Zany Adventures of Frank

The Zany Adventures of Frank is a series of children's novels by Justin Vuong (also the first and current President of the United States of JBR) which follows the life of a young boy named Frank Miska who is teamed up with fellow anthropomorphic friends to counter against the Axis of Darkness—a collective force of villains, conspirators, traitors, and corrupted politicians. The first book of the series is the Halloween Frenzy which introduces the reader to Frank in which he lives in the city of Henrickville, a small town located in an unnamed state of the former U.S. The boy and his friends confront the Axis of Darkness throughout the series as they collect more allies and retrieve more power by gaining mystical objects known as the Power Sources. In the last and fifteenth book of the series (The Great Collision of the Universe), the heroes finally annihilate and destroy the Axis of Darkness. The entire series is narrated by Vuong with the exception of Book 6 where one particular character narrated about his experience as a child. There is a secret organization in the series that is mentioned throughout known as the SOURS (Secret Order of United Repulsive Spies) which is an ally to the heroes and a known member of SOURS, Agent XC7B, an anthropomorphic dog, helps and invents gadgets that help Frank and his team of friends throughout the series. Since the release of the first book, the series gained much popularity among JBRicans, critical acclaim and praise, commercial success regionally, spawning four movies and four related video games along with a browser game that is currently active and boasts 20 million active players worldwide. The last book of the series, which was the longest of all of the books (928 pages), sold 800 million copies worldwide throughout Planet Bob although much of the popularity still resides in its home country, the United States of JBR.

Origins

The original work of the Zany Adventures of Frank originated from the collected works Vuong created as early as in his fourth-grade. He stumbled over these old papers shortly before the dissolution of the U.S. and published the first book on April 2010, several months before the founding of the United States of JBR. Soon, every month following April, three new books were published until August—two months before the planned founding of the government.

Plot summary

The series follows the adventures and battles faced by Frank and his animal allies (known as the Animal Team or AT) who are all based in Henrickville, USA. Frank, the main leader, is a young, immature preteen (he ages as the series advances and in the last book, he is 15) who one day finds himself in the midst of an attack by a monster near the City Hall of Henrickville. Scared, he flees until he falls into an opened manhole which he crashes into the sewage underground passage. Unharmed yet soaked, he crawls out and looks for a way out. On the way, he opens a door which reveals a room of sleeping animals. When he shrieks, the animals wake up and confront him, however, after realizing Frank is a harmless human boy, the leader of the animals, Sheerkat (a pun to meerkat), welcomes Frank. He meets Duck'in, Dogerian, Cattera, Squakia, Lil' Cookie, Shark'in, and Rebbecca (the wife of Sheerkat) Soon, the others welcome Frank as well just as the monster that attacked the town earlier fell into the enclosed room. The animals fight and eventually kill the monster right before the eyes of Frank and shocks him. Frank, believing he is just saw talking animals fighting a monster, threatens to call the FBI and have the creatures taken away, is stopped and imprisoned by the animals. After making a plea in a mock court, the animals allow Frank to live under one condition—to join and become a member of the animals' brotherhood or team. At first, Frank refuses but Duck'in, another prominent member of the team, gets out a rifle and threatens death. Frank finally gives in and accepts and the animals let him go. Frank goes back to school where his friends are paralyzed and frightened of the incident the day before. Frank makes no comment and goes by the day concentrating on his academic skills. He returns home where he does not tell his family about the animals and goes to sleep. Later, he wakes up to find the animals with him. Frank, scared, screams but eventually dragged and kidnapped by the animals. There, the animals tell him about the monster incident and a secret organization known as the Axis of Darkness. They decide to start teaching Frank immediately about the basics of fighting and assign him a uniform—similar to what the animals are wearing. They prompt him to take up a name for the sake of identity but he decides that he would make no good as a hero in the first place. The animals continue to train Frank and eventually, Frank begins to feel at home with the animals and has his first fight with a dragon-like animal. Later, a representative of the Axis of Darkness leaks into Frank's school and becomes Vice Principal. The representative constantly targets and attempts to kill Frank while Frank desperately tries to tell the others the Vice President is evil. After failing to convince his friends and even his family, Frank departs from his town with the team to retrieve a power source known as the "Source of Reveal" which would reveal the identity of the Vice Principal immediately to anyone. However, this source could only be used once. After a long trip—entering to the next book, the team returns where the Vice Principal has converted all of Henrickville as his own domain and its citizens as slaves. The Source of Reveal is now useless and the heroes battle against the representative. The representative escapes and warns that he shall return with help. The animals and Frank agree to stick together and aid the local authorities to combat against any evil force. Frank's affiliation with the animals is made known to his friends and family and he is hailed as a hero. Just a few days of honoring and pride, Frank is again confronted by yet more evil villains and monsters which the representative mentioned earlier. After a combating a deluded dating website chairman and mutant giant turkey, the team wins yet again. The team is confronted by a letter from a secret organization known as SOURS which was interested in helping the team. The team meet up with a representative of SOURS which would later be their coordinating leader and mentor. That representative identifies himself as Agent XC7B and agrees to aid the team. As the series advances, the heroes become more organized and begin fighting internationally, responding to worldwide attacks as the Axis of Darkness strengthens. Besides being a full-time hero, Frank is faced with personal issues back at home where he begins flunking school because of his missing homework, dating problems, religious violations, and arguments made at home. As his heroic career becomes to the state of nearly unbearable proportions, his personal issues worsens. His team members decide to relieve Frank of his duties temporarily where Frank sets to readjust his personal life. He returns only to find that the team has increased with two new members: Buggy and SSSS'Viper. Frank has suspicion on SSSS'Viper and begins to investigate the mysterious figure. After discovering SSSS'Viper is a member of the Axis of Darkness, he tells this to the team and the animals come to meet SSSS'Viper. SSSS'Viper at first replies as if he was innocent but later begins to admit his plot to infuriate the team and promises to fight for the good over evil. Convinced, the animals let him off the hook but Frank still has suspicion and the tension between the two heightens to the point of brutal combat with firearms. After leaking secret information to the Axis of Darkness from the AT, SSSS'Viper is banned and chased after by Frank and the AT. SOURS attempted to find the central core of the Axis of Darkness and reveal that the organization is attempting to create a new galactic order (NGO). It is revealed that the Axis of Darkness is behind nearly all of the major wars, crimes, and causes of destruction in Planet Bob and Vuong implied "...the Axis of Darkness is basically the physical object of the hands of Satan and the deep pits of hell itself..." The Axis of Darkness begins building a massive pyramid town in the Great Salt Desert of Utah where SSSS'Viper becomes Lord Viper and recruits Fearkat, as his Imperial Regent. The Axis of Darkness becomes obvious to the public as Las Vegas is bombed by terrorists assigned by the Axis of Darkness and the organization begins to bomb major cities such as New York City, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and even bombing the religious cities of the Vatican City, Jerusalem, and Mecca. This causes great anger over the world and the Axis of Darkness overthrows the U.S. government and begins the New Galactic Order. Frank and the team are sent to exile where they drift off to a distant galaxy. There, they gather power sources and befriend the galaxy's natives. Meanwhile, the Axis of Darkness is finally clarified to the reader that its leader is Prince Shadow who possesses the power to control time, space, and even people. However, it is speculated by Frank and AT that this is just to create fear to the people. The AT later come back with a large army of alien natives to confront the growing empire of the Axis of Darkness. Little by little, captured planets are freed and the rebellion continues. Seeing this, the Axis of Darkness capture the AT and place them in custody in a desert planet called Generia. At Generia, the AT is convicted of treason and rebellion and SOURS is said to be disbanded at that very moment. The AT is sentenced death by the court although the entire AT escapes and departs to Planet Bob. Many of the Axis of Darkness authorities see this as a brave act and wish to help as they too feel depressed under the Prince but fear for the lives that they can be killed right at the spot by loyalists. Prince Shadow sees that the AT is closing in to the capital and he sends a fleet of spaceships to take down the AT, SOURS, and the alien allies. This fails and Prince Shadow is forced to leave his Palace and fly away to the "other side" (his "other palace" located in Japan) of Planet Bob. AT follows Shadow before being confronted by Lord Viper and Fearkat—both who die in the end and the Prince is finally cornered. In a flash, Shadow critically injures Agent XC7B and Sheerkat along with effectively paralyzing Sharkin' permanently. The AT attempts to get the three injured heroes to the medics and Prince Shadow stalks them before being blocked by Frank. Frank later fights Prince Shadow and in the end, Shadow plummets to his death into his private volcanic pit of lava on Mount Fuji—which apparently had its opening ripped off and exposed of its magma pit. Frank returns with the AT to Henrickville where the Axis of Darkness finally disbands and leaves the Planet Bob. SOURS become the leading world government to help heal the entire planet from what the Axis of Darkness had damaged and all but Duckin' healed from their wounds. Duckin' would remain paralyzed until the epilogue of the last book when Agent XC7B successfully invents a healing pill capsule. The book ends with Frank being hailed as the leader of AT and the hero of the world.

Setting

The setting of the series seems to be an alternative world of Planet Bob where the countries before the dissolution of the U.S. occurred continue to exist and prevail much until before the New Galactic Order made by the Axis of Darkness was made in place. Except Henrickville and several locations in or out of Planet Bob, all cities mentioned in the series are based on present-day or recent establishments prior to the year of 2004.

Recurring themes and concepts

All of the books in the series pick up from the previous book (with the exception of Book 1 which is the pilot of the series) and begin with an introduction by the narrator. Constantly throughout the series in the books, the narrator remarks to the reader about his own personal experiences (most of them being made up) and intended to be humorous or unimportant. During the more serious events such as fighting or simple discussions, the narrator may narrate with comic relief, dark humor, and at times, high humor. In the last book, blue comedy and even cringe humor is found in both dialogue and narration of the series. Surreal comedy is often found throughout the series as well; mostly in dialogue however (one good example is the character Lil' Cookie, who is often depicted as an absurd and idiotic lemur who takes thing very literally.) A "monster" or a similar being almost always appear at least three times in every book of the series and almost all the time, they are left dead or collected as specimens by the AT. In every book of that features Henrickville as the main or secondary setting of the story, the mayor constantly creates silly laws and create new festivals nearly all the time that multiple celebrations must be performed at the same day.

Allusions

Much of references in the series commonly refer to more recent popular culture and Internet culture. Despite this, there are few references made to historic and literary works. The depiction and style of how the AT operate and fight is heavily satire on the stereotypical superhero found in comic strips and television. Other references include the New Galactic Order which may imply the conspiracy of the "New World Order" along with the pyramid at the Great Salt Lake Desert.

Genre

The series is intended to be a children's fiction although adult humor and adventure elements are found throughout the series. It is also a satire of neo-Victorian format of writing.

Distribution

Books

1. Halloween Frenzy
2. Love Kills
3. Turkey Attack
4. The Desirable Need
5. Business Problems
6. Complications
7. The Great Delusion
8. The Affirmed Deed
9. The Lamest Program on Television
10. His Royal Stupidness
11. Fancy a Belgian Waffle?
12. Bomb
13. Unlucky Stuff
14. Departure
15. The Great Collision of the Universe

Audio

The series has audiobooks—all which are narrated by Justin Vuong although at times Vuong's editors and publishers read some parts of the book in place of Vuong.

Reception

Reviews and Criticism

The series has mostly received positive reviews, with reviewers saying the series was well-done and well-said. Some criticized that the series ended at the 15th book, saying it should continue although Vuong says he is not looking forward in extending the series.

Sales

The series is officially said to have sold up to 800 million books worldwide although sales could be lower as low as 420 million. The story has been translated into 21 languages.

Awards

The series is currently being in consideration for nominations as "Best Childrens' Novel" in several JBRican states.