Critique ( and the lack of it)

[Welt]

One thing that I find a bit weird, is that all the chat here is just ranting and raving and saying how cool and brilliant David Mack is at everything he does.

And certainly Mack has turned out to be one of the most important creators in the sequential art, and with Alchemy he has really broken into a new level of excellence, from high intellect and innovation into the realm of genius, you might say, but as so, don't you think the man can take some critique too. You must all know that as soothing and ego-nurturing as praise is, it doesn't much help in the creative evolution, if it isn't constructive.

One thing that has troubled me with Kabuki is that Mack seems to be writing more and more about himself. Making personally influenced work is one thing, but what suffers is the plausibility or realness of the character Kabuki, when she works too openly as a mediator of Mack's own ideas and thoughts.

I did admire a lot at one point how he could use the comic to give out very personal things into the story, and still do the fact that he can put so much metaphoric, deep thought into the stories, but I believe it might be achieved more in par with Kabuki.

In fictional story-telling the reader is most often persuaded into relating with the main character/s but with KAbuki it seems the relating is more with Mack. Let me know if you think wholly otherwise, it might be just me feeling this way. I'm not a hardcore fan, I have only read KAbuki isuues once or so, and nott all of the Scarab etc. stuff, so it might be if I read them all once more that I could feel the change of Kabuki from the vicious killer in Circle of Blood into this artsy-dreamer kinda young lady more natural.

[DeadMike]

Oh I'm sure Mack can take some criticism and critiquing. You're right he doen't get a lot here but that's because I think many here, myself included are big fans of Kabuki and don't see much wrong with it. That and he's such a nice guy who also just happens to be some kind of martial arts expert ninja who can dismember a man 7 different ways using a comic book and/or paintbrush.

I understand your point and can see why you say that and I somewhat agree with you. But so far I don't really think Mack revealing so much of himself in the Kabuki universe has taken away from the story as much as it would if it wasn't a creator owned product. If it was a title like say Daredevil or Spider-man I could see where that would be more of a distraction. From it's inception Kabuki has always been used as a metaphor for David to express his thoughts, feelings and philosophies. Granted there were more action sequences and plot twists in the begining (COB and MON) and then with metamorphosis it turned more into a psychological drama. But I think that's one thing that's great about Kabuki. It's constantly evolving and changing. You don't really know what you're going to get from series to series other than the fact that Mack's going to put his heart and soul on the paper. Most hero comics follow the same formula, fight the bad guys, save the damsel, save the world, and then throw in a little character development and drama.

We're only up to issue 4 in this series which I guess is going to be around 12 or so issues so that's about a third of the way through. Still not sure where we're going but I am enjoyng the ride. And for me personally whether you relate to Kabuki, Akemi, Mack or any of the other Noh agents for that matter as long as your relating in some way I think the author is getting the job done. As long as the reader gets something out of it and are moved by it it's working. Kabuki is so different from other titles it's some kind of a hybrid. I don't know if it can easily be classified or defined. Which I'm assume Mack is happy about. But I can't really criticize the guys work thus far. Especially with it being a creator owned property it's his vision and to date as far as I'm concerned Mack's been batting 1000 with Kabuki.

I'll just have to wait until the complete arc has come out and then I can go back and read it as a whole and see how it plays out. I'll probably have more to say about it then. I think you make a fair assesment but if you go and read the whole series you can see how Kabuki progresses and evolves from killing machine to who she is now. From pawn to queen. Scarab is a great read as well.

[SteveZegers]

I'm not one to really complain about someone's work. Because who the hell am I really? Who am I to tell David Mack how to tell his story? I realize that some creative people like to hear opinions from the fans, but I like to keep it to positive one. If I like it, I'll talk about it. If not, I keep my mouth shut. It's just a personal thing with me. I don't like being negative like that.

[T-Dro]

Well, speaking as someone who has been a reader of Kabuki for 10 years, yes, there are some things that I haven't liked as much as the rest of Kabuki. But they are relatively minor things. (For example, the "Nietzsche is Dead" line from COB... and killing Angel in Meta & leaving her in the tub after for an indeterminate amount of time. Oh yeah, and at the end of COB when I thought Ukiko was dead!)

As far as the autobiographical aspect of Kabuki, if you read interviews of David, he has always said that Kabuki was a way of expressing events and feelings in his own life...yes, they were more metaphorical before, and in Alchemy 4 they were much more overt...but to me, it is still the same story.

And yes, if you read ALL of Kabuki it is a much less jarring transition than skipping from, for example, COB to The Alchemy. David, and his work, have been evolving steadily, and I think, for the better.

Oh yeah, and he's cute. ;)

[Yano]

Oh yeah, and he's cute. ;)

You know, that whole line negates your whole post, right? :p

I think it's important for creators to get some constructive criticism once in a while. One of the problems I see with most message boards is when someone has some criticism, they get flamed by the people who are fans. Luckily, it hasn't happened in this case. It's understandable that people can be quick to defend the people they admire.

I don't think creators are going to get any better if people are constantly blowing smoke up their asses and treating them like their work is perfect. They need to know what they can work on, what things that people might not like, what could be changed, etc. That's the only way they can challenge themselves to transcend.

With all that said....

Yeah. Mack is kinda cute, isn't he? ;)