I’d like to introduce you to Sam Kieth. He’s the creator, and the artist, of the Maxx that came out through Image comics in the ‘90’s. They made an animation series out of it that aired on MTV. Sam Keith’s art wasn’t like any other art form around at that time, when Marvel and Image were creating the next ‘wolverine’ or ‘X-Men,’ Sam Kieth was creating an overweight homeless man with a strange mask that lived in an alleyway and reminisced about the time he used to watch ‘Cheers’ on TV. Maxx was drawn in various styles, ranging from the perfect text-book way of illustrating arms and faces, to the utmost bizarre. Some panels were paintings or even charcoal sketches. In one issue, Maxx went into a girls dream and was drawn with simple lines with no detail. The issue was written and drawn in such a way that a six year old could have picked it up and enjoyed reading it.
After Maxx finished, and the hype surrounding Image Comics died away, Sam Kieth disappeared. He would pop up every now and again with various three issue comics, which were few and far between. Some were brilliant, excellently drawn (with pencil only), had great dialogue and stories. Others, were beyond strange, with obscure illustrations mixed with normal drawings. They were perplexed and the panels were sometimes left with great, big, black spaces that looked like he couldn’t be bothered drawing a full panel.
Recently I bought Sam Keith’s art books. I was astounded by the illustrations. He could paint amazing pictures and his sketches, on napkins and old bits of paper, were better than anything I’d ever seen him do. As well as these amazing pictures, where the most bizarre drawings I’d ever seen from a comic book artist. There were strange monsters, a cross between a mad man’s doodling and a Picasso painting. I felt like his art books reflected what he truly wanted to draw, and it was pure madness. Had he restricted himself for all these years? Had he brought comics out that had to be appealing to the wider reader audience in order to sell? If he did draw the way he wanted, would many people buy it? I think he had himself on a leash the whole time he was drawing the Maxx, or maybe Image had that restriction over him.
Whatever the case may be, it got me thinking about what restrictions I put on myself. What I often do is write two books at once, a main one that takes up 99% of my energy and writing time, and an alternate book that I write 1% of the time. If I’m writing a Children’s book, I’ll often feel the need to release some of my adult writing needs, so I’ll have an adult book just waiting off to the side. This is also vice versa, if I’m working on an adult book, I’ll have a children’s book in wait, just to lighten the mood of my writing and write something pleasant. I’ve been writing an adult book called ‘Hexagram’ for almost four years. It was a 1% book that I always went to if I wanted to write something adult and crude. Now Hexagram is so scattered and random it would take a good few weeks to get it back in order and finished. Having kept adding to it for so long, no story lines match up and there are characters everywhere, doing whatever. I would just find a random paragraph and add to it.
Hexagram was a book I started writing off one idea. The idea was two guys, one from a rich family, and one from a poor family, who both reject the pressure to conform from their families. They design a game called Hexagram, which is a cross between Jackass and Fight Club. They endeavour to destroy their bodies and minds to the point where God won’t recognise them anymore. It was a strange book idea, where I had no intention of ever trying to get it published or finished. I would just write it now and then when I needed an outlet. But, after seeing what Sam Keith did with the Maxx and then seeing his art book, it made me think of Hexagram again. With Hexagram, I wrote whatever I wanted, no matter how vile and disgusting. No matter how graphic and disturbing, I would write it down. It made me think, maybe I did restrict my other books? Was I backing off the accelerator just that little bit in order to not’ freak’ people out. I’ve written some disgusting things before with short stories and received a strange reaction, and that was for ‘one’ particular scene. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a whole book worth of those scenes.
The leash I put on myself when writing books is so I don’t shock people and make them look at me strangely and think I’m too weird. I’m afraid to expose myself for what I really think and research and write about. The topics I find interesting and useful in my books would make the ‘average’ reader shut the book and burn it. I kind of understand, maybe, how Sam Keith must have felt when drawing mainstream comics. There is an invisible leash that you attach to your own neck, in order to keep yourself guarded and hold on to your dignity. Any day the mask could slip, or the leash could break and the books that come out could be too twisted to read, or too graphic. But until then, I’ll just do one scene at a time and if it gets too weird, then the reader will have to hang on for the ride.
Mitchell Tierney