HIDDEN ROBOT

PART 4

David's detailed analysis about the evolution of Kabuki continues -

DM: 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. Between these descriptions for the first and most recent volumes, I hope you get a sense of the themes of the story and if it is something you might want to try.

Davidmackguide.com has preview pages for each and every issue, so you can see how each one has its own approach."

I should also qualify that those are some of the themes and some of the ways to view it. Takashi Hattori wrote a great afterward in the first volume about the different ways to approach the story. As I mentioned earlier, there is a kind of children’s book- fairly tale kind of approach to each one as well.

But in consideration of these themes, you reminded me of a recent interview I did for a documentary film.

I believe the film is about the view of the United States and how the U.S. is portrayed in modern popular fiction and pop culture and media. The filmmaker is from Canada and contacted me based on The Alchemy story where Kabuki is writing to Akemi about her view of the world at this time.In the story, Kabuki mentions “The Altered States of America”. The filmmaker asked me for permission to use that as the title of the film and reference the title to the context of the story of The Alchemy.

I did the interiview in my hotel room when I was in NYC recently, right after they interviewed Noam Chomsky (who is also mentioned in that issue of Kabuki).

They had some great questions about how their dealt with a lot of the themes discussed in The Alchemy. The Global War of Art. That kind of thing.

MACK AT THE MOVIES: KABUKI

You’re serving as Visual Designer, Creative Consultant and Co-Producer for the movie production of Kabuki. Can you give us some details about where production is right now?
DM: I just want to make the best film possible from it. The main challenge has been to decide what to leave out.

With the success of films like Sin City, V for Vendetta it seems like the movie adaptation of Kabuki holds great promise. Stylistically, Kabuki could land nicely somewhere between the Matrix, Children Of Men and The Fountain, in film terms, what is your conception of the film?
DM: Both Sin City and V did a great job and capturing the spirit and the look of the books. They showed it can be done well to an incredible degree. That live action film can still be enhanced by the visual personality and storytelling style of the source material. I think it sets a great precedent. I can envision Kabuki with live action characters that still change in style tone to fit the vibe of the story as in the books.

One last question - do you own an eraser?
DM: Ha! Terry Moore’s lines in the DVD are may favorite part of the it. I do have a big pink eraser that someone gave me about ten years ago. I use it to erase pencil lines from a painting sometimes. But sometimes I like them to remain. Sometimes if I draw a line of an arm or figure and decide to move it, I often tend to just draw the new one next to it and let the original remain as a ghost of Christmas past.

PART: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

THANK YOU & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
HiddenRobot would like to thank David Mack for his exceedingly generous response to the interview invitation. Also, a very special acknowledgement and thank you to David Thorton, who has created and manages the best comic creator website in the history of such things - davidmackguide.com. Without this amazing resource completing the online presentation interview would not have looked half as good!

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If you enjoyed the interview and would like to discover more about Kabuki, please visit Kabuki Daily where you can enjoy a daily serialized version of David Mack's long running masterpeice. From the very first page, Kabuki Daily, only on Newarama.