Dash Shaw screened the “very best episode” of Robotech as part of Comic Arts Bro

Dash Shaw screened the “very best episode” of Robotech as part of Comic Arts Brooklyn’s November 2013 programming. I was intrigued by the cartoonist-animator’s promo art for his evening of limited animation and curious about what Robotech episode he selected & why. Since no other news source (that I’m aware of) wrote about the event’s specifics, I reached out to Shaw for an interview. He generously answered a few questions and, in the process, enlightened me to a possible reframing of Robotech’s original production – as collage.

EhC: How do you define “limited animation”?

DASH SHAW: Animation that “limits” the number of drawings, usually because it’s a low-budget project. It’s the art of communicating a lot, through a little.

WhatRobotech episode did you screen at CAB? Why that episode?

Episode 17, “Phantasm.” I love the fast pace and delirious energy of the episode. It’s a long dream. It’s basically the most avant-garde episode, and it’s also completely fun. I’ve watched it many times. It has that great thing that film can do, which is someone imposing their sense of time on you. It reminds me of the Guy Maddin short “The Heart of the World” and the episode recaps that appear before shows like Lost, but this Robotech episode is 25 minutes long and is a total joyride the whole way through.

How did you discover Robotech? What attracted you then and what attracts you now?

I just rented it at some point. I’ve liked comics and cartoons my whole life. I never took any breaks from it. So the kinds of things I like now are very similar to the things I watched as a kid. But I don’t think I have any nostalgia for it in particular. I genuinely love the characters, the moral complexities of the story, and – as it’s presented in this program – it’s technical qualities, such as pace and movement. Mostly showing it in the context at CAB was about the technical aspects, especially the frantic, delirious pace of this particular episode. I played it right after an episode of a very fast-moving series I did for IFC called “The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century AD.”

Collage is a technique you utilize in your work. The original 85-episode Robotech cartoon rearranges and draws connections between three separate series to create a unique multi-generational one. Is Robotechcollage?

I hadn’t thought of that before. Usually I think of collage in comics and animation in a spatial sense. By arranging things on a page or a screen you’re drawing connections between things, or suggesting possibilities that might not have been apparent immediately. Like layering sound over an image creates a third thing. But that’s also true in stories. Interesting point.

You’ve been given eight pages in a Robotech comix anthology to tell any story in any way. What do you do?

I’m not interested. I want to tell stories about my own characters.

Dash’s animated short “Seraph” was a 2013 Sundance Film Festival award nominee. His Cosplayersone-shot came out in April 2014 and is available at quality comix shops & on comiXology.