Dash Shaw (born April 6, 1983) is an American comic book writer/artist and animator. He is the author of the

graphic novel A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

s ''Cosplayers'', ''Doctors'', ''New School'', and ''Bottomless Belly Button'', published by

Fantagraphics Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and (formerly) the Erotic comics, erotic Eros Comix imprint. They have managed sev ...

. Additionally, Shaw has written ''Love Eats Brains'' published by Odd God Press, ''GardenHead'' published by Meathaus, ''The Mother's Mouth'' published by

Alternative Comics Alternative comics or independent comics cover a range of American comic book, American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alterna ...

, and ''BodyWorld'' published by

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint. Founded in 1942 as an independent publishing house in New York City by Kurt and Helen Wolff, it specialized in introducing progressive European works to American readers. In 1961, it was ...

. Shaw's comic short stories have appeared in many different anthologies, newspapers and magazines. His square-sized short stories were collected in the 2005 book ''GoddessHead'' published by Hidden Agenda Press. His comics are known for their emphasis on emotional, lyrical logic and innovative design. He was named one of the top ten artists to check out at the 2002 "Small Press Expo" when he was 19 years old. He also writes lyrics and plays with James Blanca in the weirdo pop band ''Love Eats Brains!'' and has co-written and acted in various short film projects. Shaw is the director of the animated features '' My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea'' (2016) and '' Cryptozoo'' (2021).

Early life

Shaw credits his father as an inspiration, saying they made comics together before he could read. His father wrote the text and Dash did the illustrations. During high school, Shaw was the lead illustrator for the Richmond Times-Dispatch's teen section. After they discontinued that section of the newspaper, Shaw started self-publishing mini-comics. He printed the first issue of ''Love Eats Brains!'' during his freshman year of college. Shaw studied at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

,Judith Salavetz and Spencer Drate. ''Creating Comics!'', 2010, Rockport Publishers, pages 128-130 graduating with a BFA in Illustration in 2005.

Career

Throughout college and since, Shaw has published

sequential art In comics studies, sequential art is a term proposed by comics artist Will Eisner Will Eisner, '' Comics and Sequential Art'', Poorhouse Press, 1990 (1st ed.: 1985), p. 5. to describe art forms that use images deployed in a specific order for the ...

short stories in a variety of publications in the United States and abroad, plus numerous magazine illustrations. Shaw's ''Bottomless Belly Button'' was published by

in June 2008. His ''BodyWorld'' webcomic was bought by

and published in a single printed volume in April 2010.Dash Shaw, Pantheon Ink Deal
''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', August 19, 2008 ''Bottomless'', an exhibition of Shaw's original drawings, storyboards, color background overlays and a new video animation, was on display at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

's John Hope Franklin Center from September 25 through October 31, 2008. In the years following Bottomless Belly Button, Shaw published numerous short stories in comics form, and serialized the science-fiction story ''BodyWorld'' on dashshaw.com. It received an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are awards for creative achievement in American comic books. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the comic industry and often referred ...

nomination for Best Digital Comic in 2009. Late 2009 saw the release by Fantagraphics of ''The Unclothed Man In the 35th Century A.D.'', a collection of short stories that Shaw had previously published in MOME, along with several pages of storyboards and other ephemera from his animated shorts for IFC. In 2010,

released the collected chapters of ''BodyWorld'' in the form of a graphic novel, In 2013, releases from Shaw included the zine-style mini-comic ''New Jobs'' ( Uncivilized Books), the comic-book length shorts collection ''3 New Stories'' (Fantagraphics), and Shaw's next graphic novel, ''New School'' (Fantagraphics). ''New School'' takes place on an island preparing for an influx of English-speaking tourists upon the completion of a massive theme park depicting periods throughout history. It follows two brothers, one who has taken a job teaching English to island locals and another who has come to retrieve his sibling. In the course of the book, both brothers experience alienation from their surroundings and conflicts with the locals. NPR called ''New School'' "striking and enigmatic," while Publishers Weekly described the book as "an unusual combination of bildungsroman, travelogue, and intellectual thriller." Shaw produced the three-part miniseries '' Clue: Candlestick'' for

IDW comics IDW Publishing is an American publisher of comic books, graphic novels, art books, and comic strip collections. It was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Idea and Design Works, LLC (IDW) and is recognized as the fifth-largest comi ...

in 2019.

Technique and materials

Shaw employs a combination of hand drawing, animation techniques and

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe for Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editin ...

to produce his artwork. Shaw started working on acetate sheets while studying at the

. Pointing to pre-

comics that were colored via clear

celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common present-day ...

containing the black line art, under which would be placed a board with the painted colors, Shaw explains that he took this process and combined it with

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

-style use of celluloid, where the backs of the acetate are painted with

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...

and laid over a painted background, in addition to color separations where black line art is used to mark the different colors. In addition to using hand-drawing media such as crow quill pens,

colored pencil A colored pencil (American English), coloured pencil (Commonwealth English), colour pencil (Indian English), map pencil, pencil crayon, or coloured/colouring lead (Canadian English, Newfoundland English) is a type of pencil constructed of a na ...

s, and markers, Shaw incorporates

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

, Photoshop, and painting directly over photocopies, though he does not work with a separate line art layer, preferring to treat black as simply another color, and not a separate or more important element. On ''BodyWorld'', for example, Shaw did the color separations by hand, used the paint bucket tool in Photoshop to color the shapes, and then printed it out and painted over the photocopy, before scanning it again and making final adjustments in Photoshop to achieve the final art. Shaw explains that his key motive is combining what he likes about hand drawing with the processes available in Photoshop. He has stated that he does not own a drawing tablet, and that his actual knowledge of Photoshop is limited, compared to most mainstream colorists who rely on it exclusively, explaining, "that coloring leaves me cold."

Animation

His animation influences include

Winsor McCay Zenas Winsor McCay ( – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip ''Little Nemo'' (1905–1914; 1924–1927) and the animated film ''Gertie the Dinosaur'' (1914). For contractual reasons, he w ...

Osamu Tezuka Osamu Tezuka (, born , ''Tezuka Osamu'', – 9 February 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and animator. Considered to be among the greatest and most influential cartoonists of all time, his prolific output, pioneering techniques an ...

(in particular his work on '' Astroboy''), and other 60s

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

shows like ''

Speed Racer ''Speed Racer'', also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tatsuo Yoshida. It was originally serialized in print in Shueisha's 1966 ''Shōnen Book''. It was released in form by Sun Wide Comics and later re-re ...

'', the 1973 cult films ''

Belladonna of Sadness is a 1973 Japanese adult animated drama film produced by the animation studio Mushi Production and distributed by Nippon Herald Films. It is the third and final entry in Mushi Production's adult-oriented '' Animerama'' trilogy, following '' ...

'' and ''

Fantastic Planet ''Fantastic Planet'' (; , ) is a 1973 animated science fiction film directed by René Laloux. Its allegorical story, about humans living on a strange planet dominated by giant humanoid aliens who consider them animals, is based on the 1957 nov ...

'',

limited animation Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation. Early history The use of budget-cutting and time-saving animation measures in animation dates back to the earliest commerc ...

(including ''

A Charlie Brown Christmas ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' is a 1965 animated television special. It is the first TV special based on the comic strip ''Peanuts'', by Charles M. Schulz, and features the voices of Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Kathy Steinberg, Tracy Str ...

''),

Ralph Bakshi Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is a Mandatory Palestine-born American retired animator and filmmaker, known for his fantastical animated films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent anim ...

and

Suzan Pitt Suzan Pitt Kraning (born Suzan Lee Pitt; July 11, 1943 – June 16, 2019), known professionally as Suzan Pitt, was an American film director, animator, painter, and fashion designer best known for her surrealist animated shorts, including ''Aspa ...

. Shaw's first animated feature film '' My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea'' had its world premiere at the

2016 Toronto International Film Festival The 41st annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 8 to 18 September 2016. The first announcement of films to be screened at the festival took place on 26 July. Almost 400 films were shown. Awards The festival's final awards were ...

(TIFF) in September 2016 and was also shown at the New York Film Festival (NYFF). It features the voices of Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph and Susan Sarandon. He was also responsible for the "comic book" scenes in

John Cameron Mitchell John Cameron Mitchell (born April 21, 1963) is an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, singer, songwriter, producer and director. He is known as the writer, director and star of the 2001 film ''Hedwig and the Angry Inch (film), Hedwig and t ...

's 2010 film '' Rabbit Hole'' and the animated dream sequence on an episode of the controversial

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

series ''

13 Reasons Why ''13 Reasons Why'' (also stylized as ''TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY'') is an American teen drama television series based on the 2007 novel '' Thirteen Reasons Why'' by author Jay Asher. Developed for Netflix by Brian Yorkey and with Selena Gomez ser ...

'' alongside Jane Samborski.

''Cryptozoo''

His next feature '' Cryptozoo'', about

1960s File:1960s montage.png, Clockwise from top left: U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; the Beatles led the British Invasion of the U.S. music market; a half-a-million people participate in the Woodstock, 1969 Woodstock Festival; Neil Armstrong ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

zookeepers trying to capture a mysterious creature, was released in early 2021 at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

where it won the NEXT Innovator Award. It was also nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the

37th Independent Spirit Awards The 37th Film Independent Spirit Awards, honoring the best independent films and television series of 2021, were presented by Film Independent on March 6, 2022. Traditionally held the Saturday before the Academy Awards, the 2022 date marks a shi ...

Works

Graphic novels

*''Bottomless Belly Button'' (Fantagraphics, 2008) *''BodyWorld'' (Pantheon Books, 2009) *''New School'' (Fantagraphics, 2013) *''Doctors'' (Fantagraphics, 2014) *''Cosplayers'' (Fantagraphics, 2016) *''Clue: Candlestick'' (IDW Comics, 2019) *''Discipline'' (New York Review Comics, 2021) *''Blurry'' (New York Review Comics, 2024)

Comics and story collections

*''GardenHead'' (Meathaus, 2002) *''Love Eats Brains! A Zombie Romance'' (Odd God Press, 2004) *''GoddessHead'' (Hidden Agenda Press, 2005) *''The Mother's Mouth'' (Alternative Comics, 2006) *''Virginia'' (Ça et Là, 2009) *''The Unclothed Man In the 35th Century A.D.'' (Fantagraphics, 2009) *"Dr. Strange vs. Nightmare" story in ''Strange Tales'' #1 (Marvel, 2009) *Spider-man story in ''Strange Tales II'' #1 (Marvel, 2010) *''New Jobs'' (Uncivilized Books, 2013) *''3 New Stories'' (Fantagraphics, 2013) *''A Cosplayers Christmas'' (Fantagraphics, 2016) *''Structures 57-66'' (Uncivilized Books, 2019) *''Courier'' (Bomb Magazine, 2024)

Covers only

*''Go-Bots'' #1 Cover C (IDW Comics, 2018) *''Go-Bots'' #2 Cover B (IDW Comics, 2018) *''Go-Bots'' #3 Cover B (IDW Comics, 2018)

Short animations

*''The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.'' (IFC.com animated series, 2009) *''Blind Date 4'' (2011) *''Wheel of Fortune'' (2012) *''Seraph'' (Sigur Rós music video, cowritten with John Cameron Mitchell, 2012)

Films

*''My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea'' (2016) *''Cryptozoo'' (2021)

Other work

As illustrator

*''Ant Dodger'' (poems by Bill Knott; self-published, 2024) *''Windy but Nice'' (poems by Tomaz Salamun; co-published with Black Ocean, 2022) *''The Seasons'' (poems by Michael Robins; co-published with Robbins, 2021) *''My Beautiful Despair: The Philosophy of Kim Kierkegaardashian'' (Gallery Books, 2018)

References

External links

*
Dash Shaw interview about his Sundance winner ''Cryptozoo''

Deadline article about Shaw signing with UTA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Dash People from Hollywood, Los Angeles School of Visual Arts alumni Alternative cartoonists Living people Sundance Film Festival award winners American collage artists American animators Collage filmmakers 1983 births