Dash Shaw

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Dash Shaw is the author and artist of the graphic novels Love Eats Brains, published by Odd God Press, GardenHead published by Meathaus, and The Mother's Mouth by Alternative Comics. His comic short stories have appeared in many different anthologies, newspapers and magazines. His square-sized short stories were collected in the 2005 book GoddessHead published by Hidden Agenda Press. His comics are known for their emphasis on emotional, lyrical logic and innovative design. He was named one of the top ten artists to check out at the 2002 "Small Press Expo" when he was 19 years old. He also writes lyrics and plays with James Blanca in the weirdo pop band Love Eats Brains! and has co-written and acted in various short film projects.

Dash was born April 6, 1983, in Hollywood, California, then moved with his family to Richmond, Virginia, in 1985. He started creating comics at age four (drawing the art over captions penciled by his father) and has maintained a fascination and focus on the form ever since. He began self-publishing while in high school, while also doing illustrations for "InSync", the now defunct youth supplement in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Some six months of his high school years were spent in a small town outside Nagoya, Japan.

Dash graduated from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in 2005, with a major in comics/illustration. Throughout college and since he's published sequential-art short stories in a variety of publications in the US and abroad, plus numerous magazine illustrations. Critics who take note of this sadly still-marginalized art form have been overwhelmingly positive about his work. An example:

"Dash Shaw's comics are fearless, tender and smart. Shaw's drawings and texts turn the blank page into an imaginary friend -- an alter-ego onto which he and the reader can project and try to make sense of dangerous, contradictory, consuming fantasies and ideas about life (especially that crazy thing called love) and its representation. Comics and movies have lots in common, but few movies are as inspired and intimate as 'Goddess Head'. -- Amy Tuabin (critic, "Film Comment" magazine)

Dash maintains a web site on his comic and illustration efforts -- <www.dashshaw.com>. He is well along on a 720-page graphic novel, with publication anticipated in 2007.