If you are one of the fortunate thousands who enjoy untangling the
enigmatic images that fill Jim Woodring's comics and drawings, Problematic is
just the book for you to put under your pillow and dream on. Woodring is a
devotee of the pocket-sized Moleskine sketchbook and has filled at least one per
month since 2004. Quick concept sketches, figure studies, self-challenges,
finished drawings, revenge portraits and caricatures,
scene tryouts...
everything goes into these idea batteries. Problematic provides the adventurous
viewer with a bounty of unfiltered, hand-captured glimpses of life by an artist
that Publishers Weekly called, "a modern master of hallucinatory cartoon
fables." Lots of this material re-emerges in the form of pictures and storylines
but much of it is just too baffling to be harnessed for any practical use. Of
course, these untamable notions are the best and most interesting ones; and
there are plenty of them here in the 300-page brick of Problematic. Problematic
is a rollicking amalgam of reportage (i.e. the man who blew his arm off),
speculative anatomy, fancy women, make-a-face games, picture-puzzles, gags,
riffs and burlesques. Catalogue and exhibition simultaneously, Problematic is
your best bet for a brief, energizing stroll in a distinctively enjoyable
neighborhood.