A Dash of Art

Graphic novels are no ordinary comic books. These book-length works are created by artists who weave short stories and fiction with contemporary artistic images and text, and have grown in popularity since the late 1970s.

One of the fastest rising graphic novelists today is Dash Shaw. The 25-year-old Brooklynite recently published his 720-page graphic novel Bottomless Belly Button (Fantagraphics, June 2008), which is now in its second printing.

An exhibition of Shaw's original drawings, storyboards and color background overlays, along with a new video animation, opens at the John Hope Franklin Center Sept. 25 and runs through October 31.

Shaw will be on hand at noon on Friday, Sept. 26 to discuss his work with another noted graphic artist, Gary Panter, an original set designer for Pee Wee's Playhouse and Dash's former teacher at New York's School of Visual Arts.

Dash Shaw is one of the up-and-coming artists in the genre, according to organizers of the event at the Franklin Center who helped develop the exhibit with curator Diego Cortez.

Shaw's comedy-drama Bottomless Belly Button follows six days in the lives of the fast-disintegrating Loony family. After 40 years of marriage, Maggie and David Loony shock their three adult children with their announcement of a planned divorce. The news sparks a week-long Loony family reunion at Maggie and David's creepy, and possibly haunted, beach house.

In addition to featuring work from the novel, the exhibit at Duke will include stills and pages from Shaw's webcomic, "BodyWorld."

"If people are interested in comics and animation I hope they get a chance to look at my originals. I always like looking at drawings by artists that I'm interested in," Shaw said in an email interview. "And if they don't have any prior knowledge of my comics or of comics in general, I hope this show will introduce them to these things."