Living Wednesday to Wednesday #32: the David Mack Interview!

Thanks for joining us as we conclude our Baltimore Comic Con series of interviews with writer, penciller, painter, and mixed media master David Mack!

David Mack makes me feel bad about myself. He studied sculpture, painting, drawing, art history, photography, and bookmaking, and still completed the first volume of Kabuki, Circle of Blood, as the thesis for his English writing minor before graduating college. At the same age, I was starting my career at Acme, selling his books. David can also leap over convention tables in a single bound, arm wrestles Mike Oeming to a standstill, and was one of the industries first fine arts crossover sensations. 

David Mack also makes me feel great about myself. He has the warmest, most inviting smile that just draws you over to his table whether you're already a Kabuki fan or just somebody waiting in line for Bendis. Either way, you walk away from him feeling like you're the most important person at the con and you're usually not empty handed. When I first met Mack at HeroesCon four years ago and lamented that I couldn't find a copy of volume 5 the Metamorphosis, he signed a copy and just handed it to me. He's also dedicated prints to the store, which you'll be able to seem on prominent display pending framing. He's the nicest guy in comics.

Ciji talks, Stephen shoots, Sunday, September 28th. 

Ciji Singletary: You've said in the past you'd like to do a series exploring each member of the Noh from Kabuki. Do you think that's still a possibility, perhaps working with other artists like you did with Rick Mays on Sacarb? 

David Mack: Yes. Yeah, I intend to. With Kabuki,with the main series that has her as the main character, I'll probably continue to do the art for that, but with the other characters, yeah, I really enjoy working with other artists. It's a lot of fun for me to write stories where I can write for the strengths or interesting quirks of other artists that I admire. That's one of the main draws to me about doing it, is writing for other people and for them to give their own kind of fun, personal touch. The fun thing about that is I like the fact that each time you do it, it shows, if you're introducing another character and delving into them, you automatically have a different visual personality for the character if a different artist is doing it to contrast each one. I'd still like to do that. Probably Tigerlily or Siamese would be the next character.

CS: Do you have anybody in mind you'd like to work with?

DM: There's a lot of people I'd really, really like to work with. I love Paul Pope's stuff. We're kind of working on this Philip K. Dick stuff right now and we've always been talking about working on something together. There are a few other artists that I love. Well, there's a lot of artists that I love, but there's a few that would probably have the time in their schedule and be able to do a more indie style book and be fun to collaborate with. It was a blast working with Rick, too, and I'd like to do something with Mike Oeming [who is sitting just out of frame], too. That'd be fun.        

CS: Sweet! Your first children's book, Shy Creatures, was received very well. Would you consider doing more child and young adult focused material or was that more of an off-shoot from Kabuki?

DM: I'm gonna definitely do more kids books. I've been asked to do sequels to the Shy Creatures book, which I'll probably do eventually. I have some outlines for ideas for that. Before I do that I have some ideas for some other kids books. I'm working on a kids book right now that will have a more mixed media, a more collaged approach to it cause Shy Creatures had more of a whimsical brush and ink feel, which was really fun, but I did it that way to sort of contrast the Kabuki story, so it had that real simple style and the book inside the book contrasted the more mixed media surface story. It's gonna be fun to use variety and do a very different sort of kids book before I go back to do the painting.       

CS: What's the draw of working for that demographic?

DM: It's interesting in thinking about the kids stuff cause I did do a lot of signings and readings and stuff and it's really fun when you're reading it to see how they react to it. Some of them just stare at itand they're in awe about it and are fascinated by the pictures and other kids are very outgoing and they'll jump up and start talking with you while you're reading and start pointing at it and get out of their seat and move around. Usually when you start they're looking all over the place and not paying attention. It takes about three pages before they get quiet and then they're captivated by it. I really do it because I enjoy it myself. I remember my own children's book that I grew up on and read. It's just a fun medium, like comics. It's a different kind of approach to using visuals in storytelling, but there's more of a, I guess you'd say, concentrated approach to writing because you have to use fewer words, so you sort of concentrate that and refine it, try to get just the right ones.  

CS: You do a ton of mixed media. How long does that process take versus just pencilling?

DM: If it was just pencilling it would probably be wuicker, but not always because pencil has all these lines and detail and so on. With mixed media you can use a variety of other things and abstract it quite a bit more. I really enjoy drawing. That's probably the funnest thing for me to do, to draw people and draw figures and stuff with no thought of how it fits into a story, cause I do that all the time. It's nice to relax and do that for fun, but it's not been my main interest. I love making stuff out of other things and doing very abstract stuff.

CS: Do you feel it conveys more to do it that way?    

DM: I don't think of one as more than the other. I always start with the story first, so I like to think that the stories have different personalities to them, so I like that this medium is open enough that you can use a multitude of visual possibilities to best communicate that particular story. I don't really identity with any medium more than another. It's not that I particularly like collage more than pencil or charcoal more than paint or any of that. Whenever I'm doing any kind of book I think of myself as a writer first. I think of the story first and I just try to think of how I can use the medium and the tools and the visuals as just another element of the writing. It's just like as a writer you wouldn't necessarily like first person better than third person or one word better than an adjective better than an adverb. It's great that  to have these things and mix and match.

CS: Do you ever transfer things to your computer for the printing process?

DM: When it's all finished, I do all the lettering and everything on the actual board, and then when it's all finished it's scanned in and sent to the printer. I don't add the words digitally or use Photoshop. I do it all.

CS: Speaking of Echo, who is one of my favorite character, how has your relationship with that character changed since you created her with Joe Quesada in Daredevil #9-14 to when you revisited in Daredevil #51-55?

DM: Yeah, you know, it's been ten years since I created her. I think it was '98 when I wrote that Daredevil story. I don't remember if that's when it was published or not, but that's when I wrote it. It might have been '99 before it hit stands. I never would have foreseen, ever, that Bendis would be adding her and all these other people would be drawing her and that she'd even be in books ten years later. I never thought about that, so it's kind of cool. It's neat in a way, cause when I started writing Daredevil it was the first time I wrote a character that I didn't create, so I was collaborating on a character that other people had given life to and brought a history to. In effect, you're kind of collaborating with the rich history the character has that those creators brought to it.

                 

I wanted to be very respectful of that, but also bring something new to Daredevil. It kind of feels like because I was allowed to play with a character from the Marvel Universe other people had created and brought life to, it's neat to kind of give a character back that other people are able to add to and collaborate with. That's always been the fun of Marvel Comics to me. Whenever I work for Marvel I work in the spirit of collaboration because you're working with all of these characters that other people have added to and you get to work with so many other interesting artists and writers and letterers, colorists, and editors. It's fun that you're able to put somebody into the universe that has a ripple effect and still has a life beyond the intial story that brought her into it.

CS: My co-worker Matt, who couldn't be here today, is going to the gym. He's training to arm wrestle you at HeroesCon next year. How do you feel about this never having met Matt and how do you plan to prepare for this?    

DM: Maybe I should exercise. Maybe I should. I'll be happy to do it for a charity thing or something like that. 

CS: Awesome, thank you very, very much.

DM: Thank you very much.

CS: Enjoy the rest of your day.

DM: Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

David Mack is the Eisner, Harvey, and Kirby award-winning writer, penciller, painter, and cover artist of such mainstream titles as New Avengers, Alias, and Daredevil and his creator-owned opus Kabuki. As a publisher, he makes up the "M" in the MOB Publications group that includes his good friends Michael Avon Oeming and Brian Michael Bendis. He lives in Kentucky and can be found online at DavidMack.com, DavidMackGuide.com, and his board at Brian Bendis' Jinxworld.com.