New School
by Dash Shaw
Buy on AmazonIn this brand new graphic novel from the acclaimed author of Bottomless Belly Button and BodyWorld, Dash Shaw dramatizes the story of a boy moving to an exotic country and his infatuation with an unfamiliar culture that quickly shifts to disillusionment. A sense of “being different” grows to alienation, until he angrily blames this once-enchanting land for his feelings of isolation. All of this is told through the fantastical eyes of young Danny, a boy growing up in the ’90s fed on dramatic adventure stories likeJurassic Park and X-Men. Danny’s older brother, Luke, travels to a remote island to teach English to the employees of ClockWorld, an ambitious new amusement park that recreates historical events.…
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"Dash Shaw makes comics that set out to unsettle, using the unique tools the medium provides to expose discomfiting truths about relationships both familial and romantic. A proud experimentalist, Shaw often shuns tidy narrative conventions in favor of raw emotion. His striking and enigmatic graphic novel New School, about two brothers who find work at a massive historical theme park called Clockworld, allows him to poke at a host of ideas about foreignness, sexuality and, obliquely, the making of art. It’s a masterful, gorgeous and defiantly odd work that demands close attention — and richly rewards it."
NPR Books We Love — 2013 · apps.npr.org