First, thanks for your kinds words about my work and for reading it. Also, I appreciate your thoughtful considerations of my work and how they relate to art.
I appreciate everyone's view of my work, but allow me to introduce my own to the discussion.
I do not consider the original art work the actual art (and I do many gallery shows with the originals and many of them command a respectable price), and I also do not consider the printed KABUKI books the actual art or the intended end result.
Each of of them are an artifact of the process, and a delivery system. (It could be argued that comic books and graphic novels are a delivery system that I infiltrated and hijacked to deliver what I consider the actual art of my work.)
What I consider the actual art of my work is the interface of someone reading my stories and digesting them inside thier own mind. The books and the originals are just a navigational artifact to deliver the idea that is completed only in the readers mind.
That is why I have no loyalty to a particular style or fixed method of working. My books are not expression, they are communication (something infintiely more powerful), which is only completed when someone reads it and finishes the process inside thier own head and in their own individual way.
The books and originals are to the real art of my work, as a map or atlas is to the actual geography that they are meant to direct you to.
The maps and atlases are not the real point. They are just a means to direct you to a place that you journey to that is uniquely experienced by each person.
For me, the magic and beauty of my view of comic books is that they are a sequence of still images: Each image is its own thing, but put in a sequence they mean something more - BUT, only because the READER fills in what happens BETWEEN each image.
That space BETWEEN the images is the ACTUAL ART. That part happens inside the readers mind and each reader completes that conversation in an individual way.
So far, original art and the delivery system of comic books and graphic novels have allowed me to deliver my ideas of this conversation to the largest amount of people. That may change, but I'm very much enjoying it in the meantime!
Thanks for reading my books, and I saw a link to this on davidmackguide.com and thought I might join in the discussion.
Feel welcome to copy and paste my words here to other places as much as you like.
Kindest regards, and thank you for your thoughtfulness on the subject!
David Mack
P.S. You may also get a kick out of the DVD documentary film of my work called THE ALCHEMY OF ART. There is a trailer of it at herovideoproductions.com.
And you can find a message board of mine to reply to me at jinxworld.com.