Cartoonist Dash Shaw has a thing for the reality TV show Blind Date — and now he has adapted two episodes into comics. As Shaw explains in a blog post on his website, he’s fascinated with the simple story structure of the show, featuring people who obviously know they’re on TV, but don’t have a script to go from.
As an example, he points to a scene in the first episode where a man suggests that he and his date should venture into the hot tub because “it’s the best thing for the lower back.” Shaw explains, “Obviously, he knows that he’s on Blind Date and people on Blind Date go into hot tubs. She knows this too. But, he has, himself, improvised his reason for going to the hot tub in the date that he’s performing for us. Of course, she agrees.”
Shaw also cites the improvised camera angle as an inspiration for his drawings. Click through to check out panels from Blind Date 1, which appeared in Mome, a comic anthology.
