Works by
Dash Shaw
(Artist, Cartoonist, Writer)
[April 6, 1963 - ]

BodyWorld (April 13, 2010 release) -- Nominated 2009 Eisner Award
From the astonishing imagination of Dash Shaw, visionary author of Bottomless Belly Button, comes a darkly fantastical graphic novel about a small town, a lowlife botanist, and a mysterious plant with strange powers.

It’s 2060, and a devastating civil war has left the country in shambles. Professor Paulie Panther–botanist, writer, and hopeless romantic–arrives in the experimental forest town of Boney Borough to research a strange plant growing behind the high school. As he conducts his research, he befriends some of the local residents: Miss Jem, the alluring science teacher; Billy Borg, Boney Borough’s star athlete; and Pearl Peach, the rebellious schoolgirl. Paulie soon discovers that the plant, when smoked, imparts telepathic powers. But when he shares this remarkable drug with his new friends, he finds that they’re not interested in mind-expansion. In fact, it appears that Paulie’s brash individualism might not be at all welcome in a town that prefers conformity to eccentricity.

With a bold, innovative design, BodyWorld is a mind-blowing blend of science-fiction, classic high school drama, and futuristic what-if. It is at once funny and fearless–and sure to be the graphic novel event of the year.

The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. (Nov 24, 2009 release)
From the acclaimed author of Bottomless Belly Button comes a collection of his short comics work and the designs for his new series of animation for the IFC Channel. One part MOME collection, one part authorized IFC Channel spinoff, the first quarter of this jacketed hardcover will collect the work—storyboards, scripts, character designs, etc.—that Shaw has created for a series of original shorts to begin airing on IFC in November 2009. The latter three-quarters will collect his acclaimed short stories from MOME, as well as several little-seen stories from elsewhere, and a new 20 page story.

The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. is Shaw’s first book since his breakthrough graphic novel of 2008, Bottomless Belly Button, which was named Publishers Weekly’s best graphic novel of 2008, one of Entertainment Weekly’s top ten books of 2008, and one of Amazon.com’s top ten graphic novels of the year, amongst numerous other accolades.

The book also collects Shaw’s acclaimed, genre-bending short stories from MOME, including “Look Forward, First Son of Terra Two,” a remarkable story of two lovers traveling in opposite directions… in time. Also featured: “Galactic Funnels,” the 2008 Ignatz Award nominee for “Outstanding Story,” about the parasitic relationship between an artist and his lover/mentor; “Satellite CMYK,” a sci-fi mindwarp that ingeniously drives the narrative through Shaw’s masterful control of color, and “Making the Abyss,” a fictionalized story of a surreal film set filled with nuclear tanks, hot tubs, and blind ambition.

Bottomless Belly Button (2008)
Bottomless Belly Button is a comedy-drama that follows the dysfunctional adventures of the Loony Family.

After 40-some years of marriage, Maggie and David Loony shock their children with their announcement of a planned divorce. But the reason for splitting isn't itself shocking: they’re "just not in love any more." The announcement sparks a week long Loony family reunion at Maggie and David's creepy (and possibly haunted) beach house.

The eldest child, Dennis, struggles with his parents' decision while facing difficulties of his own in his recent marriage. Believing that his parents are hiding the true reasons behind their estrangement, Dennis embarks on a quest to discover the truth and searches through clues, trap doors, and secret tunnels in attempt to find an answer. Claire, the middle child, is a single mother whose 16-year-old daughter, Jill, is apathetic to the divorce but confounded by Claire and troubled by her own "mannish" appearance. The youngest child, Peter, is a hack filmmaker suffering from paralyzing insecurities who establishes an unorthodox romance with a mysterious day care counselor at the beach.

In a six-day period rich with atmospheric sequences, these characters stumble blindly around one another, often ignoring their surroundings and consumed by their own daily conflicts. Visually, Shaw employs a leisurely storytelling pace that allows room for exploring the interconnecting relationships among the characters and plays to his strength as a cartoonist — small gestural details and nuanced expressions that bring the characters to vivid and intimate life.

If the controversial R.D. Laing wrote an episode of The Simpsons, it might read something like Bottomless Belly Button.

The Mother's Mouth (2006)
The startling new comic-tragic book from the artist The Comics Journal describes as "the scarily young and skillful Dash Shaw." In a pre-Katrina New Orleans, a woman starts dating a younger man who reminds her of her deceased ex-boyfriend. They begin re-enacting scenes from her previous relationship as a psychodrama to correct her haunting past. Replete with Pac-Man ghost spirits, Michael Jackson, children's drawings and deathtrap sandboxes, The Mother's Mouth is smarter, unsentimental Blankets that will be THE weirdo romance book of 2006. Not to be missed.

Goddess Head (2005)