Sam And I
Sam Kieth and I scribbled together sometimes.
Sam Kieth is my artistic hero. He has been since I was 15 years old, struggling with anxiety and depression, and discovered his Image Comic Book, THE MAXX. I’ll gush more about my everlasting love for The Maxx someday, and how a single issue of Sam’s comic changed the way I viewed comics, and art in general.
Then one day, we met. I’ll get into that later, too, as it’s 9:41pm and our dog is patiently staring at me to feed him and he’s so utterly adorable that I really have to stop typing pretty soon and dig that cold spoon into his wet warm disgusting food.
But fast forward maybe 10 years from when I first saw The Maxx, I not only met Sam, but had become friends, and even worked together on a few projects.
I still can’t get over if that period of my life was real. But it definitely kept me going.
I was digging though my archives as continue to experience my years-long mid-life crisis, organizing art that I haven’t looked at in decades, and I came across a two pieces that mean a lot to me.
This first piece is still extremely surreal to me. I drew this nonsense, flabby-chested character with a ruler for a head that I titled “The Ruler of the World”. Sam and I often shared our art with each other and I showed him this piece in a pile of other nonsense, and he immediately said he felt inspired by it and asked me if he can paint on top of it. That. Was. Crazy to me. But yes, 100% you can. Scribble on it. Splash watercolors on it. Destroy it! And he did. In a beautiful way. He gave my random, mundane character so much emotion and life. So cool.
My original ink and watercolor drawing.
Sam’s incredible finishes on top of it.
Over the few years we were close (although I would love to think we are still close, even if we don’t talk much these days, as Sam is very private), we started developing multiple projects together. The only one that came to fruition was our comic “OJO”.
But there were a few more projects we brainstormed together that I’ll share if I ever dig those up those scribbles and notes, but I found this piece today that I drew during one of our development-hangouts and it made me wish we continued working on this.
It was an untitled project that was basically a cross between Weekend At Bernie’s, Lars and The Real Girl, and Frankenhooker. It was about a guy who decides to date a dead girl, convinced that he can “fix her”.
Anyway, I love Sam, I love our creative time that we spent together, and I hope someday we cross paths again because he’s the best.
Sam and I in his studio in Sacramento, CA.