February 2002 (Source: Previews text catalog)
KABUKI VOL VI: SCARAB HARDCOVER LIMITED EDITION
Signed & numbered with original SKETCH! Limited to 500 copies.
Hardcover, 7x10, 256 pages, black & white

Kabuki Vol. VI: Scarab Hardcover Edition (Source: Previews catalog)
Attention Retailers - See order form for incentive program.
Black & white, 256 pages
Hardcover Limited Edition
Signed & numbered with original sketch! Limited to 500 copies
Black & white, 256 pages
Both in stores the week of April 17th
The concept: Growing up in the subcultures of urban Japan, a young woman journeys through the underworlds of organized crime, secret societies, government operatives, awkward friendships, and young romance. A mix of crime fiction and personal duality elegantly told through the masks and metaphors of Japanese mythology.
This issue: Kabuki: Scarab (collects Kabuki: Agents 1-8) picks up right where Kabuki: Metamorphosis left off and answers all the mysteries left dangling from that series. And Scarab is still a self-contained story, so even new readers can start with it. More than the original issues, this handsome 256 page archival hardcover includes a gallery of covers (including the Quesada variant) new pin-ups, sketches and character designs, embossed cover, a brand new dust jacket painting by David Mack, and an insightful introduction by Paul Pope.
A trade paperback edition will not be offered before October 2002.
Recommended for readers and fans of: Japanese crime fiction, Manga, Sandman and David Mack's Daredevil.

October 2002
KABUKI TP VOL. VI: SCARAB
(W) David Mack (A) Rick Mays (Cover) David Mack
Black & white, 256 pages
In stores the week of December 4th.
The Concept: Growing up in the subcultures of urban Japan, a young woman journeys through the underworlds of organized crime, secret societies, government operatives, awkward friendships, and young romance. A Mix of crime fiction and personal duality, elegantly told through the masks and metaphors of Japanese Mythology.
This Issue: Kabuki: Scarab (collects Kabuki Agents 1-8) picks up right where KABUKI: Metamorphosis left off and answers all the mysteries left dangling from that series. And Scarab is still a self-contained story, so even new readers can start with it. More than the original issues, this handsome 256 page collection includes a gallery of covers (including the Quesada variant), new pin-ups, sketches and character designs, afterword and story commentary by David Mack, an insightful introduction by Paul Pope, and a brand new cover painting by David Mack.

Notes:
· The cover artwork was released as a Lee's Comics Print
· The inside flaps of the dustjacket form an image of Tigerlily that was created by Ryan Graff
· The collection includes includes: black and white covers of #1-#7; an chalk portrait of Scarab by David Mack; character sketches from Scarab #2 (page 32), #3 (page 30) and #8 (page 28), black and white version of retailer incentive cover for the first issue; comparison of original layouts and final pages with David Mack's notes; unreleased artwork; Rick Mays biography by David Mack; images of the prototype Scarab action figure
· The hardcover with the brush painting has the following note on the front cover: "This is a limited signed and numbered edition with an original sketch by the author."
· According to David Mack, the hardcover appeared in an episode of One Tree Hill (102 - "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most"):

The reason that I left out the last page from the collection, is that if you read Scarab before you read Metamorphosis (which many new readers are doing), it takes out much of the mystery and suspense from the Metamorphosis story, and you read Meta in a totally different way than you do if you read it first. I felt like having that last page in the collection had potential to destroy much of the impact of Meta if the Scarab collection was read first.

I like the idea that each of the books have thier own vibe seperately, but have different layers of meaning if you read them in sequence.

That last page only works for me if you have read Metamorphosis first, and you are reading Scarab as part of a much larger story. Without it, it is much more of a POINT OF VIEW story the way I intended both Metamorphosis and Scarab to be an experiment in opposite points of view of some of the same scenes.

This way, if you read Meta first, then Scarab, the last scene is Scarab still hits you like a train wreck. But if you read only Scarab, or Scarab first, it is much more from the point of view of Scarab and it is a little more open to interpretation. Still, if you look closely at the shots of Scarab and Yukio on the bike at the end, they are from her memory of them when they were younger. And if that isn't enough, I think the new page with the shot of her walking in the dark/rain with Seiko pretty much says it all. But this time more from her POV.

If you read meta first, then the Scarab ending is a twist ending that rewards your reading all the different volumes. Both versions work in this order. But for those that have only read Scarab, or are reading if first, that last page strikes me as not so much of a twist, just a blatant shock. And it seemed to make the book more just about that moment than everything else that built up to it. And with the page I put there instead, it harkens back to what the rest of the book was about, and reminds the reader of Seiko, and the themes of friendship in the book, puts a new spin on that (sort of posing some ideas about Seiko still being with her in more ways than one).

But it really came down to the fact that for me that page only works if you are reading Scarab after Meta. And I felt like as a stand alone book it needed a little more finesse. And it was important for me to make sure that each of the books have their own vibe seperately, but have different layers of meaning if you read them in sequence.