Another reason for not being on the internet is all the dying.
In comix no-one truly dies.
In my memory Sam Kieth looms weirdly larger than his actual presence. It was the inking, of course. The full-on, all tactics accepted, rock'n'roll, performative way Sam Kieth inked. There weren't many dudes making my hair stand up that way. Sienkiewicz, for sure. Mike Drinenberg, maybe? But Mike's linked to Kieth, isn't he.
I know Sam Kieth first hit my life indirect. I came to Kieth's name from scattershot sources: The Comics Reporter, or the Amazing Heroes annuals, or The Comics Scene. Those magazines were the only way I was able to learn about the greater wealth of talent operating within the field, because Kieth wasn't in all that many places. Initially I associated Kieth with Willian Messner-Loeb & a strange-looking comic called 'Epicurus The Sage', which-- if I remember correctly, at this moment --was published by DC's 'Piranha Press'. I'd heard of that before I ever started reading 'Sandman', for certain.
'Sandman' I came into a little sideways, because it was THE book anybody in the industry had a take for. You might not have given a single solitary fuck about Batman but if you were reading comix in the late 80s, early 90s, you were talking about DC's biggest gamble since they first yanked Moore's beard. 'Sandman' was a strange-looking book, especially those first, ungainly issues with Sam Kieth's art.
Have you ever read something where the artist looked like their work was the product of a greasy pizza? Like, the product of miserable indigestion. That's what Sam Kieth's work on the first few issues of 'Sandman' was like, to my eyes. Like it's just uncomfortable. The work feels like a misjudged assignment. Like every page was Kieth trying to fight it out to the next page. And then he's out, and the hot potato is in Mike Drinenberg's hands, and he's actually able to Hold It, Properly, before passing it on.
I don't know what Kieth's next assignment was, in that time period. He hit me next with his arc on Dark Horse's 'Aliens', and man, did that book land with me. It fit him. He's maybe the only artist I feel like was able to capture Sigourney Weaver's likeness on the page? He certainly got the gigeresque stuff right, like it's full on Biomechanical noodling everydamnwhere, which was definitely my vibe in high school. I'd scribble biomech in the margins of lined notebook paper for hours. I was starting to itch to be able to ink LIKE Sam Kieth, though this wasn't something I could properly articulate then: I dug the granular, textural quality of how he laid india ink down on board. He made ink his dominant FEEL.
And then, of course, there's Marvel Comics Presents, where Kieth rocked out for a bit. Was he doing that stuff before or after the Dark Horse Aliens run? Did he create Cyber? Yes? No? Maybe it matters, maybe it didn't. But the Wolverine stuff Kieth did-- that was a turning point. I was all over the style, the absurd ribboning of fabric and the macho porcupine stubble and the vascular density of the triceps. I was in love with The Maxx before The Maxx even happened. Because you can see Kieth's Maxx all over where he was headed.
Like I know Arthur Suydam and Frank Frazetta were the big influences on Kieth. Most people-- cis-het people --see the Frazetta, because of how Kieth drew women, but what I saw everywhere, over everything, was Arthur Suydam... But not gross? Because Suydam's vibe is kind of squishy, and dank, and horny. But there wasn't the hillbilly leering to how Kieth drew sexy stuff. He had that "appreciation" for the human body you hear hifalutin' art dorx wax enthusiastic about: he could draw hips like someone who wasn't trying. As in, Kieth wasn't drawing with a pencil tied to his dick.
You know what I'm saying. Some artists, you can tell where their mind is at. Neal Adams couldn't draw sexy because he got too weirdly flustered when he tried. Sam Kieth didn't seem to have that neurosis. Does that sound like bullshit? It maybe should. Because there's a lot of working out hangups about sexiness on display, in The Maxx-- point of fact that seems to be the dark pulse compelling Kieth's work throughout that era at Image. 'Friends of Maxx' and 'Ojo' and everything else Kieth did, it always came back to feelings & feminism & fumbling through whether heterosexual men in america were fundamentally broken.
(Bad news for you, Kieth, where-ever you've gotten to... Jury's out on that. Like, at lunch in a greasy spoon, and probably not coming back unless it's with the shits.)
Anyhow, Kieth got all that stuff down, coherently or not-- I'm no judge, I'm only Your Average Fan --Kieth got it all down on paper, without seeming like a creep or a cretin. To me. Kieth's art had an honest power to it. He made drawing look fun. He made me want to hold a brush. He was there, early as any of the Big Names that hooked me, and he seemed like a weirdly humble dude. And he made Image a better place? Of all the names that jumped onboard during that second-to-third wave of 90s Image, Kieth was one who really CHANGED how the brand landed with my generation.
Because McFarlane, let's be honest, the only reason to read McFarlane is the kind of cartooning that came perfectly naturally to Kieth. The excess, those noodling repetitions of heavy metal signifiers like shredded & wind-whipped fabric, etcetera, the tensed coiled clusters of muscle-- yeah, McFarlane sold himself to the world as horny for needless detail, but what he was celebrated for, his silly-ass "style"? Sam Kieth was the original gangsta.
Tell me you wouldn't have read Sam Kieth's Spider-man. Tell me you wouldn't have actually loved Spawn if he'd been a little less Al Simmons and a lot more Maxx. God-damn.
Anyway. Sam, my man. You made it look righteous, and you seemed righteous, and does any more need to be said? Selah.
