the worlds of sam kieth, vol. 1 preview

7/27/2019 The Worlds of Sam Kieth, Vol. 1 Preview

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THE WORLDS OF SAM KIETH, VOLUME ONE. FIRST PRINTING. JULY 2013. Entire contents 2013Sam Kieth. Published by IDW IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorialoffices: 5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. Any similarities to persons li ving or dead are purelycoincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of thispublication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea.IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.

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Ted Adams, CEO & PublisherGreg Goldstein, President & COORobbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic ArtistChris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-ChiefMatthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial OfficerAlan Payne, VP of SalesDirk Wood, VP of MarketingLorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services

ISBN: 978-1-60010-492-2

Special thanks toTed, Robbie and Scott

16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4

Words and pictures by Sam KiethDesign by Sam Kieth and Robbie Robbins

Edited by Scott Dunbier


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Samplings and Dabblings retrospective

book, I realized something very important:I talk too much. Worse yet, as I age, like an

old fart, I tend to repeat the same old

stories over and over, adnauseum, about

"breaking in" to comics, about Sandman,

Marvel Comics Presentscovers, The Maxx,

Zero Girl, Troutstuff, etc I poured over

that museum book interview and was

proud that, after lots of pruning, yes, I did

manage to say a few new things. But

otherwise, I promised myself that the

"introspective interview" phase of my lifewould be over.

So what you're holding in your hand

here seems to contradict that promise.

Yeah, it's mainly an art book, full of

(hopefully) pretty pictures, full of sketches

from the last ten years. But I tried to make

it more than just a rehash of old projects. It

breaks my life into thirds, and I dug into old

photos, found notes I'd written to myself

while I was working on older projects,

looking for something determined to

share things I'd not said before, peel back a

little deeper. I reduced the pages talkingabout personal issues and drew them on the

brown sketch paper with black colored

pencil, omitting detail to keep them

"honest" and keep the focus off detail or

orientation. If I was gonna take one last walk

into the past, I wanted to keep the

flashbacks brief and to the point. These little

islands of key moments in my life are

surrounded by oceans of various paintings

in various stages of aborting or decay,

unfinished or alternate versions.What this book is not is a pretty

picture book. It's not chock-full of Maxx

pages or Marvel Comics Presents covers,

either. The focus here are the sketchbooks I

keep, which are "mind maps," a visual flow

chart of development, only in reverse.

Instead of mapping out which-image-goes-

where, first come the images, sketched in

random order on random pages. Then my

mind cuts, steals, abducts and reorders them

into a Chinese dragon. Thus Bimbo wasn't

After the interview I gave for the Cartoon Art Museum's


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conceived with a happy ending at first, or

anyending, because I didn't have an endingwhen I started it. Instead, it was a way out of

the depression I felt at the time. Maxx(which

is covered more in book two) didn't start

with my knowing that Maxx the bum sought

a fantasy Outback to escape being hit by a

car and having his life turned upside down.

The sketchbooks were less plot, and always

start as a roadmap out of some conflict

inside my life or heart. But I'm often not

aware of it until years later or that the

stories, paintings or even just doodlesscribbled in margins are a kind of therapy on

paper. Trying to unravel them inadvertently

creates a plot, which is backwards from the

right brain/plot first method.

But this is the only way I know.

Peppered with (hopefully brief) personal

tidbit pages along the way, the goal here

was to give all of you a new look into my

"process." My wife (who copy-edited the

first draft) and editor/friend Scott Dunbier

are the only one's who've seen and read it

all so far. They both expressed astonishment

at the worlds I seem so obsessed with, orwere struck by how what seems chaotic

from outside is in reality a meticulously

organized universeat least in my own

head! And they both expressed being

touched by my mom's recollections from my

childhood, which I've tried not to edit and

just let stand for themselves.

Mostly it's a book of pretty (and

ugly) pictures, which is what I was trying like

hell for it NOT to be. But hopefully it also

serves as a last walk through my mind, apeek into my imagination and "creative

construction" process. I wanted to revisit my

past, present and future with at least a

smidge of honesty.

So it's a little bit autobiographical.

A little bit allegorical. A LOT of self-

indulgence but then, what Sam Kieth

work isn't?

Sam Kieth

May 1st 2013


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