’s inner Beavis and Butthead. Where Woodruff is more likely to outrage is with the inclusion of pages pandering to paedophilia. A sequence of two young girls coming across the young Francis and playfully painting him could have conveyed innocence in numerous ways, but Woodruff chooses to have them decorate Francis’ penis, and ejaculation follows.

At the start Woodruff devotes several pages to a magpie and how its eye is drawn to shiny objects and it takes its opportunity, and on finishing reading Francis Rothbart the feeling is it’s his version of laying out the truth from the start. At one point the ongoing continuity is interrupted by a series of single page legends, each accompanied by a fantasy-based painting. These have nothing to do with the remainder, and it’s if Woodruff’s decided that if his work is to be featured in a lavish publication then he might was well throw in a few pictures he’s had hanging around the studio as well. Later paintings are more directly connected with Francis’ experiences.

The art is fantastic, and the design notable, but Woodruff has very little to say, and takes an inordinate time to say it. That’s not good comics.