Review by Frank Plowright

Dash Shaw has been a consistently ambitious, innovative and thoughtful comics creator, and all those qualities are apparent in his first graphic novel. Unfortunately, though, not with any consistency. There are many flashes, and why Fantagraphics would take a punt on a novice creator in 2008 is apparent, but for extended periods Bottomless Belly Button lives up to its navel-gazing title. There’s an inescapable feeling that’s a conceptual joke.

If a career statement of intent is required it can be found on the two pages combined as sample art, packed with clever techniques like the cutaway car and the raised panel on the second page, and other such thoughtful visual novelties can be found all the way through. Both pages are from the introduction of the Loony family in earlier days, perhaps a little too obviously named for a dysfunctional unit. The main narrative thrust is a couple of decades afterward when the parents host their children’s families for a Christmas, primarily to announce they’re separating after forty years. There’s little exploration of that as Bottomless Belly Button concerns the different reactions their children have to the decision, and the raw emotions that play out. Among those informed it’s broadly the elder who are mystified and angry while the younger have a greater understanding.

As Shaw parades around individual family members the scenes could almost be framed by a voiceover as some form of social documentary. Those of greatest resonance generally involve Peter, portrayed as troubled, but for never revealed reasons. An offhand comment about his looking like a frog explains why Shaw draws him with a frog’s head, saving the one time he’s drawn consistently with everyone else for a shock. Shaw uses a tidy form of cartooning that he’d subsequently drop in favour of more instant sketchiness, which sets this work apart from later material.

It isn’t just the parents who don’t get along. Childhood arguments have elevated into personal dislikes, and most communication between family members is either via others present or with others present. It’s all extremely well observed, and shows a great understanding of people from someone producing their first graphic novel. Conversely, the intention to study people in forensic detail, largely within an enclosed environment presented in equal detail (often inventively) leads to so many scenes with no purpose other than accumulation. These sequences are plain boring.

You’ll find reviews online providing far greater praise, the reviewer absorbed by the excessively slow pace and interminable detail, finding Shaw’s work relatable from the beginning. For others he had to progress to become the creator present in flashes over the seven hundred pages here, but for most it’ll prove really hard going.

Fantagraphics issued Bottomless Belly Button with a choice of covers, featuring Mr. or Mrs. Loony as per preference.