Dash Shaw had a productive year in terms of books released, and quite the range, too: NEW JOBS, an Occupy-era political period piece photocopied mini-komix; 3 NEW STORIES, a 32-page floppy compiling three stories centering on imagination as emancipation; and NEW SCHOOL, an expansive comic book novel hardback about sibling rivalry and historicising memory. Shaw is one of the new komix peeps - Michel Fiffe and Michael Deforge being two more komix peeps of this generation - that grew up in the 90s reading and enjoying both indie artsy Gary Grothy komix and superhero mainstream Image Comics, and somehow found ways to develop a personal aesthetic informed by these two seemingly polar opposite aesthetics. All of Shaw's three new books tell naturalistic everyday stories that wouldn't be strange to find in the latest OPTIC NERVE or ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY, but while Tomine and Ware took their dramaturgical cues and storytelling techniques from pre1950s American newspaper strips, Shaw took his cues and techniques from Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Dan Jurgens's DEATH OF SUPERMAN - action and drama are given equal attention, often celebrated with splash pages and double page spreads; changes of scenes are often staccato; and though the writing is serious, well-thought-out, and sympathetic, the true star of the show is the art. The only thing I can't quite crack yet in Shaw's new works is his experimentation with colour: for all three books, he overlays his black line art with swatches and swathes of colours and patterns, sometimes outright photographs or magazine cutouts, often off register, as some manner of subjective expressionistic colouring technique. I wonder if it's all clear at least in his mind why he does this. It could all be bullshit, too, of course. But regardless, it's beautiful and it makes me think.
