Dave Schaafsma's Reviews > Blurry

“Make it new,” Ezra Pound wrote, and Dash Shaw has always been answering that artist’s call, with alt-comix, art comics, experimental work; he’s part of a group pushing the boundaries of what comics can do. I see him as both having fun--being lighthearted--and also thinking deeply about ideas. Many of his works have been for me “failures” in some ways, but their ambitions are still a much better way than cosy predictability.

Blurry features ten characters, all facing decisions, connecting ot others facing decisions. “How did you make your choice?” Then each tells their stories, reflecting on times in their lives where they didn't know what to do. Choices, change, doubt, the fog of decision-making at crucial times. Sometimes the path forward is not crystal clear; it’s Blurry.

Blurry is Shaw’s most conventional work, a series of interlocking narratives, though the way the stories connect is a Slackers kinda approach, where we move from one situation where a someone is having a hard time deciding something--from what to wear at a brother’s wedding to whether one should get married, or divorced--or not, and then moving to someone else.

So Blurry has this comedic/romantic structure, where we see that all these people face similar turning points of their lives, and then we’re all in this same situation, and of course as with romance, a lot of the choices are relationship ones. And mundane, very often; it’s a kind of slice of life story where none of the characters are as important as the universal idea it explores. The wide angle is more important than the telephoto view. So it’s abstract, about an idea, but grounded in real lives, with characters that feel real and relatable, though there’s too many to get to know them deeply.

I like the art teacher as a character, not because we admire him--he's flawed, hating his job, ignoring his family, having an affair, yet teaching about the nature of art through his life modeling class--closely observing, rendering things as they are, as Shaw does.