Kabuki
: The Comic Book Inventions of David MackFor many people, the words "comic book" evoke images of muscle-bound mutants and immature teenage boys.
But to 27-year-old artist David Mack, comics represent a sophisticated story-telling artform. In his hands, a comic book is an opportunity to project intellectual curiosities and artistic experiments onto a limitless creative medium. Since the mid-1990s, the Kentucky-based artist’s creations have been redefining the stereotypically male, testosterone-driven North American comic book, shattering popular assumptions about what comics are.
"In terms of art and story, I know I’m definitely pushing the boundaries," says Mack. "There’s a synthesis of styles, words and images that I believe makes Kabuki something different."
Kabuki comics – Mack’s primary creative vehicle – breaks decades of entrenched rules of linear panel design, bubble quotes and the incessant "BLAM! KA-POW!" bombast of his predecessors. The title has grown from a home-based school project to a world-wide phenomena, currently published by Image Comics (famous for Todd McFarlane’s Spawn). Since its creation in 1994, Kabuki has sold over a million copies in the U.S. alone. It appears Hollywood is catching on: last year, Mack signed a movie deal with Fox that will see a full-length animated movie released in two years, based on his Kabuki characters.
Set in Japan, Kabuki is the ongoing story of top-secret government assassins who maintain a precarious balance of power between government and organized crime. In the opening issues of Kabuki: Circle of Blood, Kabuki is revealed as a tragic heroine whose Ainu (Japan’s indigenous people) mother was abducted as a World War II comfort girl. Kabuki thirsts for revenge against her father, the man who raped and killed her mother. Mack’s comics follow Kabuki and her seven female counterparts – each complex characters and uniquely trained killers -- as enemies emerge and disappear, and loyalties shift and obscure.
Kabuki was created as a senior writing thesis at the University of Northern Kentucky, where Mack received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1994. From his senior days in high-school, he knew creating comics was what he wanted to do: he received a university art scholarship based on his first comic project. Over the next five years, Mack absorbed himself in gathering knowledge and inspiration to fuel his artistic passion.
"I studied theatre, history, anatomy and physiology, philosophy and Japanese language. I took a lot of medical classes just so it could help my art," he recalls. "It all funnels into what I now do."
Mack’s authoritative knowledge of Japanese culture and history was also acquired at university, where he excelled at karate and hung out with a primarily Japanese crowd.
The impact of Mack’s rounded education is apparent at all levels of his comic books. A complex flow of recurring symbols and metaphors run through Kabuki: Circle of Blood: the eight assassins represent the eight pawns on a chessboard, while each mimics a character from Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland. "Circle of blood" is an allusion to the Japanese flag and it’s oppressive warrior-caste history; it also recurs as an image of the eight assassins in a meeting circle. Individual images recur from issue to issue, further refined with each appearance, adding new pieces to an increasingly complex plotted puzzle.
The most striking technical innovation of Circle of Blood is its unorthodox narrative structure. At the beginning of each act, dual panels run down the sides of the page, weaving separate but related narratives. One narrative depicts Kabuki’s TV show, the other reveals events that are occurring. This duality continues later in the story as the reader sees through both the assassin’s eyes and the real-time picture. This double narrative suddenly ends, replaced by sequential left-to-right panels, only to explode a page later into single full-page action. No two pages are the same in panel design.
This fearless approach to structure is characteristic of Mack’s storytelling style. There is an addictive unpredictability for the reader, who must anticipate not only what will happen next, but how the plot will be rendered.
"I feel like my style is the absence of style, in the way an actor or director would approach a different character or each different movie," says Mack. "I let the scene’s characterization or mood dictate what style or medium is appropriate for what I’m trying to communicate."
Indeed, in the later issues of Kabuki comics, Mack uses a different art style for each issue. One story will consist of acrylic painting, followed by an issue of collages incorporating everything from photographs, colored pencils, even liquid paper and leaves.
Recently, Mack has collaborated with guest artists who draw the storylines he has written for Kabuki issues. He has also started freelancing for Marvel Comic’s Daredevil superhero, writing storylines for the 25-year-old character. While drawing Mack’s stories, Daredevil colorist Richard Isanove was encouraged by the producers to borrow elements of Mack’s visual techniques from Kabuki. As the writer, Mack produced thumbnail sketches to guide the artists, resulting in a narrative structure that was new and characteristically David Mack. The result was what Mack calls "a great collaborative effort."
His work with Kabuki has earned praise from his peers and growing list of collaborators. Kabuki: Circle of Blood was nominated for both the Kirby and Harvey award for best new talent when it first appeared – two of the comic book industry’s most prestigious honors. Established visionaries such as Jim Steranko and Terry Moore have loudly praised his bold innovation in a genre that has become increasingly artistically uninspired. "Graphically, he [Mack] gets me to think as an artist, have I tried that? Have I pushed myself visually as far as I could go?", says artist Alex Ross in the foreword to a recent Kabuki compilation. "Dave’s work for me [is] one of the finest examples of storytelling as fine art."
Despite his recent foray into the genre of "muscle-bound mutants," Mack is still highly focused on his Kabuki creation. This includes a natural businessman’s flair for marketing. A limited edition Kabuki sculpture is now commercially available, as well as a mass-produced plastic Kabuki action figure. More Kabuki stories will be written and drawn by Mack this year, including the release of a hardcover edition of all nine issues of the current Image series. "It’s close to my heart," says Mack, "and I’ll continue to do it for quite some time."
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