DAVID MACK LOVES MALEEV

Last week I did a post about David Mack swiping art from Adam Hughes and Alex Maleev, in his upcoing New Avengers #39. Specifically in one panel, the Echo figure copying Hughe's Rainmaker from Gen13. And swiping Maleev's Daredevil from the cover to DD#41. (that post HERE).

Well its come to my attention that there's even more swiping from Maleev in the preview pages provided by Marvel. In the same panel as the Echo/Rainmaker, the Daredevil figure is another swipe from Maleev; from his Daredevil #43 cover, but mirrored. In addition, Mack uses the same Maleev Daredevil art for the Wolverine on another page.This whole thing initially came to my attention on a comic messageboard, where Mack actually chimed in (its always cool when the writer/artists engage in conversation with the irrate fanboys)
---- Mack's first response was:
"About the reference to Adam Hughes.... When preparing for the look of this book, I wanted to really embrace the comic book look of things while keeping things looking realistic as well, and I'm a big fan of Adam's ability to do that and I was looking at a lot of his work, among others, as a kind of training wheels in considering styles, and getting started on this issue.......This was one of the first pages that I drew in this issue, getting into the vibe for the series and you may be right that I referenced it too heavily. Sometimes when you are getting rolling on a project it takes a few pages to work the influences out of your system. So props to Adam, you have to give credit where credit is due, and I hope this will be viewed as more of an homage and not be distracting to you in the context of the rest of the story."
Mack's response to the Maleev swipe:
"When I was doing the second Echo story in between the Bendis/Maleev run, I tried to make it look like the Maleev DD to fit into the continuity.In this story the images of DD has Iconic DD looks from Iconic DD artists for reasons based in this particular story. I'll comment more on it when the issue is out, so as not to spoils."
----
I'll give Mack the benefit of the doubt on this one and wait for the issue to come out. But a flag does go up for me....if the whole issue is using previous artists' work, then why not say so initially? Mack's response went from saying he may have "referenced too heavily" to its all part of the story and completely intentional, using "iconic DD looks" from "iconic DD artists". Seems like back-peddling damage control to me. Especially since he swiped the Maleev Daredevil art for the Wolverine image.

One last thought.... if the plan was always to use those iconic images, I hope in the same issue Mack acknowledges those artists he's "referencing", giving credit where it's due. The artwork does not stand out from his own enough for most readers to see the "homage".

I also wonder if Marvel paid him his normal page rate, even though much of the art is not his, but from previous work Marvlel had already paid for.

and just to be an Ass, here's Mack's page next to an altered page using the original material:Previous related posts:
* more Greg Land ripoffs
* Renato Arlem loves John Buscema
* David Mack loves tracing paper