Grass, river, and sky seem on the verge of weird transformations. The black and white stories achieve a similar effect through an almost obsessive use of wavy lines. The background is inked in just enough to make it flicker and flow. Whether in color or black and white, these strips show a world in which nothing is quite solid. Most cartoon drawing is highly stylized.
Incidental detail is omitted.
A few lines can be enough to convey a place, a posture, or a facial expression. The more basic the figure, the more universal it seems. Woodring, however, gives this process a special twist. His images are not reduced to their essential features, so much as they are stylized into strange shapes. These are long, flexible, segmented, tapered spindles.