You can't go wrong starting with David Mack. One of the best new artists to emerge working on independent comics in the 90's, Mack was hardly a cartoonist or illustrator or penciller or inker or even author. He was just a very gifted artist. His Kabuki: Circle of Blood series was breathtaking ink work and a compelling story that merged art and words with cyberpunk aesthetics and Japanese traditions.
By Dreams of the Dead, the Sin City style of black-and-white art with negative/positive space highlighting gave way to Mack's ability to buy paint. And gorgeously paint he did. The cover's butterfly and swirling petals reflect the transitory nature of life and death, and the two images on the cover represent Kabuki herself. On the left, in the background, is Kabuki as the Japanese government assassin and pop celebrity. On the right, the foreground, is a kimono clad Kabuki. Her eyes are closed in contemplation. No doubt the viewer has an immediate sense of duality and dreamlike transitioning.
And, on that note, the entire corpus of Kabuki (there's a lot of Kabuki comics out there, all collected in trades) is about duality and transitioning between identities, finding the true ones that are right for each individual.
David Mack never set out to do just a simple cyberpunk story. You can see it in a cover like this. Or any of the album covers or more "serious" artworks he did later.
Do you have a favorite David Mack cover? Or one similar?
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