mack Blog and Journals

10 Questions With David Mack (by Darrick Patrick)

Darrick: What was the path that led you to being a professional artist and writer?

David: I've just made things all my life in a variety of media.  My mother probably had the biggest impact on that, as she was encouraging of the things I did as a youngster.  And she always had a variety of media around for me to make things out of.  She was a first grade teacher, so there was no shortage of scissors, markers, crayons, clay, tape, and staplers for me to make things with and contruct things out of empty boxes.

I suppose I began working three-dimensionally at first.  With Play-Doh and clay, and building things out of wooden blocks and empty boxes.  I'd make castles and vehicles and robots.  I began drawing and painting details on them and also drawing little people to interact with my constructs.

All my life I had made things.  Stories, sculptures, paintings, drawings.  And I had a great passion for learning and doing.  As a child I even made puppets and put on puppet shows, and fancied myself as a magician and did magic shows with my homemade top hat, cape, and wand.  I love everything and wasn't really interested in specializing.

At a certain point of high school, teachers like you to fit your interests and passions into a box that you can at least major in, but I wasn't comfortable with the idea of only doing one thing to the exclusion of others.  When I was sixteen, I was applying for a university scholarship for art.  A teacher suggested that I put together a portfolio showing ten different forms of media that I worked on.

I had photography, sculpture, oil painting, watercolor, charcoal, etc.  For the tenth piece I decided that I really wanted to do something that dealt with the nature of time and sequence.  I loved film and I loved books, and the personal nature of books, and I also loved to read comic books.  So I decided that for the tenth example of my work that I would make a comic.  And I did.

I wrote, illustrated, and lettered a 55 page book for my scholarship submission.  In the process of doing that, I realized that the medium of comic books are a format that I could integrate all other mediums into.  I realized that comics were the medium I could work in because they had no limitations, and they included and encompassed aspects of every other medium.

Darrick: Who were some of your major influences as you were growing up?

David: My mother was my biggest artistic inspiration.  The skills that she taught me as an infant are skills that I use each and every day of my life.  In work and out of work.

Also, some of my closest friends: Brian Michael Bendis, Andy Lee, and Mike Oeming, who are artists that I grew up with in the last fifteen years.  We worked together quite closely in our very formative years and learned much from each other.  They are friends that I learned quite a lot from about art and storytelling very early on.  They have been quite inspirational to me over the years as artists, writers, and friends.

Frank Miller, Will Eisner, and Alan Moore are creators that I learned from when newly discovering comics as a medium.

Darrick: You might just be most known for your work on Kabuki.  For those who are unfamiliar with this continual project, how would you describe the book to possible new readers?

David: The first volume (KABUKI: Circle Of Blood) is kind of a crime/espionage story.  It was me doing a kind of updated version of a George Orwell 1984 type of story where the media has become a mouthpiece for corporations and government to influence the culture.  The (multi-national) corporation supercedes the nation state as the real power in the world and used the media and what we used to call the news to maintain it's true interest - making money and keeping control by exerting a state of fear and constant war about something.

I wrote it in 1993 and began publishing it in 1994.  I thought I would take some of what was beginning to happen in the media then, turn up the volume of it and exaggerate it to make a point.  It doesn't feel as exaggerated when I read it now.

In the story, there is a kind of interdependence between the organized crime, corporations, government, and media.  And there is a government agency that polices that interdependence.  It is an agency called the Noh.  The Noh also has it's own television channel called Noh TV in which it exerts it's influence by soft power or cultural power with characters clothed in nationalistic iconography and cultural masks.  The general populace believe these characters to be kind of media idol talking heads about the daily propaganda.  But there are also rumors that the masked animations on the news are also operatives of the media that keep the scales balanced between the organized crime corporations and the political pundits if they go too far in either direction.

Kabuki is one of these media icons of channel Noh.  At a certain point, her personal family obligations supercede the nationalistic propaganda that she grew up believing and she embarks on a path that puts her against the powers that she formerly served.

The current volume (KABUKI: The Alchemy) from Marvel's Icon line, follows the same main character, but it is after she has left her former line of work and has decided to start a new career.  It kind of starts in that place people can sometimes find themselves after graduating high school or college, or switching jobs, where you ask what am I really here to do?  How do I figure that out?  And after figuring that out, how do I make it happen?

It is about practical applications of making that happen, and about the nature of ideas and creativity in general (about practical applications for turning those ideas and dreams into reality).  And specifically, how to turn the problems of your past into something useful and practical for your future.  How to turn your garbage into gold.

Each of the volumes has a different theme to it and uses a different storytelling style.  DavidMackGuide.com has preview pages for each and every issue, so you can see how each one has it's own approach.

Darrick: What would you say to younger individuals looking to make a career as an artist?

David: Just do it.  Nothing makes you a good artist or storyteller more than actually creating the art and telling the stories.  You just do it.  The more you do it, the more skill you cultivate.  You don't become a better storyteller just by thinking about it, dreaming about it, reading about it, or talking about it.  All of that may be helpful, but you also have to really do it.  You have to start it, finish it, and then you have to show it to people or get it to your readers.  And you have to make that a regular and rhythmic part of your life.

Darrick: Outside of creating your personal art, what are your other interests?

David: I like my friends.  I like horsing around and being physically active, playing soccer, or wrestling.  I'm always reading a variety of books.  I'm interested in everything.  And you see much of that varied subject matter make it's way into my stories.  From Kabuki to Daredevil to Echo.  You'll see my interests in history and language, and physics and philosophy.  Politics, media, religion, and the meaning of life.

Darrick: Who are a few of the people you would like to collaborate with on a project that haven't yet had a chance to do so with?

David: I've been very lucky to be able to collaborate with some of the major talents of the medium: like writing Daredevil with Joe Quesada drawing, and currently I'm working on a new Daredevil series, co-writing with Brian Michael Bendis, with art by Bill Sienkiewicz, Klaus Jansen, and Alex Maleev.  And Leif Jones did the amazing art for my issue of the SE7EN comic book series that is out right now.

I'd love to work on a project with Alan Moore or Frank Miller.  They are creators that inspired me in some of my earliest formative years.  I'd enjoy working with Chuck Palahniuk.  And there are a wealth of talented artists that I'd be happy to write stories for.

Darrick: What would you like people to remember most about you?

David: I've never thought about that.  I guess you could remember moments from my stories if that is what you know me from.  From my comic books or children's books.  If you are a friend of mine, remember the amazing mayhem of our moments together!

Darrick: If you had superpowers for a day, what would they be and why?

David: Well, if you had the powers of Superman for one day, you could probably do quite a bit in terms of seperating various fighting factions from fighting and killing the surrounding civilians, and getting food to the hungry, and water to the thirsty.

Maybe your super cold breath could finesse global warming?  You could probably give some leaders a stern talking to about fucking up the world, but that would probably only work if you had the powers for longer than a day.

Darrick: What is some of the music that finds it's way into your CD player?

David: I'm listening to the new M.I.A. right now.  The Thom Yorke The Eraser CD.  Also, enjoying Dan Deacon's Spiderman Of The Rings CD - pure genius.  The new Miho Hattori.  I also love Beck and Blackalicious.

Darrick: Tell us something most people don't know about you.

David: I used to raise mice and rats, and won a Science Fair Award for my studies in Mouse Genetics.  Also, my mother was a religious survivalist preparing for the End Times.  Sort of like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.

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You can also check out David Mack in the following places:

http://www.DavidMack.net

Official David Mack Guide Website:

http://www.DavidMackGuide.com

Official David Mack MySpace Profile:

http://www.myspace.com/DavidMackKabuki

Official David Mack Message Board:

http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/mack

http://www.herovideoproductions.com