Metamorphosis (Kabuki, Book 5) [Paperback]

David Mack (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2006

Image Comics offers the latest collection of David Mack's acclaimed Kabuki epic. The latest tale of the enigmatic assassin of the Noh. The book - which Mack says "represents my most diverse range of fully painted and mixed media artwork, and marks my most evolved work as a writer" - collects all nine painted issues of the recent series titled simply Kabuki. The story that sets the stage for the current "Alchemy" storyline returns to print! Featuring an introduction by BILL SIENKIEWICZ and an afterward by filmmaker JOHN SAYLES, this is the largest KABUKI collection yet and still one of the most sought after! Collects KABUKI #1-9.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Image Comics (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582402035
• ISBN-13: 978-1582402031
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #610,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shatteringly beautiful art, mind-shattering innerlogue, October 27, 2003

By 

IT person "amazon7690" (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metamorphosis (Kabuki, Book 5) (Paperback)

David Mack worries me. He's taken the art of drawing comics to a whole new genius dimension. Nobody else has ever welded story and image like this, with so many ways to express everything: museum-quality watercolors, perfect pencil drawings, spiraling text, doodles, origami, abstracts, traditional japanese inks. New ways to show movement, memory, fights. One fight is drawn in calligraphy on a sheet of music; another is laid out as a board game; another is caught in the blur of a black-and-white video camera shooting in the dark. All this, while his heroine is trapped in a mental asylum for former female spies and assassins.

Here's a warning: fans of action/adventure, this book is not for you: move on to the next Kabuki volume, Scarab. And if you've read Skin Deep and are waiting for the story to move on, you find yourself in a long, almost demented version of the previous book. Kabuki makes her padded cell into a cocoon and slowly, obsessively rehashes personal elements of identity. Her metamorphosis occurs gradually as she transcends her mistrust of herself and her fear and longing for her past, by accepting gifts from another inmate, discovering the beauty of her own acts and story, sharing herself with her enemy. But that's a terribly flat way to put it.

The way David Mack does it, he can wring your soul out by chiseling in layer after layer of philosophical questions answered in a variety of metaphors. He brings new meaning to the term, tortured writer, and very nearly locks himself down and his readers with him in the asylum. He narrowly escapes at the end of the book, but not until he's imprinted on your mind both the pain and uncommon beauty that genius, whatever form it takes, carves into people. Glad you made it out alive and well, David. Thank you and take care.

5.0 out of 5 stars David Mack rocks, February 20, 2009

By 

Leah Wall "Raverrow" (Hanau, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Metamorphosis (Kabuki, Book 5) (Paperback)

I absolutely adore David Mack's artwork. Metamorphosis is more philosophical than action based, although we get to know more about Kabuki's time and escape from the clinic.

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Best!, June 26, 2007

By 

K. Rybarczyk (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metamorphosis (Kabuki, Book 5) (Paperback)

This graphic novel is the best of a David Mack's incredible Kabuki series. It contains the most beautiful, yet unusual art for a graphic novel while also following an intriguing story line that helps the reader see the world differently.