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Bendis: December 26-31, 2003
Re: Newsarama Interview w/David Mack on KABUKI - The Alchemy
Dec 27, 2003 3:56 am
SD,Thanks for the comissions interest. The truth is, that the publishing
schedule I'm on does not leave me any room to do do any personal commissions.
It takes all my available time to keep up with the publishing schedule.
But I appreciate your initiative and support!
AND ALL OF YOU KIND FOLKS... Thanks a bunch for mentioning for people
to order the new Kabuki series in advance. Let me take a minute to drive home the importance of that.
In Kabuki's early days at Image, they let me over print very heavily, because they belived in the book and knew it was being under-ordered. So we introduced a lot of new readers thru re-orderes and word of mouth, because
image believed in the book enough to invest considerable advance expense
in overprinting. This worked very well, and we sold out of our entire print
run of 55,000 for the first issue. And retailers saw what the real readership
of the Kabuki books are and upped their orders for consecutive issues, and for all of the trades.
But Image only let me over print so heavily for a LIMITED TIME in order
to give retailers that understanding of the real Kabuki readership, with the idea the retailers can then continue to order in advance based on thier knowledge and good track record of Kabuki's continued sell through and eternal shelf life.
Because of the high advance cost for Image to overprint in advance,
thier new policy is to print based on advanced orders as they feel they
have went the extra mile to prove to retailers what they should be ordering
of Kabuki in advance.
However, the initial orders on the first issue of The Alchemy are not near as high as the actual core Kabuki readership (not to mention all the new readers who will be trying it).
Based on this inside info, I urge anyone who is interested in trying
this new series to make that very clear to retailers to order very heavily
on this book to accomodate the interest of new readers. Otherwise, the
issue is going to dissapear very fast, before all the readers get a chance
to pick it up.
Thanks for all your support about this.
And thanks for making the effort to read the other Kabuki collections before the new series comes out in January!
Kindest regards,
David Mack
Re: mack is NOT a hack and a Kabuki question
Dec 27, 2003 4:09 am
Hi MG! AND ALL of you...
Thanks for all the kind words. I'm very glad you were able to try Kabuki. Kabuki is definitely the best example of my work in comics.
Metamorphosis is my favorite as it is probably THE SINGEL best presentation of my work in comic books. Each of the Kabuki books fits in continuity and builds on the previous story, but each book is also it’s owned self contained story, with it’s own unique art style and storytelling tone that contrasts to the others. So you can start with any of them.
If you are only going to start with one, buy Metamorphosis. If you wouldn't mind picking up two books to start with, get Circle of Blood and Meta. If three, get Cicle, Meta, and Skin Deep (as far as the progression of story, these three are the most important). But I like to think that any story you buy first will just make you want to read ALL of them
The order is very simple. Each volume is #ed on the spine, and any Kabuki book has a list of the order of all of the books.
Here is a list of the Kabuki books and page counts:
Vol 1- Circle of Blood (272 p)
Vol 2- Dreams (128 p)
Vol 3- Masks of the Noh (128 p)
Vol 4- Skin Deep (128 p)
Vol 5- Metamorphosis (288 p)
Vol 6- Scarab (288 p)
I’d like to remind readers that all the Kabuki stories are collected in paperback and hardcover. If you have a chance, it will be rewarding
to read them before KABUKI- The Alchemy ships in January.
Thanks a bunch for the LOVE!!!
Happy reading to all,
David