As we know from the global financial meltdown, bad real estate deals will always be the cause of man’s undoing. And Frank’s, too. He’s the cartoon creation of Jim Woodring, whose Congress of the Animals (Fantagraphics, $19.99) has the poor white-gloved feline fellow lose his house, rebuild one he can’t afford, then go to work in a cruel factory to pay the bill. It’s capitalism in action, only without words (or even page numbers)—just a succession of black-and-white panels that delve deeper and deeper into a dream world. Frank’s adventures take place in a kind of Byzantine fun-house phantasmagoria of windows-slash-orifices, faces without faces, and extruded intestines. The spirit is like Disney meets Hieronymus Bosch, a comic surrealism in which Frank undergoes an exile and return from his beloved home. Where, waiting faithfully for him are his two pets, which resemble the offspring of a toaster and a cat. BRIAN MILLER

Thu., June 30, 7 p.m., 2011