Bottomless Bellybutton by Dash Shaw

the new dash shaw

He has three new books this year btw, all with "New" in the title

Dash talking about his new books.

I have meant to buy New School for a while but I want to get it from the comics store in town I like and haven't had a chance...

it pains me to say, but i was pretty let down by New School. i don't share ytth's overall enthusiasm, but i do agree with this...

there's something about new school that feels a little unfinished - i get what he was trying to do, but (and this is weird to say about a 350-page book), but it could have used about 100 more pages of development in the middle.

...except that i don't understand what he was trying to do. he made a decision to have the main character speak in a purposefully exaggerated formal old fashioned way, but i don't think it ended up being nearly as funny or interesting as he thought it would be. i also found it difficult to get interested in any of the main characters. in bottomless bellybutton i was so sympathetic toward the frog teen, and recognized elements of myself and others in the rest of the characters. in bodyworld (still my favorite dash shaw work - i'm a bit obsessed) the oddball psychotropic professor was so enjoyable to watch, just the epitome of a slimeball. but New School...i just didn't care what happened to them!

agreed that it's a beautiful book, though.

to be less of a downer, here was a recent post on dash's tumblr that is going to cost me some $$:

I’ve been working on this tonight. I’ve just been thinking about possible presentations. I made a list of single comics that I could easily talk about, each one, for over an hour. So this isn’t my “favorite comics” list… it’s my “I can ramble on endlessly about this book, without any encouragement at all, and bore everyone” list. As of September 4th, 2013, 11pm, off the top of my head. Here you go:

Ayako / Tezuka

Inner City Romance by Guy Colwell

X-Day by Setona Mizushiro

Paying for It / Chester Brown

Underwater / Chester Brown

City of Glass adapted by Mazzucchelli / Karasik

Vengeance Squad / Pete Morisi

Ninja by Brian Chippendale

Wilson by Daniel Clowes

Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi

Black Blizzard by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

bodyworld was dope in a lot of ways, but it still sort of left me unsatisfied... like the idea of the next phase of human consciousness being an anti-individualist hivemind nightmare could have somehow been pushed in a more interesting direction. i think i will check out the new one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8epyx7pt184

i haven't watched all of this yet, but 16:45-23:00 is worth watching if you've ever read his wheel of fortune/blind date/family feud stuff, where he basically just transcribes an episode, straight up. i found these to be pretty much profoundly boring to read through, but listening to him describe his thought process gives it a bit more meaning.

to go back to zs's criticism of new school, here's my thinking on the book. some of this is from my own rumination, although reading some interviews with dash shaw also helped clarify some of his thematic choices. two that stick out are: 1) he taught english in japan as a teenager, and so alot of this book comes from personal experience (although obviously it isn't an autobiography). 2) he was trying to capture what it's like as a teenager when everything that happens to you is the most important thing that has ever happened to anyone, and a lot of the book makes more sense if you think of the narration as limited to what's in danny's head. this is interesting in comics in general, since above-panel narration is often clearly either 1st person or omnicient 3rd person, whereas speech bubbles are associated with whoever is speaking them. it messed with my head a little to try to view the entire comic as something that is limited to danny's perspective, but it works. the overwrought speech stems from this as well - it's meant to convey danny's heightened sense of the significance of everything he says. i realize his dad also talks this way, but to me that illustrates familial bonds in danny's mind, which is why it's significant that his brother stops talking like this after being on X for a while - to danny, even the language spoken by the two brothers illustrates the dissolution of family bonds. and, in a book where much of the plot is driven by teaching language to others, this disconnect between the brothers is pretty ripe for further unpacking.

i also like how clockworld compresses history and time into a single plane where everything that has ever happened is frozen in place so that people can interact with it in whatever way they want to. this is a counterpoint to the teenage perspective where everything happens so fast that it's difficult to make sense of it beyond basic emotional reactions. part of what i wish the book did more of - namely, world building on X - might not be necessary if you begin from the idea that danny's perspective drives the narrative, since he doesn't put together what life is like on X outside of what he sees in each moment. still, his transition from loving X to hating it and rebelling against clockworld is awfully abrupt, even considering the above issue of perspective/narration. the climax doesn't really ring true for me, since a lot of the action is brought about by choices the character made that didn't read as being arrived upon genuinely. (there's some overwrought language for you.) but, as i said in my earlier post, i really liked it, because even through its shortcomings it offers up so much for further discussion and consideration. it's ambitious and even a little groundbreaking, and it reinforces dash shaw's position as one of the most intelligent and creative cartoonists currently working. at some point he's going to come out with an absolute materpiece and it's going to blow my mind to bits.

xpost

interesting list! was always put off guy colwell's work by his very creepy Doll comic, maybe his 'realist' stuff is more interesting. don't know X-Day by Setona Mizushiro at all - always interested in gd new manga recommendations, will have to check it out (love Tezuka and Tatsumi, obv). the pete morisi is a bizarre choice - morisi's own backstory (policeman by day, comic book artist by night) has always struck me as being much more interesting than anything he ever actually wrote/drew - find his artwork incredibly stiff and obviously derivative of ppl like alex toth and george tuska. wilson wld not be my clowes choice.

i will cosine

Paying for It / Chester Brown

Underwater / Chester Brown

City of Glass adapted by Mazzucchelli / Karasik

Wilson by Daniel Clowes

Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi

Black Blizzard by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

man, know what i just remembered the other day? The Ruined Cast. his kickstarted animated feature length film (with help from frank santoro). i donated money to this back in April 2011. the last email update on it was from october 2013, and all it talked about was some other short film he was working on (not ruined cast) and the last update that even made a passing mention of the film was from january 2013. meanwhile, the website that he used to post work-in-progress stuff on - http://ruinedcast.com/ - isn't even live anymore.

uh

he seems to have migrated here: http://dashshaw.tumblr.com/

New book: http://www.fantagraphics.com/images/stories/previews/docsds-preview.pdf

yeah that looks innaresting
i think i read the last couple from the library & don't know if a mid-length thing is going to materialise there
also the lecture z s posts upthread is really good! there's a really wonderful section where he talks about david mazzucchelli's theory of the dumb line

man, know what i just remembered the other day? The Ruined Cast. his kickstarted animated feature length film (with help from frank santoro). i donated money to this back in April 2011. the last email update on it was from october 2013, and all it talked about was some other short film he was working on (not ruined cast) and the last update that even made a passing mention of the film was from january 2013. meanwhile, the website that he used to post work-in-progress stuff on - http://ruinedcast.com/ - isn't even live anymore.

i'm not sure if i finally managed to trigger this kickstarter update or not, but the other day i noticed that dash shaw finally got a twitter account, so i asked him if the ruined cast was still a thing or not. he answered "Yes but on hold. New movie with different producers is all drawn, now in editing/sound/redrawing phase. Updates forthcoming."

then, on saturday, they finally sent out an update to all the people who kickstarted the movie back in 2011:

Dear backers of The Ruined Cast,

We realize it’s been awhile since we’ve updated you, and we appreciate your patience. And we don’t want to bury the lead here — Dash is making something, audiovisual and animated, that he is very excited to share with the world.

It’ll be another project distinct from “The Ruined Cast,” with a distinct (and wonderfully distinctive!) producing team. While the creative development of “The Ruined Cast” proceeded beautifully due to the incredible, meaningful support of you, the backers, the financing of the film, as is often the case in the indie world, has taken some time.

In the midst of this, Dash has had the opportunity to make another movie, based on his own original script, that will show off the techniques and storytelling skills that have evolved over the course of developing “The Ruined Cast” (and this film will be the basis for the rewards for backers at the $25 and above levels). It’s a full-time endeavor, which requires putting “The Ruined Cast” on hold. We hope to circle back to “The Ruined Cast” after this new feature is completed (and we would of course provide that as an additional reward if it moves into production).

At its heart, the campaign was about getting Dash to the point of making his first feature — and that’s where he is right now. It's already drawn, is currently in the sound/editing phase, and he expects it to be ready in 2016 (when we said the work was painstaking, we weren't kidding!)
He couldn’t’ve gotten there without your support and patience, for which we’re deeply grateful.

We'll reveal details of the project as they're announced — we promise it will be worth the wait.

Our best regards and in deep gratitude,

Team Ruined Cast

in other words, you ain't getting your movie or your money back, but please give us more cash?

we don’t want to bury the lead

savages

the thing with that project is that the goals and and the rewards didn't align. they were trying to raise money to put together a pitch to financiers, but they were promising downloads of the final movie. still, it sounds like there will still be a movie, and if they do finish the ruined cast, backers will get that as well. so, it doesn't sound to me like they're doing the dreaded "this project won't happen and no one is getting refunds" update that you sometimes hear about years after the fact.

fao karl malone

CLOUGH: The influences you've listed on your comics is staggeringly varied, with film being as important as any cartoonist. How does the work of non-cartoonists influence you, especially filmmakers?

SHAW: Freshman Year at S.V.A. I made a filmmaker friend named Andrew Lucido and he introduced me to a lot of great filmmakers. Tarkovsky, Kiarostami, Bruce Conner, Michael Snow, Bella Tarr, etc., and I worked at the SVA film library for three of my four school years, so I got a strong education there too, and started going to the Anthology Film Archives and stuff like that. I'm interested in beautiful sequences, different people's ideas of what a beautiful sequence is. Andrei Tarkovsky: hate the dialogue. Best to just not read the subtitles, or turn them off, if you ask me. But I love the elemental things in his movies. Water! Smoke! Fire! Just these flowing, beautiful things of nature. "BodyWorld" and "Bottomless" and all of mycomics have these things. They're already abstract, right? Water is just wavy lines. Sand is just dots. It can be drawn a million different ways. Also the "flowing" style of the sequences, like water. Someone asked Tarkovsky why there's so much water in his movies and he said "because water is the most beautiful thing in the world." I like that answer. "The Mirror" is his best. And I like that he did Science Fiction genre stories. Abbas Kiarostami: tied with Chris Ware as greatest living artist. Kiaostami's camera is like a sketchbook. He captures sequences of reality that are so beautiful, and it appears so effortless. It's as if his camera "just happened" to be there, and it "just happened" to be this beautiful unfolding of a sequence. Like Henri Cartier Bresson, only instead of catching a moment of dynamic symmetry, Kiarostami catches moments of sequential beauty. Like Chris Ware, he's obsessed with the beauty of the world. A real humanist, too.

->

Just got New School in the mail today. Cosplayers on its way.

robert redford could be a dash shaw drawing i think

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/130118111645-robert-redford-story-top.jpg

Hah. Just finished Doctors. AMAZING.

so good

lol, redford is TOTALLY a dash shaw drawing.

also, thanks for that link, schlump! just seeing this now for some reason.

that's a really, really good interview (http://highlowcomics.blogspot.ca/2013/08/the-dash-shaw-interview.html)

http://studygroupcomics.com/main/category/contributor/dash-shaw/
complete "remastered" bodyworld

Whoa - didn't know anything about it! I've been bad about following his stuff recently, or really following anyone's work. Bodyworld remains my favorite of his, by far. Has he talked about the "remastering" of it anywhere? It'll be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison with the book to see what he's changed.

also just seeing this; yeah i really like reading him talk. i love that whole tangent he pursued about david mazzucchelli's dumb line. did you read doctors, yet? hey also did abbott read doctors yet. doctors is great.

+ i just bought cosplayers but haven't looked at it yet. there's a new one in the comic-book-day free comic book, too, i think.

I haven't read Doctors yet! ...but I just added it to my cart, so, soon. :)

whoa the remastered version of BodyWorld somehow even more depressing
i don't remember that last chapter / epilogue at all?

Read Doctors today - great story & art. I liked BBB but this is pretty great too.

doctors maybe gonna be a movie:
http://comicbook.com/2014/10/20/doctors-graphic-novel-picked-up-by-fox-david-goyer-producing/

did anybody get his free comic book day comic? i work saturdays, it is hard to be schlump, i showed up & they were all gone, i also just read #cosplayers i & am mad to be deprived of a sequel

i meant to say, i just read doctors! i kinda fell behind on his stuff but upon the last thread revive i got a copy. it's really great, one of my favorites of his. wish it was longer but that's not the worst feeling.

hey i am so pleased. isn't it great? i like it as much as any of the others, i think. whenever he's talked about his next book it's sounded like he's moving away from the 'dumb line' style of doctors & new school, & i'm almost sad; doctors felt so imaginative & reverberative, i think in part because it was so open & mixed up & spacy. i really hazily remember just the ambient sense of propriety in the woman at the beginning's home & life, or the weird beautiful spin off vignette of one of the guys who worked for the company walking around town thinking to himself about finding love. just so rich for something so succinct.

it's kinda greedy given that he's more prolific than other people, but i wish there was just an infinite conveyor belt of these books. i think he's concentrating on animation? did anybody see any of his animation stuff?

Cosplayers #3 was a FCBD exclusive?!!?

#2, but uh-huh!

it's this

http://40.media.tumblr.com/1239bc34c766116b42c5f66423de4f9d/tumblr_ngrbrrDDWO1reptzmo1_1280.jpg

in this

http://40.media.tumblr.com/977ece76d86e07466a0d69630f1e4f12/tumblr_njkr4fGpMk1r3vmmyo1_1280.jpg

really must find:

http://36.media.tumblr.com/f3c8aec14e5180622be5522058ccf384/tumblr_nfthakffBn1reptzmo1_1280.jpg

Thr third frame is so good

I bought #2 in America last September though

feel bad whenever i remember i left this ^ hanging, ty for correction, i will try to find. am about to read the free comic book day story. maximum dash in my life.

http://dashshaw.tumblr.com/post/140752905076/i-wrote-directed-the-animated-feature-film#notes

I asked multiple Fanta employees if there was a way to get the FCBD book when I was back in Seattle late last year, to no avail

Was that what happened to The Ruined Cast? I backed it on Kickstarter and never heard anything about it.

Last update from him on it was back in February 2015,

Sorry I just saw these... I am told the producers are sending an update this weekend. Obviously there is a lot to report so I will leave it to the letter to fill in. It is still going but on hold. New animation with different producers will satisfy dvd+ rewards. New animation is all drawn, currently in sound/editing phase, but still a year away. Update forthcoming and it's more in-depth than this... Thank you,

Cosplayers now to be a hardcover, boooo

can't rly figure out what it is, is it the prev comics & something new or ???

presumably the 2.5 existing issues + new

i am urging the representatives of this board to put partisan politics to one side & declare themselves Hyped for this release

there is the all-nouveau quaker thing forthcoming also

Created by acclaimed cartoonist Dash Shaw and published this month by Fantagraphics, Cosplayers is a weird book. It’s not a paean to the creative skills of folks who make their own Batsuits and Iron Man armors, and it doesn’t use them as the butt of dork-snickering jokes, either. Originally released in single issue form from 2014 to 2016, the linked vignettes in Shaw’s new graphic novel use cosplay to explore areas where the membranes between fantasy dress-up and IRL personality tensions are most porous.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/dash-shaws-graphic-novel-cosplayers-delves-into-the-wei-1786814010