Big Things: Dash Shaw

You may not know his name - yet - but he's a prolific artist and comics creator poised to unleash several large projects into the medium. The Ninth Art spotlight falls on Dash Shaw to talk about humility, profit and procrastination.
23 June 2003

Dash Shaw has lived in California, Virginia and Japan, and currently resides in New York City. He self-published three issues of LOVE EATS BRAINS! and his graphic novel GARDENHEAD were published by Meat Haus Press. He has contributed comics to the next NEW THING anthology, and other anthologies such as GARISH ZOW, MEAT HAUS, INKSTAINS and the magazines VISUAL OPINION, PUNCHLINE and SQUID VICIOUS.

BIG NEWS:

I have a fifteen page story in NEW THING: SECRETS and a short story in the new 'love songs' issue of MEAT HAUS. I'm working on a 48-page full-color graphic novel called CHEESE that I plan on applying for a Xeric grant to print, and a longer black-and-white submission for the PROPHECY MAGAZINE student graphic novel contest. I also just mailed out a nine-page story for the 2003 SPX book. So I'm trying to get a lot of large projects done that will take a while to reach stores. I'll have enough short stories in magazines and compilation books that I hope people will remember my name by the time a big book comes out.

BIG BUSINESS:

The main inspiration behind my comics is my dad. He's a comic fan, and we'd make comics together before I could read. He'd write in the text and I'd do the illustrations. So making comics is still really associated in my mind with my dad. Sometimes I have a specific person in mind while I make something. In high school I used to make short comics for my girlfriend, but I'd make a hundred copies of them and sell them in music and comic stores. I think it's good to see something sincere on the stands, even if it's sort of an in-joke.

BIG TROUBLE:

The biggest challenge I face in making comics is a feeling of worthlessness. It's a pretty psychological one, I know. I just feel like whatever I do doesn't matter at all so why should I do it? Or, why should I show it to anyone? I'm not making any money off of it, and even if I did, there's faster ways to make money and I don't have anything I want to buy anyway.

I enjoy sleeping a lot. And I like hanging out with my girlfriend or walking around the city. So it's really easy for me to go through days without working on any comics. I'm not like Crumb, who's constantly drawing on a napkin wherever he goes. I do figure drawings, but I spend more time thinking about comics, the design and everything, more than the actual hand-drawing time.

BIG SPENDER:

I was doing comics for the local newspaper, the RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH, during early high school. When they killed the section of the newspaper I did work for, I started making minicomics. I had a friend who worked the graveyard shift at Kinkos so he'd print them for free. I sold them for a dollar each, and it was all profit.

I saved that money and then printed the first issue of LOVE EATS BRAINS! in my freshman year of college. It was printed at the Small Press Co-Op, so it was about four hundred dollars for a thousand issues. I sold it at a buck a piece, and I make 50 cents of that. So I made around 500 dollars, some through distribution but mostly through hand-sells. And with that money I printed the next issue.

And then Meat Haus saw LOVE EATS BRAINS! and offered to print GARDENHEAD. They also paid for half of the printing of the latest issue of LOVE EAST BRAINS!. So I managed to make a lot of comics without spending any money.

BIG UP:

I always look forward to seeing the comics that the other Meat Haus guys do. The new issue of MEAT HAUS is going to be really great. I have two favorite comics of all time: DEAD DICK by Art Spiegelman from an issue of RAW, and STUBS by David Mazzucchelli from an issue of ZERO ZERO.

BIG TIME:

The color comic I'm working on is a story about a boy with a cleft lip who's in love with his twin sisters. His family crashed into a tree during a snowstorm when he was little. I'm very excited about it and I hope that people will have a chance to see it, partly because I've been spending so much time on it.

After GARDENHEAD I took some time to stop and think through comics and I'm doing really different work now. It's still me, but there's a lot more time and thought put into it. I hope people will recognize that. Everything in the comic is very deliberate and controlled. I've been showing it to some other creators and have gotten positive feedback, except for the Meat Haus editor who said it was gross and disgusting.

BIG FINISH:

I'm not very concerned about being remembered. That kind of thing doesn't really interest me. I hope my work will live after me and get a lot of attention and affect people. I also hope other creators, in any medium, will make really amazing work that will affect me and other people and be beautiful before we all die.

BIG DEAL:

You can see my comics in comic stores, either in compilations like NEW THING, MEAT HAUS, GARISH ZOW and BIG DUMB FUN, or in my own comics, LOVE EATS BRAINS! #1-#3 and GARDENHEAD. Or, you can see my work on the web at www.dashshaw.com or www.meathaus.com.

I'm trying to do as much work for non-comic store type magazines as possible, like VISUAL OPINION magazine, so keep your eyes peeled.

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