Original Artwork by David Mack

Maya Lopez, or Echo was first introduced to the Marvel Universe in the Daredevil series in 1999. With the ability to duplicate any physical action that she sees Echo is certainly a formidable hero!  With her superhuman powers she excels at many talents including martial arts, boxing, ballet dancing and though she is deaf, she is an accomplished pianist and music composer!  With a Hispanic and Native American mixed heritage, Maya is quite the interesting and outstanding hero!

A collection of dance reviews, news and feature articles that I wrote for The West Australian newspaper from 4 October, 2008. Most files in pdf format (download Adobe Reader).

Feature Articles

_____The Eternal Lucette (19/08/2009)

This article is based on an interview with former prima ballerina Lucette Aldous and her winning of the lifetime achievement award at the 2009 Australian Dance Awards.

_____Stepping Out With The Bard (01/07/2009) [online version]

Profile piece on celebrated choreographer Youri Vamos and the restaging of his Romeo & Juliet for West Australian Ballet.

_____Fabled Firebird (22/04/2009)

An article covering ABC2’s simulcast of Graeme Murphy’s Firebird in the Australian Ballet’s Firebird And Other Legends program. The article focuses on Perth-born dancer Kevin Jackson, who plays the male lead in Firebird alongside Lana Jones.

_____Fire In The Belly (04/04/2009)

Marking Bangarra Dance Theatre’s 20th anniversary and their tour of WA, this West Magazine feature article is based on an interview with the company’s artistic director Stephen Page.

_____STRUT Puts Film In The Mix (4/10/2008)

Article for The West’s TV magazine section about STRUT Dance’s Short Cuts season, which included dance works by Claudia Alessi, Cass Mortimer Eipper and Sue Peacock.

Reviews

_____Dance Review: Genesis (18/08/2009) [online]
_____Be Careful What You Wish For Is Genie’s Message (15/07/09)
_____In Pursuit Of Love (06/07/2009)
_____Hits And Misses In Indian Dance, Both Old And New (23/06/2009)
_____Disjointed Impact (12/05/2009)
_____Skilfully Armed To Move And Amuse While Mute (nd/2009)
_____Blitzing The Ballroom (02/07/2009)
_____Talented Dancers Embody Culture (02/06/09)
_____Ample Scope For Improvement (21/04/2009)
_____Creative Forces Step On Toes Of Female Stereotypes (07/04/2009)
_____They Barely Put A Foot Wrong (07/04/2009)
_____Menacing Steps Tap Anxiety Of The Outback (27/03/2009)
_____Giselle Has Sex, Violence — And The Odd Dance (02/03/2009)
_____Precise Steps Keep To The Pointe (19/02/2009)
_____Quarry Sets The Stage (13/02/2008)
_____Answers Mislaid In The Dance Moves (09/02/2009)
_____Contrasting Styles Of Today (10/11/2008)
_____Talent Shines Through In New Dance Works (05/11/2008)

Previews

_____Dancer’s Right Steps (13/09/2009)
_____Sweet Nothings (nd/2009)

A preview article about WAAPA’s student dance programs Zilch and Global Nomads, appearing in The West Australian’s The City Of Perth Winter Arts Season magazine supplement.

_____Makeover For Masterpiece (nd/2009)

A preview article for Youri Vamos’ Romeo & Juliet, appearing in The West Australian’s The City Of Perth Winter Arts Season magazine supplement.

_____Reggae Fan Dances To Own Tune (23/04/2009)
_____End Of The Road (21/03/09)
_____Question Time (24/01/2009)
_____Perth Dance Surge Heralds A New Era (29/10/2008)

News

_____Ballet Legend Gets Lifetime Award (27/05/2009)

November 1994 | Calibur Press

Writing: David Mack
Art: David Mack
Letters: Joe Martin

Set in Japan on a future Earth, the Kabuki are Japan’s secret service, and pop icons deeply integrated into their culture.

This first issue gives us the story of Kabuki’s origin as well as inform us about the organization of Noh and what they work for.

Crime is the main enemy of Japan, and we get see beautiful assassinations of Kabuki’s targets.

The writing is as eloquent as the art and presentation of the book. The storytelling is very provocative and the world is well thought-out. It’s just awe inspiring. I could never grow tired of the exposition that just rolls off the tongue and turns each panel into perfection. The dialogue is perfect, and nothing seems unnecessary, or forced. Other books that will just slam you with a junk of everything-you-need-to-know and you wonder what it was that was going on, or the entire thing just feels out of place despite how useful the information was. It’s just a well design work of art.

I love black-and-white, especially the ink. Like I mentioned earlier, this whole book is just beautiful. It’s been so long since I’ve read this series, and it’s still as good as I remember.

Garotinha tem diálogos hipotéticos e criativos com criaturas lendárias

O livro de David Mack tem dois elementos com os quais crianças e adultos podem ter familiaridade: um é a timidez, aquele suposto defeito que nos impede de dizer coisas na hora em que elas acontecem; o outro são os monstros do imaginário infantil, como dragões e ETs, geralmente temidos pelas crianças.

Os dois assuntos formam a história “Criaturas Tímidas”, livro com texto enxuto e cheio de rimas. A trama é simples: uma garotinha muito tímida que escuta a pergunta clássica “o que quer ser quando crescer?”. “Eu quero ser a doutora das criaturas tímidas”, responderia, se tivesse coragem. A resposta pensada, mas não dita, dá o tom dos diálogos hipotéticos entre a personagem e os seres “misteriosos” das lendas e mitos.

A garotinha imagina conversas com as criaturas e resolve o problema de cada uma delas com soluções criativas, como no caso do Ciclope com miopia: nada como um óculos com armação para um olho só. As ilustrações fazem boa parceria com o texto e dão uma cara simpática aos “bichos”, mostrados em situações engraçadas (o Chupa-cabras sem dentes é outro exemplo). Palavras e desenhos são assinados por Mack, quadrinista norte-americano experiente que tem histórias adultas publicadas pela Marvel Comics.

Coisas legais
- A timidez é um assunto com o qual muitas crianças e adultos vão se identificar
- Os problemas dos monstros e as soluções apresentadas pela garotinha são divertidas e criativas
- Na última página há um glossário com todas as criaturas apresentadas no livro

Coisas chatas
– Pessoas que não gostam de ver “monstros” em situações fofas podem se decepcionar

CRIATURAS TÍMIDAS
Autor e ilustrador: David Mack
Tradução de Fabiana Medina
Editora Caramelo
48 páginas
Indicado para maiores de 4 anos

You may have liked my recent Comic Con 2009 post. Well, I recently had to upload some more sketches for reasons that may or may not involve money. So, I thought, since I went through the trouble of uploading them, I may as well post them here. So, enjoy!

Charlie Adlard’s Rick Grimes!

Darick Robertson’s Annie! NSFW

David Mack’s Echo!

Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon!

Ethan Van Sciver’s Barry Allen!

Ethan Van Sciver’s Hal Jordan! Word balloon provided by Geoff Johns!

Joe Linsner’s Dark Ivory!

Philip Tan’s Dr. Light!

Ryan Ottley’s Atom Eve!

Todd Nauck’s Emma Frost!

Good morning! There’s always something inherently delightful about long week-end Mondays, isn’t there? Maybe the fact that only a fraction of what you intend to do, will actually be done, mainly because of those mandatory naps . . . But I digress.

Drawing strength from Brian Clark’s wonderful post on writing ‘The Most Horrible Blog Post Ever’, I’m going to try and tack together the ever swirling thoughts I’ve enjoyed this last week about my current writing experience. Let’s start with:

* World-building! Zombie Romance takes place in our world, BUT with an astounding amount of mythos/secret history/technical do-dads to create, clarify, and put into neat little folders. Why? Well, if I can’t immediately pull out the reason as to why the undead are connected to the original spiritual history of humanity, and put it down in the story in a way that makes sense to you guys, I’m screwed. It’s an intense, wonderful process, that has lead to . . .

* World-building x2! A character who popped up in the ZR has an almost niftier heritage than the Zombie Hero, which naturally got me to thinking those incredibly fun ‘What Ifs?’. As in ‘what if this guy (we’ll call him Angel Know-It-All) is a cross over character from a different series?’ This appealed to my ‘Build A Long Term Brand’ sense, and along with some amazing pokes and prods from our good friend Gabriel, a whole new story line started to emerge. Sweet! Not only was the original Zombie-verse becoming populated with some deep, intense story possibilities, but I had two story lines that were suddenly running side by side, with a strong potential for a dramatic intersection at some point. Equally fun, Angel Know-It-All’s storyline isn’t a guaranteed romance – it’s leaning more towards straight urban fantasy. Very cool!

But just when things started to go too swimmingly, and I considered myself a genius . . .

* I discovered a book which I thought contained a good chunk of the plot points I had started hashing out for AKIA’s storyline. Not only that, but I found this book on a newsletter sent out by one of the agencies I would ideally like to be represented by. My reaction to this discovery was along the lines of a  four year old having a meltdown, despite the very clear angelic guidance that I was sort of being a prat, and to stop making a fuss out of nothing. (Well, maybe I wasn’t told to stop being a ‘prat’ as such’, but looking back, the wording might have been pretty close.) I had that book in my hands with in four hours of discovering it, and began devouring it. Turns out . . .

* From the portion I’ve read up until now, the storylines diverge on the major plot points I’ve got so far. The theme of ‘good versus evil on a grand scale’ is too common to fret over, luckily. Mr Mack’s writing style is hugely different from my own, as well – very detailed on all the topics I usually don’t focus on (I call it ‘guy writing’ – focus on the guns, and not how the shooter is feeling. It makes for a very refreshing read in between heaps of romances). Whew!

So, what’s the next step? I’ve taken to pulling out the Post-Its, cork boards and yarn, and have started ‘Post-It Plotting’ for the first time in my life. From there, hopefully I can actually figure out how to transfer the bulk of the info to Supernotecards, and from there, well, we all know where I’m headed after that.  

Have a great week folks, and thanks for stopping in for a sit. I really appreciate it.

PS: If you’re looking for some actual industry ’extra reading’, ‘When life sucks, humans turn to the undead’ is a pretty nifty post to pop in and read. And yes, it was one of today’s ‘zombie pokes’. Mwa ha ha ha ha!

After adding a plug for the new “Collect All 21!” in the latest of John Scalzi’s self-promotion opportunities over at Whatever,  I let the comment thread build a little more and then went back poking around for interesting stuff. Here are a couple things that caught my attention:

This excerpt from David Mack’s upcoming novel The Calling.

An introduction to an online comic saga, Hero, which drew me in with its art and the narration-as-rollover-text presentation, which strikes me as a good way to keep an online reader engaged and focused on every panel.

There was a ton o’stuff to look at -  go explore when you have time.

Siamo a metà dell’anno, praticamente. Sono stati sei mesi di fuoco e il fatto che non abbia scritto nelle ultime due settimane è dovuto a questo. Ricapitoliamo cosa ha portato il 2009 in Bonucchi e associati:

fatica

- Master in Digital Marketing: è finito il 6 giugno, io ero già finita prima. Volevo farmi un bel regalo e quindi ho sottostimato l’impegno: non ho considerato cosa avrebbe significato sacrificare 15 sabati interi per l’aggiornamento. Comunque ne è valsa la pena e sono ancora sotto ipnosi dopo l’intervento di Giacomo Mason di venerdì scorso.

- volume d’affari: per fortuna ( e tenendo le dita incrociate) la crisi noi la vediamo presso i clienti e sul mercato ma non in casa nostra. Anzi è forse la crisi che ci ha fatto vendere più pacchetti “ufficio marketing in outsourcing”.

- lavoro all’estero: dobbiamo limitarlo per chiari motivi organizzativi, il 2009 per ora ha significato Kazakistan e Russia.

- nuovi progetti interni: Room Corporation sta tentando di ripristinare la nostra immagine coordinata, dopo 17 anni senza evoluzioni, effettivamente, lascia  un po’ a desiderare. Poichè erano stati proprio David Mack e Paolo Prossen a sviluppare i primi segni distintivi di Bonucchi e associati oggi tocca a loro rinnovarli.

- soddisfazioni: tante, solo per fare un esempio questa citazione di Axelle ci è piaciuta tanto, come i commenti che alcuni allievi postano nelle pagine dedicate ai materiali didattici.

Torno a lavorare: i clienti leggono il blog e poi si lamentano se scrivo invece di dedicarmi ai loro progetti…