Mack White

"Mack White" (born December 20, 1952 in Mineral Wells, Texas) is a comic book artist and writer who lives in Austin, Texas. cite journal|last=Gilbert |first=Scott|title=Two Texans Talk Tough: A Roundtable Interview with Mack White and Roy Tompkins|journal=The Comics Journal|volume=203|issue=April 1998|pages=74–100|url=]

Biography

White grew up in North Texas where his father published weekly newspapers in small towns in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, primarily Arlington and Mansfield.cite journal|last=Seiler |first=Joey|title=The Austin (Comics) Panel|journal=The Austin Chronicle|issue=December 22, 2006|url=http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A431062] He graduated from Cleburne High School in 1971, then attended Tarrant County Junior College in Fort Worth until 1972. In 1977 he moved to Austin and enrolled as a psychology major in The University of Texas at Austin. He graduated in 1982.cite journal|last=Wolfinsohn |first=Deborah J.|title=Inside XL's Cartoon Cartel|journal=Austin American-Statesman XLnt|volume=4:14|issue=April 3-9, 1997|url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AASB&p_theme=aasb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EA057F711F56DDC&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM|pages=32] White began creating and self-publishing comics in the 1980s. His first professionally published story was "El Bandito Muerto" which appeared in "Rip Off Comix" in 1990. Throughout the 1990s, he contributed to a number of comics anthologies (most notably "Zero Zero", "Buzz" and "Snake Eyes"), magazines ("Details", "Heavy Metal", "Boing Boing", and others), and newspapers ("Austin Chronicle" and "Austin American-Statesman"). His books include: "The Mutant Book of the Dead" (Starhead Comics, 1994); "Villa of the Mysteries" (a limited series published by Fantagraphics, 1996-98); and "The Bush Junta" (Fantagraphics, 2004), a political comics anthology which he co-edited with Gary Groth. White's artwork has also been featured in a number of art shows, particularly the "Comics on the Verge" show which was presented by the Yerba Buena Arts Center in 2003 and later toured galleries and universities throughout the United States. White has been interviewed in "The Comics Journal" and in the 1995 documentary "Day 51: The True Story of Waco".

White's early stories were bizarre, darkly humorous, and dealt with metaphysical themes. In reviewing his work in the "Comics on the Verge" show, the "Baltimore City Paper" described his work as combining "an illustrative style reminiscent of serial adventure comic strips with the paranoia of Robert Anton Wilson's "The Illuminatus! Trilogy"." [cite journal|last=Skokna |first=Christopher|title=Comic Marvels|journal=Baltimore City Paper|issue=February 4,2004|url=http://www.citypaper.com/printStory.asp?id=3732] Later, his work became more political, the best known examples being "Dead Silence in the Brain: The CIA Assassination of John Lennon" ("The Comics Journal Summer Special" 2001); "Operation Northwoods" ("The Comics Journal Winter Special" 2002); "1963," an autobiographical account of growing up in the Dallas area during the Kennedy assassination, which appeared in "Roadstrips" (Chronicle Books, 2006); and the aforementioned book "The Bush Junta", in which White and 22 other cartoonists told the history of the George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush presidential administrations in comic strip form. More recently, White has begun working in the Western genre, one example being his story "Trouble in Tascosa," which appeared in "Hotwire 2" (Fantagraphics, 2008).

Notes

References

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* [http://lambiek.net/artists/w/white.htm Mack White] at Lambiek

External links

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* [http://www.bisonbill.com Official Website #2: Bison Bill's Weird West]

Interviews

* [http://www.aleksandarzograf.com/writes/writes_MACKWHITE_interviewed.html Interview by Sasa Rekazic]
* [http://www.komix.it/article.php?sid=2227 Interview by Claudio Parentale (Italian)]