HIDDEN ROBOT

Universally hailed as one of the most innovative creators in the history of comics, David Mack continues to both amaze and inspire fans all over the world with his ICON Comics ongoing series Kabuki.

So far 2007 has been a busy year for David; with Kabuki Reflections #7, Kabuki - The Alchemy #8, the Ms. Marvel, White Tiger & Witchblade series each bearing his painted covers, the writing of Se7en: Envy, the announcement his co-writing Daredevil: The End of Days, and puncuated by a superb DVD Documentary. The Alchemy of Art DVD produced by Hero Video Productions is a very intimate and inspiring look into his life and art. The 2 hour documentary/interview touches upon many subjects of Mack's career that HiddenRobot felt fans were eager to explore even further!

PART: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE MACK

You didn't own a TV as a child, at least until your 20's as indicated on the DVD. Is television a part of your adult life? If you where to be a father one day, knowing how instrumental the absence of this medium was in your artistic development, would you ditch the television?
DM: I would be conscious of its influence. I enjoy listening to documentaries on TV while I work. I don’t watch channels that have commercials and advertisements. I can’t stand them. And on the off chance that I am, I mute them or change the channel. I enjoy listening to commentaries of DVDs while I work. The TV is a tool or medium, and like any other, it can be a great help and educational source, of if abused, I’ve seen it drain people’s motivation for having a life and ideas of their own.

Your mother Ida Mack, presumably did not get to see the world-wide acclaim and artistic evolution of Kabuki. Given the series is dedicated in her name, and given her perspective on your childhood/adolescent art, what might her assessment be of your current art? Would it be her "cup of tea" as you put it?
DM: She was alive when the very first Kabuki issue was published. She saw that I was able to make a living from that, so I think she had a sense that I was going to be ok in the adult world living my dreams of writing stories and telling stories in books. A few of those early issues, I was drawing and inking at her bedside in her final months. Probably the my more recent work would be more something that would be accesable to her on certain levels. I think that she would be able to appreciate the current KABUKI: The Alchemy story. And I think she would be able to appreciate the Echo story from my third Daredevil story. And most of all, she would probably love the new children’s book The Shy Creatures that is being published this year. As she was a first grade teacher, I think it would be something she would greatly appreciate, and in a kind of language that she enjoyed.

The DVD presents glimpses of your home, which presumably is your childhood home; it seems part museum, part living testament to your life and art – almost like a giant collage...it has inspired DD stories, Kabuki stories...what is it about this structure that continues to prove itself a voice in your fiction?
DM: No, I don’t live in my childhood home. We lived in over thirteen different houses when I was growing up. Some for only a year at a time. The house I use as my studio now, is a house my mother moved into just a couple of years before she died. After she died, it was filled with stuff. I mean boxes completely filling rooms. Filling the garages. Lots of stuff. My brother and I were both in college at the time. So my brother and I decided to occupy it together while we sorted things out and converted it to our base of operations, while we paid off the mortgage of the house. And for a time, Chinese Calligrapher Andy Lee moved in to live there and launched his artistic career there as well. It was like Fight Club. All of us in that house working out how to launch our mission and fulfill our dreams.

It is kind of a giant collage. It is kind of like a living breathing three-dimensional artwork that you can live inside and make new baby artworks to send into the world. The story in the current KABUKI: The Alchemy series, with Kabuki and M.C. Square occupying the same house while they figure out how to make a living while cultivating their plans: Kabuki trying to start her career as a children’s book author, and M.C.Square recording her scientific research while learning to DJ and them using the university as a resource, and developing their principles of how to work efficiently and produce better ideas, has a significant correlation to that time in our life as we lived there together and did the same thing.

I had cultivated certain principles for developing my art and turning dreams into reality that I had recorded (in fact wrote them on the walls of the house at that time) and I’m putting those into the this story as a major theme and process. As a blueprint even.

THE ART OF CREATION

Terry Moore talks about your lack of inhibitions, artistically. Is that a matter of confidence, practice, peace of mind? What takes an artist around that corner, beyond competent and entertaining, to innovative and dynamic?
DM: I just start with the story. I listen to the story and try to collaborate with it and help it shape itself the way it seems to want to take shape.The point of doing comic to me is that they are such a fascinating medium full of potential and I love the idea of them being a synthises of story and art. If they are done well, the story and art is indistinguishable. So anytime, I do a book (a book of any kind) I’m approaching it as a writer, as a storyteller, and using the art, the media, the art style, the pace and rhythm all as a tool of the writing.

That is where it starts. I suppose practice and perserverance and persistence are big ingredients as well. It is all a matter of doing the work, and all the innovation and ideas come from the doing of the work. I don’t know if it is a matter of confidence, because I’m not thinking through the lens of ego when I work. When you are in the zone writing and making art, and telling a story, you transcend any ego. You connect with the story and are focused on that. It is not so much confidence in yourself, because you are not thinking of yourself. You have to have confidence in the ideas that come to you out of the work. You have to trust that the ideas are smarter than you are.

Have you ever experienced a creative slump? Aside from your own internal drive what external influences keep the creative process going?
DM: There is never any creative slump because the ideas come from the work. When you are working on one thing, so many new ideas come from that process that open doors that you could not have envisioned before hand.And you also get ideas for other future projects. You can get a ton of ideas from the work, and some you can use just for that thing you are currently working on.But others are ideas that will work better for something else. So you write those ideas down, and then you have lists of all kinds of future projects that you won’t even be able to start for years later.And you keep working out more of those ideas in the meantime.

And then when you relax from work, more ideas come. And you interact with people and more ideas come from that. All you have to do is write them down. And then decide which is the best for the next project.So, I’ve never had a lack of ideas or stories for projects. The struggle is always to try to keep up with the ideas and time management.

CONTINUE TO PART 2