By Dash Shaw
Cosplayers is surprisingly accessible for a Dash Shaw comic. It’s missing his requisite fantasy elements. And on first impression, it feels oddly familiar. The two books were released as pamphlets by Fantagraphics, a noticeable contrast to most of that publisher’s line of graphic novels from indie creators who've gradually abandoned the serial format over the years. Cosplayers' everyday milieu even seems to recall the listless urban settings populated by man-child heroes affecting some form of ennui found in alternative comics from the mid-nineties. But there’s a certain playfulness about our mediated reality that marks it as a Dash Shaw book.
The art is unmistakably Shaw’s unique combination of loosely drawn black-and-white line-work mixed in with computer coloring that often appears half-finished. Some panels look like basic flatwork. Others are modelled with simple two or three-color gradients. And others are filled with cheap digital effects. It might sound awful when being described, but this computer-generated form of minimalism actually reinforces the raw energy and naiveté of the comic’s mostly adolescent cast, as well as effectively speaking to their regular online activities.
A peculiar feature of the comic are the various pin-ups of random cosplayers that interrupt the narrative. The images themselves may have been copied from actual photographs. The cosplayer poses certainly have that stiff, photographic quality to them. They’re mostly portrayed floating over the kind of repeating patterns that could have been found either within the graphic software being used or downloaded from the Web. For me, this harkens back to when mainstream comics from a decade ago began to experiment with digital workflows. A lot of the coloring from the era looks rather primitive today. But a lot of artists found the new methods liberating and responded by designing page panels that were basically gratuitous pin-ups. This isn’t the case with Shaw as his art naturally subverts the usual function of the pin-up by contrasting the slick representations of these commercial properties with the less than ideal physiques of normal human beings dressing themselves in form-fitting outfits. But the digitized nature of the imagery can also refer to the pivotal role of the Web and social media in the dissemination of the cosplayer way of life.
In the 2nd issue, the duo attends a small anime convention called “Tezukon” - in honor of the great Osamu Tezuka. While their relationship is further strained by participating in a cosplay contest followed by a chance encounter with a pair of fanboys who know them through their Youtube videos, the most memorable character is a nebbish Tezuka scholar who’s so frugal he’d rather sleep in the nearby alley and dumpster dive than pay for a hotel room. The scholar is very much a throwback to the passive, self-loathing protagonists of Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. But he differs in one crucial respect - he actually feels awe and admiration for all the cosplayers at the convention. While there’s something creepy about a middle-aged man ogling people half his age wearing revealing costumes, his adulation is undifferentiated and an expression of envy at their youth and untapped potential. And that’s a more positive way to react to the noticeable generational shift in fan conventions.
Plus, he gets to interact with a character from another comic.
