Dave McKean Quotes & Sayings

I've always used masks. I think it's a lot about the fact that masks often reveal a sort of subconscious element to a character. The mask is carved and given an expression or markings to reveal something, even though it's shielding the face. Even though it's hiding the face, it seems to reveal something underneath. — Dave McKean

Oh, sheep. I've lost all my sobbing colours. — Dave McKean

I'm a huge science fan; I read a lot of science books. But I'm not a scientist, my interest in science is I love the facts, but I like to interpret those facts. They become the raw materials for stories and paintings and things. — Dave McKean

I like being able to do anything. I think that's healthy, doing anything and everything, rather than just getting completely obsessed with one particular genre or particular kind of work. — Dave McKean

The reason I love comics is that they DON'T move, and there is NO sound. As a creator I have to evoke those elements in the drawings and writing, and the reader has to create those elements in their own minds. — Dave McKean

I tend to be known for different things. I mean, there are a lot of comics or sci-fi fans out there who sort of think of me doing that kind of work, but there are just as many people who like the CD covers I've done, or the children's books I've done. So different people like different things. — Dave McKean

Pride in what and who you are is a strong foundation, but don't be defined by your oppression; use your anger, don't let it use you. — Dave McKean

I don't want to get pigeonholed just doing just family films and fantasy films ... I don't really want to get pigeonholed just doing anything in particular. — Dave McKean

Reading a good comic is a creative act. Watching a film is often a more passive experience, and since I'm interested in engaging that conversational aspect of creativity, I'm trying to find ways of achieving that in my films. — Dave McKean

I think the two jobs I dreamed of doing as a teenager were comic book artist and record cover illustrator. Maybe film director was in the mix as well, but that seemed to be an impossible mountain to climb. — Dave McKean

The inspiration is all in the script, in the text. So whatever it is, either it is a film or a book to be illustrated, anything. Everything you need to know is in the text. So the thing is trying to find right tone and voice, the right style, the right way of expressing the emotions in a story or in the location of the story, but it is all in the text. — Dave McKean

She looked out at the other trees, and she realised that her life was one of thousands, any one of which could have been her, she had grown wherever her life had taken her, she had drifted wherever the wind had blown her. — Dave McKean

Usually, the most difficult thing to do is photo-real stuff. Something that has to actually look like the real world, because it's just so difficult to do that. We're just so used to looking at the real world, our brains instantly see when something is not quite right. — Dave McKean

Everybody's a bird, locked up in a pretty cage. Sometimes you fly to a slightly bigger one, but you never quite have the courage to abandon captivity completely. — Dave McKean

I like stories that exist both in the naturalistic world and in our imaginative lives, films are so immersive in that sense, we can explore how our characters think and dream, as well as how they exist in the real world. — Dave McKean

PhotoShop is a program I use all the time with my 2D stuff. And that's an extraordinary program - you really can do anything there, and I've never hit my head on the ceiling. The 3D stuff is incredibly complicated, monstrously complicated, but for the things that I want to do, I've found very simple and interesting ways, I hope, of making images without getting tied up too much in the maps and technicalities. — Dave McKean

The filmmakers I really love are the ones that let me look through their eyes for a while. They have an aesthetic and social point of view. — Dave McKean

It's not even been a two-and-two-make five sort of day, it's more like a two-and-two-make ... fish — Dave McKean

I like the adventures because you know that when they say, "I've got a plan," and then they tell you, you know it's not going to work. And when they say, "I've got a plan," and they don't tell you, you know it is going to work, and it's all very exciting. I thought real life might be like that for a while, so I didn't tell anybody what I wanted to happen, but it didn't make any difference. I knew I was kiddin' meself. — Dave McKean

It a heasy t'ing to live for de lightnin' crack hillumination of possession.
It heasy to hide in de dark o' faith, pretendin' dat anyt'in' dat skitter an' scuttle in de night is jus' bad himagination.
It a heasy t'in' jus' to stay where you at. Grow roots. Vegetate. Be a potato. — Dave McKean

But actually making pictures to look like my pictures, I've done it for so long, I'm kind of used to it now. So at the beginning of the process, designing and storyboarding everything, I sort of did all that. And then designed the characters, and doing the textures for the characters, and the texture maps to cover all the animated characters and the sets, I did those, because that's where my sort of coloring and textures get imprinted on the film. — Dave McKean

I suppose cats have sayings like ... "A dead mouse ... has no entertainment value." How's that? Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it? Okay, how about ... "Red sky at night, time for a nap ... red sky in the morning ... time for a nap. — Dave McKean

I kind of enjoy the limits. If you've got no limits, you can do absolutely anything, it's very difficult, actually. I always enjoyed working with machines like color photocopiers and letter-pressing type settings, things where the limits are very apparent. You push the machine to do something, and it tries to do its best, and it usually has wonderful qualities all of its own. Then you get a sort of dialogue going, and the limitations become qualities. — Dave McKean

My stuff is generally quite collage-y anyway. So it's sort-of suited to gathering raw materials like shooting actors, then making stills or animating characters, then just bringing them all together in a 3D space. That process is very close to my 2D work anyway. — Dave McKean

I love the silent era because you can see the rules being written, the grammar of film being created. Most of my films are in some way love letters to the silent era. — Dave McKean

I mean, it's not even been a two-and-two-make five sort of a day, it's more like a two-and-to-make ... fish ... or something ... You know? Not even close to making sense. — Dave McKean

I've always liked making things that don't deny the medium that they're made in. If it's collage, I'm happy for it to look like that. If it's a film made with computers, I don't mind that it looks like a film made with computers as long as it still has a feeling or a mood or an atmosphere that is relevant. — Dave McKean

And then a strange thing happened. Out of the diseased and deteriorated pool os tired thoughts came life. A simple and poisoned life, but a life nonetheless. Death cultivated tis bacteria with love and attention. It thived in its stifling, hopeless world, sapping Death os all its energy, but Death didn't notice, for all its attention went on the fracturing, multiplying, fragmentary creations inside it.
And when the virus had eaten every fleck of Death, it lived on in Death's dry sarcophagus.
Life implied by Death. — Dave McKean

Sometimes the things I learn making paintings or drawings - composition, colour, expressionism, texture - can directly influence the making of a film. Sometimes it's great that they are different, and simply taking a break from one medium to spend time with another, recharges the batteries and I feel refreshed. — Dave McKean

If you want to be a chef or a scientist, you've got to know what the current thinking is, so if you want to write comics or draw comics find out what the very best ones are and look at them all and then you'll know where the bars are because the bars are often very high, if you are going to make a splash and make yourself known, you need to get to that level. — Dave McKean

There are so many comics about violence. I'm not entertained or amused by violence, and I'd rather not have it in my life. Sex, on the other hand, is something the vast majority of us enjoy, yet it rarely seems to be the subject of comics. Pornography is usually bland, repetitive and ugly, and, at most, 'does the job.' I always wanted to make a book that is pornographic, but is also, I hope, beautiful, and mysterious, and engages the mind. — Dave McKean

There is nobody who is good or bad, it's just not like that. They all are complex individuals. They all see the world in their own way that makes complete sense to them. Nobody goes around feeling that they're evil - they think that they're doing the right thing. And so that seems to have something really important, big, and deep to say about human beings. — Dave McKean

When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world. — Dave McKean