Dash Shaw's BodyWorld
By Henry ChamberlainJun 26, 2008 - 23:03:21 PM
Writer(s): Dash Shaw
Penciller(s): Dash Shaw
Inker(s): Dash Shaw
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BodyWorld: The Other Side to Bottomless Belly Button
Shaw demonstrates a quirky and rebellious streak in his story telling in Bottmless Belly Button and really goes to town in his Web comic, BodyWorld. You really want to feel sad for the dad in Bottomless Belly Button in any conventional way? Well, he makes a cameo of sorts in BodyWorld as a creepy guy in a run-down hotel so keep that in mind.
This is Dash Shaw doing in Web comics what Quentin Tarantino does in film. The characters in BodyWorld are broad in the same way they are in Pulp Fiction and in Bottomless Belly Button. This gives you a feeling of them being sort of throw-away characters until you're given any reason to maybe feel otherwise. You don't need to lose yourself in these characters. Instead, you plunge yourself into the craziness.
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The layout of BodyWorld is in many ways no different from that of a comic for print. You could certainly enjoy this as a printed book. But, the very nature of the Web, seeps into the work. You, as an artist, come to the work with an altered outlook. It's all sorts of factors: the pages are no longer pages but part of a continuous comics that is scrolled down, there is very little gap from the time the comic is completed to when it is up live for all to see and, the biggest production change, color is now an unlimited option. All of this and more comes into play in this Web comic.
The colors in BodyWorld are garish and gritty befitting such an oddball tale. This is a weekly comic so the story line is episodic but Shaw is good at providing a seamless quality to what we read. And the story seems to really have a life of its own. Feedback from viewers may play a role as well as the fact that the artist becomes more of an active player in a work that is developing before everyone's eyes. It brings to mind a moment in this comic when the main character, Paulie Panther, while desperately attempting to explain a crucial fact, has to admit that, at best, he's making stuff up as he goes.
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The opening scenes to BodyWorld say it all. You have a tall lanky man stumbling along and boarding a train. This is Paulie. He is a bundle of nerves and can't sit still. Finally, he finds relief by going to the rest room, taking mass quantities of drugs and bashing his head into a mirror. Shards of glass are embedded into his forehead. He actually looks a lot better. Hunter S. Thompson look out. This sort of mayhem continues as he rents a hotel room. The front desk clerk in a sumo wrestler. The fee for the room is "ten creds." The TV in the room doesn't work since the tube has been busted in. If you've gotten this far, you're probably hooked.
There's been a long and bloody civil war in this America of the future. The hope for a better life for all citizens seems to be within protected communities such as Boney Borough. This is where Paulie goes in search of a better life or a better scam. He meets and seems to fall in love with a member of the local college faculty, Miss Jewels, who is a voluptous woman in a skin-tight dress. When Paulie, as "Professor Panther," suspects odd vibrations coming from a rare plant specimen, Jewels slips off her pumps and tests the ground with her feet. She stares out and sighs. She plays with a hole in his shirt. Paulie has met his match.
The other love interest is between two college kids, Pearl and Billy. They are right out of a Archie comic but only in looks. They are corn-fed wholesome types with Billy lagging far behind in development. It is only a matter of time before Pearl wanders off and into the very unlikely scrawny arms of Paulie. But this only the beginning of the story because the connection between Paulie and Pearl is not what it may seem at all but just the initial steps into tapping into some mysterious portal.
The drawing style to BodyWorld is very crisp and consistent. The characters come across as very well-defined. The same with the story. We are not tied down to the same constraints of Bottomless Belly Button with its playing around with the family drama genre. Shaw is free to produce what he appears most interested in and that is experimenting with the medium with a cast of simple but colorful characters upon a stage that allows for anything to happen full of irreverence. It reminds me of cult classic movies like Bukaroo Bonsai where you feel anything could happen. Something like that does risk becoming so silly that you cross a point where it becomes too silly to want to follow any further. That doesn't look like it will happen to BodyWorld. It's currently on chapter five of a 12 chapter book and I can't wait to see the next installment. Follow along for yourself at www.dashshaw.com and see a new Web comic each Tuesday.