(W/A/CA) Thomas Woodruff A stunning, head-turning, 'graphic opera' masterpiece from an acclaimed painter and illustrator. Francis Rothbart follows a feral child who is raised by magpies and other creatures and is repeatedly struck by lightning. Because of these phenomena, the child develops eccentric talents, which he then abuses, leading to his ultimate destruction by the same natural world that once nurtured him. Written mostly in rhymed verse, Francis's picaresque saga unfolds in an allegorical environment, much like the topographical constructions behind renaissance religious paintings. Referencing both the Venetian landscapes of Bellini, Pierro di Cosimo, and Carpaccio, mixed with the unlikely animated backdrops of Jay Ward and Chuck Jones, Woodruff's images recall the fictive gardens of a paradise lost that lingers somewhere deep in all our souls, moist and dark like the caves of the pious saints. Combining both paintings and drawings, each scene is a visual and verbal feast that transports us to a place in which trees anthropomorphize into figures bending from the weight of s