The Book of Jim

The Book of Jim is a 1993 collection of short comics stories by American cartoonist Jim Woodring. It collects most of the material from the first volume of Woodring's Jim magazine, including color reproductions of the covers of the four issues, plus four pages of new material in full color. It includes an introduction by Mark Martin, with whom he was producing the series Tantalizing Stories at the time.

The cover of the book contains the byline, "The punitively memorable best from Jim Woodring's notorious autojournal."

The book ranked #71 on The Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century.

Overview
The book is a collection of different short pieces, mostly in black and white. Most of the comics are based on Woodring's own dreams, translated verbatim into comics from his dream journal. The stories have been described as "autobiographical", though they are not strictly based on events from Woodring's waking life.

Several of the pieces ("Tales of Bears", "The Hour of the Kitchen", "Screechy Peachy", "Horse Sinister", "Dinosaur Cage", "When the Lobster Whistles on the Hill", "Good Medicine", "My Dreamhouse") are prose pieces, most of which are illustrated. They are written in an automatic, stream of consciousness style that can be bewildering and disturbing.

Contents
A dream comic which "begins and ends with images of Woodring’s cartoon alter-ego[...]drawing, or rather trying to draw, a process filled with frustration." "Jim" is frustrated with his lack of ability in an art class. Through a series of ever-changing scenes, "Jim" eventually builds his confidence back up, only to have it torn down again when he returns to the art class. Pages advertising items handmade and sold by Woodring
 * 1) Author's Note
 * 2) Introduction by Mark Martin
 * 3) "Two Children Inadvertently Kill an Agent of the Devil Through an Excess of Youthful High Spirits"
 * 4) "What the Left Hand Did"
 * 5) "Cheap Work/My Hero is a Bastard"
 * 6) "Tales of Bears (part 1)"
 * 7) "The Lousy Show"
 * 8) "Invisible Hinge"
 * 9) "At the Old Estate"
 * 10) "Let's Play"
 * 11) "Enough is Enough"
 * 12) "The Hour of the Kitten"
 * 13) Covers to Jim #1-4 (full color)
 * 14) "Screechy Peachy" (full color, previously unpublished)
 * 15) "Particular Mind"
 * 1) "Horse Sinister"
 * 2) "Powerland"
 * 3) "Big Red"
 * 4) "Pulque"
 * 5) "Barnyard Trouble"
 * 6) "Dinosaur Cage"
 * 7) "Nidrian Gardener"
 * 8) "Seafood Platter From Hell"
 * 9) "Pillar of Stew"
 * 10) "When the Lobster Whistles on the Hill (part 1)"
 * 11) "Good Medicine"
 * 12) "Li'l Rat"
 * 13) "Big Red"
 * 14) "My Dreamhouse"
 * 15) Jimland Novelties

This collects most of the material from the four issues of Jim Volume 1, and adds the four-page full-color Screechy Peachy.

The non-Frank material from Jim Volume 2 remains uncollected as of April 2011.

Reception
The book didn't sell impressively, but has been widely praised. It was ranked #71 on the Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century.

Alan Moore provided this quote: ""Jim Woodring's stories manage, by some occult means, to be at once unsettlingly alien and intimately familiar. The effect is not unlike opening a new book to find the illustrated account of a dream you once had when you were five and told no one about. Cryptic and haunting, Woodring's work evokes a sense of something important and forgotten. Easily the most hypnotic talent to enter the field in years.""

- Alan Moore