Notes from a meeting with David Mack ...
Whilst catching up with a few colleagues a while back I got the chance to meet up with David Mack. Here you will find finally some notes I’ve been able to piece together that will hopefully give you some insight or that little bit more information you were looking for about the comic book industry.
On Art ...
One unique thing I noted from David that I had never heard of before was this. After writing a script for his surrent piece, David proceeds with doing layouts of all the pages of artwork. With these layouts done he then uses a large table to place the pieces in sequence out spread in a way that you can read the story with ease. While starting from the beginning of the story sequence, David goes through artwork and if he feels strongly about a layout that may enhance another section of story he would pick it up and move the layout to that area. After rearranging the sequence of artwork according to his feeling of strengths and weakness in visual style, he would then rewrite the script to work with the art.
Hybrid artforms that become so popular attract the big business who come along and target these forms only to make a formula of its success to then mass market. Ultimately destroying the shelf life of any of these creations.
On Writing ...
Although he doesn’t always illustrate everything he writes. David also contributes scripts only and may also provide thumbnails or simple layouts for the artist to follow.
As with all business in the comic book field money is the bottom line, especially for DC. And with budgets comes the obligation to publish monthly. David mentioned that in his experience, the teams at both Marvel and DC in particular do not want any formula based scripts.
David mentioned he usually pens a new comic every 2 months. For those a little baffled maybe, David writes a comic book called Kabuki and also writes on the Daredevil series.
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