#drdavidmrmack

So I got the advance proof today for the oversize DREAM LOGIC Hardcover from Dark Horse. This may be the best presentation of my color work in any book...

I have three tattoos. The first is a purple phoenix on my left shoulder blade. The second, the Elvish word for hope, at the base of my neck. The third, on my left side, over my rib cage, a quill pen made of flames, writing the phrase "I will write in words of fire" (the beginning of a poem Neil Gaiman wrote for a tattoo that he and artist David Mack designed for a fan). 

Now, I thought long and hard before getting each of these tattoos. I've had the first one for four years, the second for two and a half, the third for ten months. There has never been a day when I regretted them. Not even when hiding them for my job proves a struggle, or when people look at me disdainfully because of them. 

But sometimes I don't appreciate them fully, either. I don't always think about the artistry that went into them, the time - mine and my wonderful tattoo artists' - it took to bring them into being, how I cared for them while they were healing. I'm thinking about those things today.

I have had a crap week. Every challenge and stress has made me want to curl into a ball and melt in my hot apartment. But tonight, I glanced at my sports bra-clad body in the bathroom mirror, ready to berate myself for the chocolate I just binged on, ready to hate myself for my imperfect form. Instead, though, my eyes were drawn to the purples and blues etched into my skin.

I stopped. I looked at the sweeping Elvish script and remembered all of the things I had been struggling with when I decided to emblazon hope on my body. I saw the phoenix and remembered that I chose her because she would always rise from the ashes. I looked at my quill and thought about my passion for writing - the freedom and agency and control and self that I feel when I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. I got my tattoos to remind of who I am, what I'm capable of, and what I can overcome.    

When I started getting back into comics, I started to take note of David Mack and his artwork. Then I fell in love with Maya Lopez aka Echo aka Ronin. The idea was so interesting. I love characters like that. I wanted to RP her, but I needed more info. So I started just tracking down the trades she was in, and these were things written and/or drawn by David Mack. And holy goodness. There's something about the way he conceptualizes things that is just so beautiful and poignant at the same time. 

So after reading the stuff with Echo/Maya, I wanted more Mack. I've just started slowly actually going after Kabuki stuff. I got that trade because it was on sale when I was picking up some things on Midtown. When my monthly comic order ships, it will contain the first trade. Slowly but surely I will get there.