I had the chance to interview David Mack, co-creator of the character of Echo, and worked on many different books such as New Avengers, Daredevil, and Cover.
Q1. As a painter and as an illustrator, what is it that has kept you persistent and on top of your game in this craft?
DM: I like making stuff, I like creating things. A lot of times, if it’s a creator-owned story it’s often a self-generated story and the visuals is a means to express the story that I’ve written. But if it’s like covers or other projects, and everyone’s a unique challenge. Every issue or every cover gives me an opportunity to problem-solve for that thing and learn something new. If it were a whole series that I’m writing and drawing, it’s like a very immersive project, I enjoy that. But I also like writing different covers because I can crystallize everything in one image and try something unique with that image and move on to something else.
Q2. For young, up-and-coming illustrators those that are trying to continue their lifelong craft as an illustrator, what do you suggest that they should particularly practice consistently?
DM: Something I do is I try to draw from life as much as I can. Usually every week I’ll do live drawings of live models. For fun, I just draw directly with a brush and ink from life, and that is something that I do in my own time for my own enjoyment. I recommend that to people, sometimes there’s things that you learn from when it’s not a project that has expectations on it or preconceptions and you can learn unique things from that and apply to your own work.
Thank you for your time, David Mack.