Kabuki Omnibus Volume 2

by David W. Mack

A young woman code name, "Kabuki" struggles with her identity in near-future Japan.

Working as an assassin for a clandestine government body known as "The Noh," Kabuki finds herself in an institution for "defective" agents. Isolated and psychologically tormented, Kabuki's only friend is found in a mystery woman who sends her handwritten notes folded into origami animals.

This edition collects the original Kabuki volumes: Skin Deep and Metamorphosis in an easy to read trade paper back . . .

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels

416 pages, Paperback

Published March 24, 2020

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.



David W. Mack is a comic book artist and writer, best known for his creation Kabuki and his work on the Marvel Comics titles Daredevil and Alias

The author of the Star Trek Novels is David Mack

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mack slowly and methodically builds the story of Kabuki's time trapped at a psychiatric facility for assassins. Reading Skin Deep and Metamorphosis together was how Mack originally intended it as it's really one large story that was split across two publishers. Mack's art is a master class on different techniques. If I handed this to you, you'd think 4 or 5 different artists worked on the book with Mack's use of pencil art, watercolors, collage, mixed media and more. My one complaint is that the text when it's blended into the art can be difficult to read.

This would probably be easier to read as a physical copy than digital. The lettering often swirls around the art and it's difficult to rotate digital pages 360 degrees.

Received a review copy from Dark Horse and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find my review on my blog by clicking here.

The mind is a complex terrain. It is a curious amalgam of cognitive processes constantly expanding with time and maturity. It is through an interaction with the exterior, the physical, and the tangible world that we discover the latent effects on the interior, the intimate, and the immaterial world. There is no universal framework that breaks down the capacity of the mind, but there is an ephemeral yet immortal connection established in a surreal context between individuals who have experienced subtle forms of mania. Through a psychoanalytical and personal exploration of visual story-telling, creator David Mack offers us Kabuki as the vessel for our minds to converge and connect in a tale brimming of self-actualization. This second omnibus collects Kabuki (Vol. 4): Skin Deep and Kabuki (Vol. 5): Metamorphosis in one place and presents fans with the opportunity to read the story as originally-conceived by creator David Mack without having to split them between different publishers.

What is Kabuki Omnibus Vol. 2 about? Picking up where the story was left off in the previous omnibus, Kabuki, an assassin for a clandestine government known as “The Noh”, lingers between life and death with her mind tethered to reality only by a weakly beating heart and a link to her departed mother accessed through memories, dreams, and illusions. It is the sudden arrival of agents of an institution for “defective” agents, the Control Corps, that allows her to be saved before she could ever witness her final moments. Unfortunately, it comes with a price, one that promises a psychologically-devastating isolation that will send her down a path filled with introspection, self-discovery, and rebirth. Distressed and unable to distinguish reality from hallucination, her solace is only found in a mysterious woman, known as Akemi, who communicates with her through handwritten notes folded into origami animals.

Leave it to creator David Mack to go beyond the standards established in comic books and deliver one of the most dazzling, exquisite, and immersive stories in Kabuki’s journey. Drawing upon Western psychoanalysis theorems and blending them to Japanese folklore and culture, he dives deep into the psyche of his character and explores her destruction of barriers between reality and illusion. Through a tale of attachment to a loss maternal figure, he focuses on Kabuki’s search for comfort and unconditional love as he introduces us to a brand-new enigmatic character whose identity flickers between a figment of Kabuki’s imagination, a spy desperate to gain and abuse her trust, and an assassin biding her time for information before the kill. It is their interconnection and the development of a bond that transcends their existence that ultimately makes for a stellar character study.

While the narrative bathes in the suspense surrounding the Noh agents attempt to find and assassinate Kabuki, it is her character’s psychological trauma and development that serves as the driving force of this odyssey. Exploring the internal conflicts that she battles due to her inter-familial history, the artwork is where creator David Mack exposes a mind-bending representation of psychedelic chaos, despair, and innocence. If there’s anything that needs to be said about his artwork it is the immersive quality of his distorted style. Pouring his soul into his work, he achieves masterful watercolour story-telling that mixes and mashes a mosaic of styles to achieve this singular masterpiece. You simply don’t need to dissect the meticulous details of his work but let yourself feel the emotions conveyed by his work as it grabs you by the collar and sends you on a trip into Kabuki’s intimacy.

Kabuki Omnibus Vol. 2 is an unorthodox, ambitious, ingenious, intimate, and unparalleled visual and literary experience imbued in themes of identity and isolation.

Yours truly,

Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/

[Pop Bop · Rating 4 out of 5]

You Can Start Here, and It's Worth It

"Kabuki" is accessible to newbies because it has a fairly clear basic plot that is visited and revisited by the main character. As best I can tell, while there are eight volumes that tell the complete Kabuki story, the middle four are the heart of the tale. This Omnibus consists of "Skin Deep" and "Metamorphosis", which are volumes 5 and 6, and constitute the heart of the story. (It helps that I cheated and searched the internet for "Kabuki Mack Wiki". I got a comics-wiki article that summarized the whole plot and slipped me right into this Omnibus.) The bottom line is that if you want to know what all the fuss is about "Kabuki", this is a great way to go.

That said, it is most definitely worth checking this out. The art is drop-dead gorgeous, with a little bit of everything, with most of it being gently colored ink drawings, complemented by painting, collage, pencil work, fancy splashes, and pretty much anything else you could think of. The lettering is fantastic, and manages to be a complete education in lettering styles, while almost always perfectly readable.

All of that bravura art works because, at bottom, this is a story about Kabuki's life and memories. There's action, and some violence, because the plot here involves Kabuki's prison break from a facility for damaged/insane/unreliable operatives. But mostly we follow Kabuki's memories, dreams, thoughts, and reflections on her life and her circumstances. The pace is slow but methodical, and one's attention never lags and the story's focus never drifts from some aspect of Kabuki, who commands every page. It's leisurely, but it's deep enough and rich enough for that approach to be justified.

The upshot is that this is a strange but compelling trip that will reward multiple rereadings and always delight the eye. An excellent find.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

[Mpaxxakos · Rating 5 out of 5]

(*Kabuki is native Japanese assasin that she works for a team of nationalist Japanese parastratals and she lost her mother when she was very young.) After the first B&W collection we have a colorful collection.. KABUKI must escape and an unexpected friend help her.. Beautiful conversations

*from my review for KABUKI vol.1

[Waterfall · Rating 5 out of 5]

My shelf categories do little justice to this work of art; it bursts any box it is put into. I love it so much because it frustrates and enthrals me, I know I'll never see all the nuances no matter how many times I read it. This is one of my very favourite comic series.