Dash Shaw’s Unclothed Man Brings a Bit of Art to IFC

IFC.com has an established knack for partnering with interesting talent for its Internet content, from indie filmmakers Joe Swanberg and Ti West to sketch comedy team POYKPAC to web series pioneer R. Kelly. The newest artist to join that roster, though, is actually someone who can properly be called an artist.

Dash Shaw is a rising talent in the alternative comics scene, known not just for original works like Bodyworld and Bottomless Belly Button, but for experimenting with web distribution and video as part of those projects. His latest work is The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century AD, a four-part animated series that launches today on IFC.com, prior to a print edition’s publication at the end of the month.

Unclothed Man is like a psychedelic update of Duck Dodgers, sans the duck, telling the story of an anti-robot agent assigned to infiltrate a pro-robot art academy. But while the premise inspires the odd thought about the increasingly mechanized nature of the art world, especially within the realm of animation, the flat nature of the narrative (with dialogue and interior thought represented not through speech, but through thought bubbles) means that it’s not really a show you watch for the story.

Instead, it’s all about Shaw’s art, brought to life with the help of co-animator Jane Samborski and composer James Lucido. In a behind-the-scenes episode which airs this Friday, Shaw describes how he grew up during a heyday for American animation during the ’90s, which included the Bruce Timm Batman: The Animated Series and MTV’s Liquid Television. It’s the latter’s influence which is most apparent in Shaw’s approach to a far-off future where pro- and anti-robot forces are at war; his visuals inspire descriptions like “trippy.” There are a lot of touches to appreciate, as it’s the wildly eclectic nature of Shaw’s art that makes this series so visually interesting, shifting abruptly from elegant inkwork to deliberately infantile cartoons to shots invoking 8-bit video game narrative screens.

However, while Shaw’s work is undeniably original in approach, it’s also frankly distracting, creating a certain level of distance between viewer and story and making it something to appreciate, not necessarily enjoy. The overall effect of the series is that of checking out your local modern art museum without ever really finding a piece you connect with. That sense of enlightenment is definitely a detriment to the series, but it’s worth saying that art is subjective. And the one thing I can definitely say about Shaw’s work is that good or bad, it is art.

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