Dash Shaw

A nifty little murder mystery with an Agatha Christie vibe based on the characters from the classic board game -- which I have never played. Thankfully, Tim Hodler provides an article after the story explaining the history of the game and its appeal.

Alternative artist Dash Shaw was a surprising but inspired pick to create this media tie-in. He has fun with the art and plays around with the expectations of graphic novels and murder mysteries, even dropping in a few activities and puzzles show more along the way.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Candlestick / Dash Shaw, story and art -- On Murder Considered as a Recreational Activity / Tim Hodler, writer -- [Cover Gallery] / Dash Shaw, Jed McGowan, Sophie Franz, and Kevin Huizenga, illustrators -- Shaw in the Studio with the Candlestick / Suzette show less

A 17-year-old Quaker boy from Indiana forsakes the pacifism of his religion to enlist in the Union Army and take up arms against the South as part of Sherman's March. In this historical fiction, he and his sister exchange boring letters full of angst and religious claptrap with an excess of -eths, thees, dosts, and thous lifted from actual letters from real people written during the war. Much of the story is told in pantomime around the blobs of cursive text, often contrasting or unrelated show more to the words, but sometimes supplementing.

And I found all of it quite boring, having seen much the same stuff in Glory and other Civil War dramas. The manner of presentation and opaqueness of the characters do little to make the Quaker angle significant or interesting.

The art consists of minimalist sketches that the back cover dares compare to Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer. Copywriters apparently do not look at art very much. show less

The book starts s-l-o-w-l-y, but stay with it, because in part 2 what began with isolated pieces weaves a compelling picture of how families fragment and regather. By the end, both the reader and the characters have experienced alchemical changes. Much of the book’s charm is in that slowness as it documents the daily, forgettable dialog that cements relationships.
10 days after I put down the book I got the joke of the title. Self-indulgent metafictional navel-gazing with literal show more interstitial exploration. Did I include enough buzzwords? And it works. At least it worked for this reader, partly because of the slow burn it ignited in the back of my brain.
I read this book after having seen Dash Shaw’s vibrant animated film, “My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5538568/?ref_=nv_sr_2 show less

BodyWorld is a pretty amazing achievement from Dash Shaw, one of the more interesting comics artists on the scene today. His narrative this time around has echoes of Philip K. Dick, featuring experiments with drugs, altered states, and a futuristic setting that has mild elements of science fiction, although (as with Dick's best works) the sci-fi angle is not a huge part of story.

The physical design of BodyWorld is rewarding by itself, with a vertical orientation to the pages and fold-out show more character guides and a scenario map tucked inside the book cover. This unique layout makes the act of reading BodyWorld surprisingly fun, and the kooky, colorful story lives up to the standard set by the attractive packaging.

Shaw has given us a complex but easily readable twister of a plot, sprinkled with an interesting array of characters with alliterative names (Jem Jewel, Paulie Panther, etc). Whatever else he may be doing, Shaw is creating challenging comics that are well worth the reader's time, and BodyWorld is sure to shake out as one of the most interesting books of 2010. show less