Bottomless Bellybutton by Dash Shaw

The Haunted High School

Only just read BBB (had been put off by the title, until I actualy saw the book and fell in love)--what an ace thing it is!

The Haunted High School = loooooooooooooooooooooool

^ troo

hay ladeeeez:

"If I run out of money, I’ll move back to Richmond, where I paid 200 dollars a month for a shitty room, and work as a figure-drawing model again for 12 bucks an hour. I drew all of Bottomless that way, but right now I have even more time to do whatever I want. I don’t know how long it’ll last."

from http://www.bigshinyrobot.com/reviews/archives/10987

the back and forth with dash and david mazzuchelli in the 300th comics journal is illuminating.
dude doesn't like David B, which I am surprised by and sympathetic to; says his work looks like illuminated script.

what does that mean

that the pictures compliment the words instead of working with them to create a story. I get the same problem with Pope's work. It's the difference between illustrating and cartooning.

i have to get cj 300. i've been putting it off, but those intergenerational interviews are a really fucking cool idea.

Man I don't get that re Pope at ALL

the words can at times be pointless or lame in Pope works, but the art is never illustrating them - his storytelling is all cartooning, it's the prose that's occasionally redundant ( and rarely that, just that he's not a GOOD prose or dialogue writer [and it's usually Popey enough that you get a good effect from it that different writing wouldn't - I'm thinking here of the Bugs in THB, for eg])

PS: drunk

the redundancy of text is another facet of the same problem. Illustrated text can certainly be done well (Hal Foster comes to mind immediately) but it's a different animal that cartooning.

cj300 is great. Chaykin vs HChe Anderson and Matt Fraction v Denny O' Neill are great. They're all great. I find CJ's criticism and reporting preachy and near unreadable but the reprinting of classic material and industry interviews make it a must-read every month for me.

man he is SO OFF about david b. at least re. "epileptic."

i know you and douglas love the guy but I can't really track him.

i'm not saying you need to bow before dude like he's the burning bush -- though i would definitely class "epileptic" top ten of the decade -- but there's so much of his stuff that's dependent on the visuals to "work" that i just think shaw's way off base. but at the same time, yeah: i suspect david b. would be an equally excellent prose author, whereas i can't imagine reading a mazzucchelli or shaw _novel_ and getting as much out of it as their comics.

(all of my david b. books are 100 miles away right now so i cant pull out specific examples so mea culpa.)

oh for sure.
not to be spoilery, but the "do you think you look like a frog" thing is only do-able in this medium. come to think of it, like 90% of polyp is impossible to imagine in non-comics form too.
fwiw, mazzucchelli loves david b

in shaw's defense, once i sit down and read "bodyworld" in one book-sized chunk, i'll probably end up rating it above "epileptic." dude's chops as a formalist are just freaky scary for his age.

his use of color alone just makes my head spin/heart swell. (and is -- potential heresy alert -- more radical/effective than mazzucchelli's in polyp.)

that's saying a lot. you know that mazzucchelli was his teacher for awhile, right?
i'm real excited to read bodyworld; i've avoided reading it online so i can get the one sitting read effect.

shaw's definitely TRYING to be more radical than polyp - the formal use of colour is actually pretty reserved [even obvious] in polyp, it's just that everything it's doing is stuff that no-one normally bothers, cares or tries to do in comics

yeah i guess it's just the philistine in me that reads "reserved" as "obvious," at least until i remember that 75 percent of what passes for "good color" in comics still looks like the artist/colorist wiped the pages somewhere unpleasant.

another way of saying it that's possibly less divisive/defensible: polyp's use of color: depicting emotional states. bodyworld's use of color: as much for dramatic/narrative effect as anything else.

nb: i'm on like my third bourbon (and approximately four hours of sleep) if this makes no sense/if i'm stating the obvious.

also "less divisive/_more_ defensible"

read Bottomless Bellybutton and Bodyworld yesterday. This guy is now my favourite person ever.

Going to go back and decode the stuff in Bottomless Bellybutton that I didn't bother with when I was reading it.

His collaboration with Ted Tom Kaczynski in the latest issue of MOME is pretty great. It's beautifully drawn, and has an intriguing digital dystopia setup which is bizarre but logical in a funny kind of way. The inhabitants are "living" as digital copies, but they're stuck in the Uncanny Valley which makes some inhabitants "bio-nostalgic" for their lives as hard copies (AKA, their human bodies). Any comic short that gets you to look up "Dyson sphere" on wikipedia deserves accolades imo. But then, it just...ends. It wraps up. Always leave 'em wanting more, I guess.

didn't know bodyworld was available yet, gotta get that

The hardcover isn't out yet. I think the release date is April. The online version has been available for free on his website, though.

yeah i just read it online. Will definitely buy it when it's available. Thought it was a great improvement on Bottomless, which i loved anyway.

Yeah...I liked BBB a lot, but I never thought that the same guy who wrote that would be producing these awesome sci-fi stories.

agreed!

the unclothed man in the 35th century AD is a pretty awesome sci fi story too... also, tom kaczynski is awesome in his own right - i've only read his mome stories, but they're all fantastic.

'Any comic short that gets you to look up "Dyson sphere" on wikipedia deserves accolades imo.'

It might be homage to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1__ZyAOQuc

When Riker goes, "A Dyson sphere?", Picard goes, "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it" then I swear he mutters "YOU IGNORANT AMERICAN" under his breath.

re: bottomless bellybutton, I read somewhere the guy just walked up to gary groth with no references and dropped a 40 pound manuscript on him and the next day groth called him up and said, "Hey you, I must publish this." How many times has this approach ever worked in comics?

is that true? he wasn't exactly a no-name before BBB came out, although he was a much smaller name.

tbh I had never read Bodyworld because I always figured I'd wait until the print edition came out, but my willpower broke down last night and I started reading it. This made me lol for some reason:

http://i50.tinypic.com/htd5w5.jpg

I don't want to skip to the end and ruin it, but can someone tell me if the full story is online, or does it cut off early?

(According to his bloggins he's also at work on a new comic called Torture Hospital.)

It's all online, but from what I understand the print version has extra, new or revised material, so you might just want to get that one if you can wait.

http://i49.tinypic.com/24xna0y.jpg
Last thing I'll mention this before actually reading all of it, promise. :)

man i really want that book!

http://dashshaw.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-abyss-mocca-show.html

Kinda tempted to head out for his appearance, though I'm always too lazy to show up for these things... haven't been to a Mocca thing in years.

dieball trophy!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7kulKsz6MeQ/S6FJoAHDQtI/AAAAAAAAAXc/VSztOGXuDtk/s1600/dash_composite.jpg

planning on seeing him sign bodyworld april 13 at the strand; any other ny'ers wanna go with me?

ditto for me in SF/berkeley!

well, on april 26th - 28th, not on the 13th (obv)

Oh hell yes – Body World came in the mail today. The title page says it's "Intended for the 'ideal reader'" and to read it "naked in bed."

ha ha, i got that today too <3. acne novelty library.
have not gone further than the first few pages, while i finish up something else; kinda curious to see if unfolding the map is as integral as intended. it is a weird shiny object.

having read it on the internet i would say no, but maybe try and read it with the map in mind just to please ol' dash.

also i must buy this!

bought my signed copy yesterday it's kind of scaring me a bit in its monotlithicness

also got it in the mail 2 days ago.

mine should come in on monday... he's doing a few signings in the bay area, so i'll be sure to bring it. if anyone else is dying for a signed copy, let me know!

http://www.movieline.com/2010/04/new-sundance-lab-projects-include-ondi-timoner-dash-shaw.php

with james cameron mitchell!

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

^ i liked this + am hyped to pickup cosplayers christmas

also hey what is this v bottomless bellybutton wave sketch-
http://dashshaw.tumblr.com/image/154405575281

I ordered the Cosplayers collection ages ago, was supposed to get it before xmas and got two to give one as a gift, but it's been pushed back.

6 years ago i contributed to dash's The Ruined Cast kickstarter - his first feature animated film. today i got this update:

Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for all of your patience!

Sometimes the path from a film’s development (which this campaign supported) to production takes unexpected turns. In this particular case, along the way to putting together The Ruined Cast, Dash had an opportunity to make another movie, also written by him, applying the techniques and lessons learned during the work that you supported.

The outcome of this campaign meets — and hopefully you’ll agree, exceeds — the bar that we intended, of Dash making his first animated feature film.

The movie is My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, which played to rave reviews over the past several months at the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and Fanastic Fest. It opens on 4/14 at the Metrograph in NYC and the Nuart in Los Angeles. Dash will be at the Metrograph screenings throughout opening weekend. The other theatrical dates are listed on this site:
https://www.highschoolsinking.com/

here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdGKrvM9KgE

starring...jason schwartzman? lena dunham? reggie watts? maya rudolph? and...susan sarandon??

really looking forward to this

"just jump - i'm buff enough to catch you!"

lol

apparently 6 years ago i backed the project at the "A limited-edition print of an image from the film suitable for framing!" level, so looking forward to getting my susan sarandon print in the mail!

I backed it 6 years ago too, but I got a poster already for it, printed by a guy I later ended up working with a bit.

oh hey this is showing in my city next month, must remember to go see

i haven't kept up with this dude's work since bodyworld

Doctors and Cosplayers are both great

http://www.tcj.com/curating-the-metrograph-bookstore/

i'll try to find some of those. probably should've made the effort to see him this weekend at the Metrograph

whoa, that's awesome forks, thanks. i've been reading through his other articles on tcj.com:

http://www.tcj.com/dash-shaw-day-one/ (discipline)
http://www.tcj.com/dash-shaw-day-two/ (cosplayers)
http://www.tcj.com/dash-shaw-day-three/ (high school sinking)
http://www.tcj.com/dash-shaw-day-four/ (u.s. premiere of high school sinking at fantastic fest)
http://www.tcj.com/dash-shaw-day-five/ (more thoughts about fantastic fest)

(i put what they're about in parentheses). they're really well written, just a casual look into his process and what he's thinking about as works on various projects. for example, this bit describing his work on high school sinking:

When I first started making longer animations (the IFC webseries I did in 2009) I would only storyboard. I’d read that that’s what Miyazaki did. He’d storyboard and then people would write scripts based on his boards. That made the most sense to me, as I believed film was primarily a visual medium (something I no longer think).

However, in order to get other people involved (like actors, and producers, and editors) I had to start writing scripts for them. I spent years writing scripts for different projects and went to the 2010 Sundance Screenwriting Labs and did a lot of back-and-forth working and reworking scripts only to have them change dramatically once I storyboarded them.

Now what I’ve arrived at is this: I write a script (which takes a year or two), show it to some people, and then storyboard it and then rewrite the script based on the storyboards. The storyboarding happens in the middle and I consider it part of the scriptwriting process. Jason Schwartzman told me that when he was offered The Grand Budapest Hotel, he was sent simultaneously the script and a private Vimeo link to a drawn animatic of the entire movie with Anderson doing all of the voices. When I heard that, it completely made sense to me… Movies are so complicated and expensive, and screenplays are difficult to decode. You have to in some way completely visualize it and have something to show to get other people involved and on the same page. Especially when you’re making an animated thing with an unusual aesthetic, it’s nearly impossible to just hand someone a screenplay of it. I was only able to get the High School Sinking cast after I had the majority of the film drawn. I was able to show producers and other people sections of the movie and say, “This is what this is — I’m making this thing and I want you involved.” Which is a completely different position than “Here’s a word document describing something I want to make.”