A few months ago, I read Dash Shaw‘s Bottomless Belly Button, which is an excellent book.  It’s a long comic that is particularly novelistic in an almost Victorian sense (in the vein of other contemporary novels like Jonathn Franzen’s The Corrections).  He experiments with several highly stylized modernistic tropes, which are sometime incredibly successful (Peter’s frog aspect, a reflection of his self-image) and other times affected or slightly irritating (frequent written description in the place of emanata or onomatopoeia).  While I think the case for Bottomless Belly Button has been overstated in the unfortunate glut of “year-end lists,” it is certainly a book worth reading, and its flaws are all commendable ones that are a result of an attempt to stretch the confines of comic vocabulary.  It shows that Shaw is an evolving artist who is headed in a very right direction.

His next long work, Body World, is now available – in whole – at his website.  I’ve actually waited to read Body World, until it was finished. (This thinking – I’m sure – flies in the face of comic-day serial purists.  But, you know what, that’s not how I learned to read comic books.) Just last night, I finally read the prelude, and it’s amazing.  It’s what webcomics should be.  His use of borderless color and hand-done effects in conjunction with Photoshop is incredibly impressive.  It makes the rare case for substantial use of computer drawing (coloring).  The regular panel and long-scrolling pages read very naturally.  (I’ll be interested in comparing this to the print version which, I believe, will have a spine at the top and will be published later this year.)  My plan is to read a chapter a day over the next few weeks.  I’m really excited about this one.