Frank -- who looks a bit like a '30s cartoon character -- ambles through gorgeously fluid, plotless dreamscapes. He becomes frightened by a rope-thin devil creature and a snarling ''Manhog''; he experiences bliss, loneliness, and friendship with smaller, equally unknowable creatures. Francis Ford Coppola, penning the intro to artist Jim Woodring's collection, gives up: ''I hardly know how to describe it.'' But like the rest of Woodring's cult, we do know Frank exerts an emotional wallop: The surreality of it is richly funny and emotional.

