BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
David Mack and Kubuki.
(Michael Snyder photo)
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BROMLEY -- It's dark outside. Late. Most people are sleeping. David Mack is gathering leaves. Quietly, he scoops some together and carries them inside. He's found flower petals, too, and these also will be useful.
It's about 4 a.m. Mr. Mack glues the bits of nature onto his paper. Then he covers them with blue and green paint. Over this, he will paste the ghostly image of a Japanese woman.
Weeks later, the new issue of Kabuki is
on the shelves. Near the middle is a two-page spread featuring leaves and petals from Bromley, Ky.
Kabuki is a comic book. But don't expect cartoonish superheroes or square-jawed characters named Dirk uttering dialogue peppered with exclamation points.
This is unlike any comic book you've seen before. And its creator -- internationally recognized for his intricate plots, extraordinary artwork and nice-guy persona -- works in comfortable obsecurity on a small-town street, in the home where his family once lived.
Mr. Mack, 25, is Bromley's most famous resident whom nobody knows. He likes it this
way.
The book is what's important, he says -- not the fan clubs, the TV proposals, the licensing deals or the European shows. He can always see the world on weekends, he says. For now, he wants to concentrate on the quality of the book. And there's plenty of that.
Kabuki has
been called "a dazzling collage of visual media" by Spin magazine, and it's been nominated for various industry awards. HBO has approached Mr. Mack about an animated series, and his original scripts are sometimes given away as prizes by trade magazines. Each day, he gets at least five fan letters. Once he got 26.
"I keep waiting for David's head to swell," says Paul Mullins, owner of three Comic Book World stores in Greater Cincinnati. But it hasn't. Case in point: Some of Mr. Mack's industry friends appear in the movie Chasing Amy, whose lead character is a comic artist. Asked about the film, Mr. Mack mentions his colleagues. What he doesn't say is that viewers get a glimpse of Kabuki in several scenes.
Mr. Mack says he never
noticed that.
"He is the most modest person," says Roger Adams of Northern Kentucky University, which maintains a collection of his books.
It's 7:30 p.m. on a weekday. Following one of his routines, Mr. Mack has been up since about noon. He'll work until 6 a.m.
Encouraging inspiration
In the living room are an array of torsos and chests; he sculpted these himself. A voracious reader, he's also filled the room with books: The Discovery of the Art of the Insane, Handguns of the World, West Meets East. A Bible leans against The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.
"This is the original script so far for the next
issue," Mr. Mack says, pulling out 11 scraps of paper covered with scribbles.
One piece turns out to be a cocktail napkin. He got inspired while dancing at a bar in Cincinnati. On another late night, Mr. Mack and friends were eating at a Famous Recipe when the chicken bones gave him an idea. He saved some, made photocopies and used the images to help explain his character's childhood.
Kabuki is about a young Japanese woman with a traumatic past. Her mother was kidnapped and forced to entertain a general's troops with Kabuki, an ancient form of Japanese drama. The general's son rapes the woman. She dies giving birth to the heroine, who takes the name Kabuki. The child's face is scarred by her father, but she survives and eventually is trained to kill Japanese villains. As a girl, part of her training included the rending of chicken flesh from bone.
Mr. Mack began the series five years ago, while a student at NKU. Back then, he drew his characters in black and white, and they did lots of killing. This attracted readers who expected comics to have action, he says. Gradually, he began carrying out his true vision: A painterly, experimental book with a character who struggles to understand herself.
Instead of traditional panels and dialogue boxes, some of the narrative is scribbled in margins like graffiti. Other pages feature single images -- a woman's face, a couple dancing, a stylized map of Asia. Woven throughout are references to music, history and literature, including the works of Lewis Carroll, William Shakespeare, George Orwell and Friedrich Nietzsche. The book is published by Image Comics.
Mr. Mack's girlfriend, Anh Tran, assists him with business matters. Kabuki is a highly personal read. Its author chose to focus on a Japanese woman because he didn't want it to come across like his memoirs and because he's fascinated with Japan.
"I don't write from any gender's point of view," he says. "I just write."
Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or email
her at ksamples@enquirer.com
SAMPLES ARCHIVE
