Like Swimmers. Dash Shaw. New York Review Comics. 2026. 120pp. $32.95.
Dash Shaw is creating his best work. His latest has him, once again, playing with mystery, in storytelling and in the comics medium itself. It begins with that first page with an exchange between two characters. For the first bit of dialogue, Shaw adds one of his distinctive footnotes just below the speech balloon. It’s an unconventional yet natural fit. The two characters are in awkward poses: so close to each other that the reader can only see one eye from a frontal view and one eye from a profile view. So close and yet so distant.
Dash Shaw’s people are exceptionally unexceptional, just average folks, the perfect foils for any worthwhile quirky, weird, noir comic. And that is exactly what this is. Shaw has created his own subgenre of subdued characters at odds with everything, including themselves. The icing on the cake this time around is that the whole thing is set during Covid. Back in 2020, I was in Seattle, one of the epicenters for highly dysfunctional behavior towards the pandemic. It wasn’t enough to wear a mask, maintain six feet away distance and get vaccinated. A lot of people really took on their roles as guardians of the galaxy to the limit. All you could do was accept it: the severely strained staring back, cloaked under a mask, the incredible added tension waiting in lines. Well, that was the case in so many places–and it remains so at various venues that perpetuate mask wearing as a performative act. For this story, the locale is Richmond, Virginia, a ground zero of its own with heightened levels of rage. If Orson Welles were still around, he would most definitely cook up a film set during Covid. For comics, Dash Shaw is our Orson Welles.
Does Shaw weigh in on the more zany aspects of the Covid era? Yes. Well, there’s so many to choose from and Shaw does a great job of gingerly picking and choosing his way through. Just admitting to the fact that Richmond is not a safe place to live, is haunted in more ways than one and has its share of more sketchy areas seems brave to address. Shaw points out that on any random night in Richmond, you could have a couch set on fire. It’s a matter-of-fact observation which is remarkable given how matter-of-fact observations are not in vogue. We like to think that our everyday lives were at a brink during Covid, upturned in such an unprecedented way, but we’re just living another version of its disruption today. Well, this is a Covid story but it doesn’t feel dated at all. We’re all still processing Covid. And, in its own way, this book helps.
Whatever troubled times we live in, a good mystery can help as we sort out things going on in our own lives. And we have a dandy of a mystery here. Mackenzie is a young woman who works from home as a web designer. Her little brother, Howie, lives with her and is drifting through life as a delivery person. He rides his bike. He makes deliveries. Then one day he meets Isa, an older married woman of means who is decidedly out of his league. Ultimately, Howie and Isa have an affair. Mackenzie is none too impressed nor pleased with this. Finally, almost a foreseen conclusion, Howie is found dead in his bedroom, apparently murdered but the police call it a suicide. And it is at this point that our story really kicks off.
For the love of Howie.
Another essential trait of a Dash Shaw comic is how every character matters, no matter what station in life. Howie, who plays a significant role in the plot is all but a minor player on the stage of life. He is the result of countless decisions that he made, and other factors, that leave him on the margins. And yet, like all of us, he matters to someone. He drives his sister, Mackenzie, into a tailspin as she embarks on a mission to solve the mystery of his death. As far as she was concerned, Howie was a simpleton but she dearly loves him. Once she takes it upon herself to do some detective work, she discovers that Howie was likely a little more complex than she imagined. Howie, deliciously naive and yet an enigma, the sort of character after Agatha Christie’s heart. Mackenzie digs deeper and, well, things get deeper. Shaw has a great time with giving Howie his due. This is a far stranger case than anyone suspected. After all, Howie was killed by a silver bullet. Howie is an absurd and tragic figure with a touch of the whimsical, a classic Shaw character if ever there was one.
For fans of Dash Shaw, this new book, so soon after the success of Blurry, is a great treat not to be missed.
