Dash Shaw is a cartoonist and animator whose second feature, Cryptozoo, starring Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Angeliki Papoulia, Zoe Kazan, Peter Stormare, Grace Zabriskie, Louisa Krause, and Thomas Jay Ryan, has its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 29. His debut film as writer-director, 2016’s My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea (starring the voice talents of Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph and Susan Sarandon) is currently streaming on Netflix. Shaw recently wrote and illustrated Clue: Candlestick for IDW Press. His other books include Cosplayers, Doctors, New School, BodyWorld and Bottomless Belly Button. Learn more at his official site.
While drawing My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, I did a series of pamphlet comics titled Cosplayers. The character Verti appears in both stories, partly inspired by how Osamu Tezuka would use the same character designs across different comics. The Cosplayers stories are little allegories about how people relate to and use popular culture. This short story is about being excited to see a blockbuster movie, being disappointed by it, but still holding out hope that the next blockbuster will be good– something we all can relate to! My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea is my dream blockbuster movie: an explosive, disaster art film. A collection of Cosplayers short stories appear in the book Cosplayers: Perfect Collection (Fantagraphics), the “perfect collection” a reference to anime box sets. Thanks for reading, and thanks, Talkhouse, for hosting this online.
