In 1909 Sigmund Freud sailed to the U.S. to give a lecture on psychoanalysis. In the hall where he gave his talk sat distinguished figures such as philosopher William James and anthropologist Franz Boas—plus a room full of people who became America’s first generation of Freudians.
Frink & Freud is a graphic novel drawn from that episode and focused on a particular audience member: Horace Frink, a neurotic American who later traveled to Vienna to be psychoanalyzed by the master. The novel makes many amusing, knowing remarks about Freudian theory and the cult surrounding its founder. F&F’s historical-fiction Freud issues apt pronouncements—“The dream life of every American does not necessarily coincide with the American Dream”—as well as ironic ones. “Christopher Columbus’s America has one redeeming feature. It introduced us to tobacco,” says the man who died of cancer from smoking.
