Product Description: She is the bastard child of head Noh assassin and a Geisha - her mother murdered and she horribly scarred by a dishonored half-brother. She wears the mask of a Kabuki to hide the scars both internal and external from the world. Volume II: Dreams - The epilogue to Kabuki: Circle of Blood, Kabuki: Dreams is a mix of Japanese mythology and a modern near death experience. A woman dies and has a vision of the afterlife in which she is visited by her dead mother. She returns to life with a new sense of resolution and purpose. The story is told with fully painted artwork.
Skip this book I read the first Kabuki: Circle of blood. Great story. Got me hooked. Then I bought this book and its a piece of garbage. It is honestly just created to pay some of David Mack's bills as he was trying to continue this story. I hope book 3 is worth the price. If that book stinks too.... I will be officially done with "Kabuki".
weak dream Not one of Mack's greater accomplishments. I love the artistry of his hand. The curves, the movement, the violence he displays with drawings. Real ink and paper. Towards the end of 'Dreams' he resorts to pictures of live blurry women and children's plastic dolls with Kabuki masks on black backgrounds. WHERE IS THE INK!? The real expression, not the highschool photography class. I pray his future expression is a little more from the heart and a little less from the lense.
Visual intensity Sanity is not always called for. This story explores one alternative. It's a dark alternative, but it's an alternative to an even darker reality.
This is another of Mack's lavish painted comics. To call it 'painted', though, is faint praise. Drawing, lettering in a few different hands, collage, painting - the visual layering and intensity are incredible. The story itself is stark, physically static the with dynamics all in Kabuki's mind. Somehow, Mack conveys and sustains that moment when even desperation fails.
Mack's images are filled with deconstructed text. My eye instinctively tries to read it all, but that would defeat the purpose of the imagery. On the other hand, ignoring it defeats the purpose of the writing. This is a book I'll come back to, to give it all the different readings it deserves.
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