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Re: Is Dave goin mad??Sketch=a style?

Posted By: MACK!
Date: WED, 5/30/01, 6:56 p.m.

In Response To: Is Dave goin mad??Sketch=a style? (Burdock)

Hi Burdock,

I can tell from your above impersonation post that you would like me to respond to this post. THanks for your thoughts on it. So...

: Subjective interpretations of another persons ideographic
: language upon the page. Its like puzzles, but most of
: the time, when we know the tools and the signs, the
: symbol-techniques we understand...
: but can we understand the actual art if we have never
: seen its like before...

That's why it is a slow and steady introduction. But the reader always has to meet me at least halfway. It is not a passive experience. It is a LEARNING experience. I won't talk down to readers. I won't cater to the lowest common denomnator. But I will give all the info you need to learn the language.

You'll notice that in the KAbuki books, the first one started with a bit of the conventional structure, and issue by issue the reader is introduced to the grammar of my own personal graphic language as the story weeds out less and less of the conventional structure. Each issue equips the reader with more foundation of the book's language and at the same time pulls the reader further into the book's own unique realm and totally out of the conventional structure.

: take for example the first issue of Bendis/Mack's
: Daredevil...
: To the uninitiated it is just scribbly mess...not even
: ever would they conceive of it as a puzzle or
: something to figure out...

The first issue is set up to let readers know HOW they are to approach the experience of this story. The first issue is set up to at first say "Obviously you cannot approach this book in the same you approach most of the other Marvel books". The first few pages tell you this. Then the issue is set up to totally let you know that this story IS a puzzle. And that each of the characters approaches that puzzle from their own unique kind of LANGUAGE. TImmy from his super hero words and drawings, Ben from his world as a journalist, etc.

they certainly wouldn't hang
: it on their walls...some of it is so unbeautiful...
: but anyway...

Thanks for the kind words.

: "Is Dave Going Mad"

I prefer to think of it as a more evolved level of sanity.

: 'Mad' of course being a label placed on minority
: expression by the majority common and garden enforced
: taliban of existence.
: Like when your mother goes quiet and becomes friendly
: when you enter the room with a haddock for a tie...she
: feels pity/shock/horror instead of experiencing the
: comedic effect you had planned.
: We call her 'no fun'.

: Daves rough sketch pages and plans for paintings used to
: appear at the back of the books so he could show you
: the thought processes that go into creating his
: art...but now its somehow become his 'style'

I don't have a style. I never have. If someone looks at one thing I did and decides to call that particular piece "my style" that is between them and reality.

...little
: words with arrows pointing at empty spaces saying
: 'face' i.e. 'I will draw a face here when I get down
: to doing the finished work'...
: Anyway.
: His books are like galleries of modern art that need
: sitting/studying/interpretation...

Thanks. I'm glad you are into it.

but when the
: interpretative ideographology starts to become a
: Style..then am I wasting my time trying to interpret
: it?

I don't have a style. I never did. I am a verb, not a noun. I do not HAVE this noun, nor AM I that noun. I DO and BE. To me art and action are indistinguishable. I start with a story (or idea in the case of a cover) and try to find the best mediums and approaches to comunicate that story or idea based on an individual basis.

: i.e..this isn't a puzzle its merely an image made to look
: like one of Dave's puzzles, by Dave,

I like the sound of that actually. That's funny. I never even considered that people thought there was a "David Mack style" until other arists and designers would show me something and say, "i tried to do this in your STYLE". It usually has one or two superficial aspects of something that I did in the past with the focus being nothing but those elements, which in themselves, when I used them, were meant to point to the "idea" of the peice. Some of these are really interesting to behold. It is like someone holding up a funhouse mirror of your self. I sort of enjoy seeing them. But I don't think I could ever do them myself. With out the IDEA, i wouldn't know where to start. But I try to appreciate them in the context of what might be one step of someone else's art exploration. Or when they are purposly done by other professionals to support my involvement in something. It was surreal that my DD story arc was colored in what Richard called "a David Mack feel". THis stuff always makes me smile warmly.

But you'll notice that I have never said "hey this is my style". I just don't think in those terms. The people who do label me are label me with a style, probably have a different relationship to my art and work than I do.

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Messages In This Thread

Is Dave goin mad??Sketch=a style? -- Burdock -- TUE, 5/29/01, 12:50 p.m.
Re: Is Dave goin mad??Sketch=a style? -- jastronopoly -- TUE, 5/29/01, 9:53 p.m.
NEW: Re: Is Dave goin mad??Sketch=a style? -- MACK! -- WED, 5/30/01, 6:56 p.m.
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