mckean

British illustrator Dave McKean has had a long and fruitful career, over the length of which he has done just about everything an artist can do. And though he has worked with most every medium and within virtually all forms of media, he is best recognized for his illustrations in magazines, novels, CD covers, children's books, and, most prolifically, in graphic novels (comic books). Among fans of comics and other artists from the comics scene, he is widely regarded as a highly-skilled fine artist among mere ink-and-painters, for Dave McKean is an artist whose work supercedes categorization by genre, artistic process, or media type. While it is obviously a passion of his to experiment with storytelling, as he is afforded in his efforts in graphic novels, he is not known exclusively as a comic artist. Because of McKean's remarkable talent for defying the classification of his art and for succeeding in many, varied fields, his illustrations are to be found throughout the realm of printed media and beyond. Examples of his art can be found anywhere from an Alice Cooper CD cover to The New Yorker to a children's book like 'The Wolves in the Walls'. (Wikipedia)

Just as the work of Dave McKean is not defined by an exclusive context or media avenue, neither is it restricted to any one specific medium. His preferred modus operandi could be said to be "mixed
media" (and has often been designated as just that), because it tends to combine a varied
arrangement of methods, such as ink and photography or digital imagery and paint. It is thusly that he usually produces his unmistakable, phantasmagoric style, one that is all his own. As a side note, it is amusingly contrary that his artwork can be so singular as it is while always remaining so relentlessly pervasive. One might make the inference that because his art permeates through many of the various arteries of our culture and there is nonetheless nothing quite like it, his style must not be very easily emulated. His is not a household name by any means, but with all the work he does, which is more and more every year, it seems like only a matter of time.

Throughout his portfolio, there are some subtle yet unmistakably similar elements that arise. Hence, his signature style is formed, transcending design, medium and subject matter, serving to unite the mixed myriad of his illustrations. A certain brand of symbology is intrinsically incorporated into his style, to which his catalog seems to owe its deep-rooted distinction, perhaps even more so than to his style itself. The symbols themselves vary, but they often convey a familiar, seemingly distorted world view and belie a morbid propensity in the artist. Other unifying elements that remain constant from each of his illustrations to the next take form as unmistakable reprisals in theme, which include a childlike wonder and simplicity set against a concrete, visceral realism. This juxtaposition is done in a deceptively arbitrary-feeling fashion by means of a relatively unique process.

His technique, like his style, is also partly of his own innovation. Under his adept control, this technique tends to produce striking and evocative pictures. It sets him apart from other artists, most especially from his fellow comic book artists. McKean has developed a certain trademark quality in his technique, one of dreamlike surreality, that makes frequent appearances in the form of comic book covers and novel illustrations. The backbone of this technique is known as collaging, which is a very open-ended medium. Using this technique, the artist may include just about anything in his artwork, as McKean often demonstrates. What sets his works apart in this area is that he often utilizes this process in such a way as to elaborate on his subject matter by intertwining foreign yet related elements into his designs. It is a kind of haphazard aesthetic surgery, and it is thereby that he makes his conceptual connections. According to Mckean himself, his works tend to have a "put-together" appearance; he currently uses programs like Adobe Photoshop to accomplish that, but he creates the individual elements himself from his drawings, photos, and sculptures.(MirrorMask) The end result plays upon established iconology, sometimes endearing and sometimes irreverent, but by and large, it is to good effect.

Dave McKean attended the Berkshire College of Art and Design from 1982 to 1986, and he was already working as an illustrator before graduating; however, on a trip to New York in 1986, he found himself unable to obtain in work in the comic industry. (Wikipedia) McKean's most reknowned project is also the most long-standing project he has ever taken part in. The project in question is, of course, the Sandman series of graphic novels. It was there that McKean earned much of his respectability as a comic artist, aided in no small part by the author of the series, Neil Gaiman.

The two of them met later on in 1986, and immediately began collaborating on graphic novel projects; some of their first books 'Black Orchid', released in 1988, and Signal To Noise, released in 1990, were both very well received. (Gaiman/McKean Books) The hugely popular Sandman series naturally came afterward. From its outset, the Sandman series featured the effective synergy between McKean and author Neil Gaiman, who would become a long-time collaborator and friend. I would be remiss not to mention that Gaiman is also a bit of a jack-of-all-trades in his own field; his writings are to be found in a wide array of publications. The nature of his own inspiration parallels that of McKean. They are both repeatedly drawn to the fantasy genre world, though they do not strictly inhabit it; this is most probably because they have similarly wild imaginations. They share a meandering professional history that revisits fantasy occaisionally and while they have both had nebulous career paths and elusive creative goals, they never worked very long apart after their first meeting without rejoining now and again to collaborate once more.

Years before meeting Dave McKean, Neil Gaiman began his writing career as a fairly successful journalist. Not content to be an everyday columnist for magazines, he went on to write a collection of novels, more than one of which made the New York Times Bestseller List. Without digressing further into the life of Neil Gaiman, suffice it to say that the cooperation between he and Dave McKean over the coming years yielded immensely successful results. McKean could not have chosen a better ally than Neil Gaiman to help him break into the comic book business.



This represented a pivotal period in both of their careers. McKean was finally in a position to gain some credibility as an artist for graphic novels. And through their cooperation, they were able to enhance their abilities and it is apparent that McKean improved the quality of his work over the coming years.


As captivated as readers were by the products of their teamwork, so too were they invigorated themselves. Drawing incessant inspiration from one another, they spawned many new projects over the following years. It was here that the direction of Dave McKean's career had irrevocably changed.


Most recently, Dave McKean has broken into the film industry with his latest project, an ambitious
full-length motion picture utilizing computer-generated imagery to articulate his own unusual brand of surreal imaginings. Though the quality of animation in the film rivals that of a major movie studio, it was all created and compiled by McKean himself using retail software on an average personal computer; this is considered a landmark achievement in the industry. (Wired News)

It should come as no surprise that the screenplay for that movie was written by his friend Neil Gaiman, without the help of whom McKean probably would never have seen himself go so far as to become a film director. As a matter of fact, he probably owes a fair amount of credit to Neil Gaiman for assisting him in becoming the accomplished man he is today. This is evidenced by the fact that since his dealings with Gaiman, he is now an author in his own right. Beginning in 1990, McKean masterminded the serialized graphic novel 'Cages', for which he did all of the drawings as well as the writing, across a considerable five-hundred pages. (Gaiman, 90)



Dave McKean's style, which is highly-stylized and universally recognizable, has managed so far to
maintain its uncanny appeal over the years without descending into the mediocrity that
characterizes the work of many other artists in his field. He also maintains to this day a devoted fanbase as well as a few unexplored options in his career, all of which he has gained the standing to pursue. His success is likely due in large part to an unfailingly innovative visual sense. However, as can be observed from his background, Dave McKean also owes many of his outstanding accomplishments not to sheer innovation, but to the heedless experimentation of his early career in becoming a comic book artist.




Works Cited


Gaiman, Neil. Mr. Punch. New York: DC Comics, 1995.

MirrorMask. Dir. Dave McKean. Perf. Jason Barry, Rob Brydon, Stephanie Leonidas,
and Gina McKee. 2006. DVD. Sony, 2006.

"Dave McKean Works Digital Magic". Wired News. 29 Sept. 2005 <http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,69015,00.html>

"Dave McKean". Wikipedia. 16 Mov. 2006.
<http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Dave_McKean>

"About Dave McKean". Gaiman/McKean Books.
<http://www.gaimanmckeanbooks.co.uk/frame.asp?id=333>