Museum Reception Pics..

Saturday was awesome! SPECIAL THANKS to everybody involved in putting the whole show on..

.. on mostly to all of YOU for stopping by!

I managed to grab a few pics before the museum opened early morning,

This was the first time I'd seen all the art framed too.  Everyone was super patient with the line, which I tried to keep moving to make sure everyone got something signed at least.

Here's one of the magic boxes, moss and all.  This, and other Trout matters will be explained in "The Big Book of Trout" coming out from IDW next year. ( ..shameless plug much? )

I wish I'd taken more of the folks in line, but once i sat down it was all a blur and i was too busy signing or sketching.  Couldn't really absorb it all on Saturday. Think I should come back on my own when it's there's less people for a second look?  Not in an ego way. Just to... digest it a little?

You'll recognize this guy. These first sandman sketches, and the cover to Maxx 1 never made it into the Museum book, but nearly everything else in the show did.

This plaque below it pretty much explains it, in case you didn't see it in the Absolute Sandman.

Here's the page where Neil picked out the helmet they liked best. Notice I hadn't yet learned Karen's name yet - on the left. Collectors are always after me to sell these two, probably because they were the first two 'approved sketches' of him. But I'd prefer to keep them.

It's interesting, I wonder if my later mixed media paintings sticks out from the old stuff?

Or does it kinda blend right in with the older art? I suppose anything an artist does shows some 'fingerprint' doesn't it? Be it drawn, built, modified, scrawled, screwed glued or tattooed.

Guess It'll always be unmistakably 'Sam-like' to my fans.

Here's a case containing a few more 'Trout Antiques'... plus the original art to the Museum book cover.

Here's what you see as you round the corner, explaining things a little. Weird to see your name so big on a wall... in person. Unsettling. Sorry this pic didn't catch the whole thing, but you get the idea..

Now if you turn to your left, here's the first thing you see, a wall of art, and that weird old box. Kinda a warning of the weirdness your in for.

Finally, yup, my name again up top. For some reason ... in this pic, it looks almost black here, doesn't it?

Weirdly (in the photo below) you can see my name clearly IS colored green against the same wall.  This was taken just before they opened the doors and everyone came flooding in.

I arrived a couple hours early to do those 25 sketches for people who paid. 

I know, some people got sketches for free, but that why i wanted to do a extra nice job for those who paid for a book in advance. 

You never know in advance with a sketch do you? Hit and miss. It's just whatever ... happens to comes out of the pen/pencil in that moment. 

Here's my buddy Josh Hagler, a painter in his own right who's standing in front of a few more Maxx covers. I should have taken some of these... maybe next time.

So much for the budget virtual tour, and again thanks for coming and all those who donated to the Museum, it's for a good cause!

Sam 

Reception Answers ... & Some New Art!

Museum Questions? Here's some cool  ***ANSWERS***  Andrew Farago put together... that should address answer almost all of any questions/concerns about the Saturday's Reception/Signing.

Okay, With all this Museum details distracting everyone... I bet some of you who aren't going would love to get back to some ART on this friggin' blog for a change, eh?

I've got several pieces going at once, but this one came together after several weeks of Creative Lull..

This one started out quite the mess... no visual focus... so I tried to stop all the abstract textures at the bottom... and leave some black space up top.

That's what brought me to colored pencils.. some of which really pop against black bristol.

My goal here is to balance out the mixed media chaos at the bottom of the canvas...


..with some firework of energy, curves and explosion of little lines.. be it white, teal, orange. whatever.

It's hard to know what to throw up sometimes, my biggest job is to edit, because like us all a lot an artists draws really can miss the mark. This piece included.  A lot is subjective in why someone hates/loves/indifferent to an abstract.

But the biggest goal is to break paralysis. Any line, art or mistake is at least a choice, an action. Beats the hell out of inaction. Molasses.  Failure fears. Ruts we all get sidelines into.

So.. this should propel me into he signing, then i'll see what else I can throw up after Saturday.

If your there, i'll see you then.

If not, then just kick back, enjoy the Museum Book and Interview in it..

..and we'll catch up sometime in-person, at least once before i croak, promise!
- Sam

Museum Book EXISTS .. it's PRINTED and Everything!!!!!!!!

 SPREAD THE WORD - the Museum reception's less than TWO WEEKS away!!! 

APRIL 27TH - 11AM - 2PM ( ...or whenever the crowds thin out ) ; )

 Not sure how many folks will come, but even if it's a smaller crowd, (those can be cool too. More intimate) either way, it's 7 bucks to get it, but it's for a good cause (the Museum)  And i'll do a doodle in your Museum book if you want! Or just stop in and say 'hey' if your in the bay area that Saturday. 

Here's a Facebook link Andrew Farago at the museum threw up. 

MUSEUM BOOK IS OUT!!!! kay. Well, it's not 'available' yet... this is edirot-writer Chris Ryall who sent me proof that, hell yeah... IDW did get some copies fresh from the printer!  Even I haven't got a copy in the mail yet...

...but we know it DOES exist....s in some form, cause he's holding the sucker!  ~ Thanks buddy.

Been distracted by getting the other book too... the BIG one... Worlds of Sam: which is nearly ready for the printer too.. It's actually ballooned since i took this picture to 240 pages to closer to 250 ( ... I keep finding cool stuff to add to it too, that's a good problem right?)

Plus here's some budget pictures of the Worlds art book PDF... on my monitor, (which is why camera flashes and monitors don't mix)..

Here's another one from page from the book...... this Cat is neil. I think of him that way after that Charity book story i did. I'll take screen shoots next time so their better quality.


Once the Museum reception thing's over... should get back to a regular rhythm... on all fronts.  Sorry If i've been distracted lately. I know your all 'out there'... thanks for holding the fort while i try to juggle everything.

Also, if your a retailer and are wondering where your Hollows Incentive Covers are???  - I promise i AM making my way through the HUGE  batch of those too- honest! That many blank Hollows covers might intimidate a weaker comic artists... but working my way thru 'em - promise! 

Thanks everyone!  

- Sam 

CARTOON MUSEUM SIGNING: Sat. April 27th. 11am to 2pm. !!!!!

Don't pay the ransom money - I've escaped... and resurfaced... more or less..... unscathed!  Got bogged down, overwhelmed by everything in the pipeline, work wise! So thanks for everyone's patience while I took some time to get my act together.

Remember even if i take some time off, shift to hibernation mode, I will resurface ground-hog like eventually! It was weird digging through all this old art,

...and batches of newer art lying around the studio, awaiting to be delivered to the Museum.... so much stuff lying about in little piles. You'll probably recognize most of these pieces here.

Looks like we've finally nailed down a DATE & TIME  for the Museum signing: Sat. April 27th. 11am to 2pm.  I'll be signing and you can order a copy of the "Sam Kieth: Samplings and Dabblings, a Retrospective from the Comic Art Museum.

Andrew Farago will start a Facebook page to count it down and a Kickstarter page to cover the costs of supplying the Museum with some printed copies, so keep your eye out for those too!

If you live in the bay area.. you may have already seen these pieces here. Most are mostly already framed on on display right now. Wanna thanks Andrew Farago, Scott Dunbier at IDW for kicking off this whole thing, and Shaenon K. Garrity, John Butler and Ryan Graff their exhaustive designing and editing work....

.....in getting the Museum book looking, well... looking like a *real* book and everything!

A show of pervious work may seems odd, since chances are you've seen this published or on the blog already. But I have to remember there's nothing like seeing things in person, is there?

If your *not* in the bay area... no worries. That's what the Worlds are books are for.  I chose to avoid putting in work for hire stuff like Marvel or DC stuff... i wanted it Worlds of Sam" books to be more 'creator owned' focused.

But if you wanna drool over classic older stuff, the Museum books good for that.

I can see this year... will really be my 'big year out' publicly. Outside of this (and San Diego this year), I think.... overall it's best I keep chained to my drawing board. I haven't even gotten to SDCC yet, but you all know what these big shows are like. It's crazy. But the fans make it worth it, they really do. 

More Good News: There's a rumor I may stop by at *one* other spot in another bay area location.  Still up in the air. But, assuming that second place event even happens? Just know, between 

1. Cartoon Art Museum resepction, and 

2. this one other possible mystery appearance, 

these TWO places are your ONLY chance to get something signed from me.... for a looooong time. 

Yeah, I know I haven't hit the east coast, and I promise in the coming years... will *try* to make my way out there.... eventually if I can. 

I think I am just am better built as a machine... and happier.... when avoiding too much traveling.  You fans... are beyond cool and make it all worth while!  Comic cons, crowds in general, not so much. I wish i could just beam myself over to your living room, sign, then beam myself back home again - that would be the best. 

Btw, here's a bunch of moss I added to the box... real moss - I hope it lasts the length or the show before it dies - wish me luck there! But, I can always add new moss to it later...can't i? 

Also, my apologies for the plethora of creep pharmaceutical spam polluting the comments section. Only way around that I see it making you enter a code before posting comments, which is a pain, but might be worth it to keep the spam to a dull roar? what do you think?

So, while I HAVE disappeared for a while, hopefully the 96 page Museum book, the 240 page Art book ( which IDW solicited already so I have to get it out now!) which will be out in July for comic con, hopefully these will make up for everything.

Just remember, anything you see that I do art-wise that you do like, remember YOU guys are the inspiration for my creating it in the first place!  So these books, and future ones...

 are really my trying to give back to you, my fans.... for urging me out of my doldrums (and introverted turtle shell) and into the sunlight, for however briefly i manage pop my head out.

My humble thanks to you all!
- Sam

Isz Jam and 'Dr. Weird' pages

Here's a Dr. Strange Parody I drew years ago, which was later reprinted in I Before E collection.

...with a generous slathering of blacks.

notice how small and modestly sized my name was back then?

plus my nod to those little 'windows between dimensions' effects Ditko did so wonderfully.


Then while digging through the old stuff, here's something else I forgot all about... back before I broke into the big two... I was found any excuse to work an Isz into short story work I could find. I hit up a series of friends at the time to help draw an Isz story, you know... one guys draws a few pages, hands it to the next guy, make up up the plot based on the last guys part?

I lost steam and got distracted with other things. So it got filed away and forgotten. It's only half done... only up to page 15.  So i figured why not throw it up here?

My old friend Ty Templeton got the ball rolling...  Like the Dr. Weird story above, Ty edited and wrote quite a few small press stories i drew, and has done tons of work for nearly all the bigger publishers too. His book Stig's Inferno was one of my favs.

I'm afraid all I have is these faxes Ty sent me 20 years ago. Apologies if you'll go blind trying to read them. The other parts are easier - promise.

Next Isz three pager (actually 4) was Dave Garcia, another pal from my small press days. He and his wife did the comic Panda Khan which was pretty cool. Here's a cover Dave did i've always loved.

Here's what Dave came up with..

Now's a curious one.. I didn't know the third artists, so I'm guessing Dave knew him and got him to agree to do one? Turns out his name's John Patrick Morgan (or J.P. Morgan), another 80s artists who drew, among other things, a cool book I vaguely remember called Fission Chicken.

Sadly John passed away not long ago.  That's really a shame. So, hats off and a toast to the two pages John did for my isz jam story.

Next up was Tom Stazer who drew a space parody book I loved called 'Spaced'.  Another strip i loved of his was called 'Crazy Bob'. I even painted this back cover for one of his Spaced issues.

Tom's space ship in Spaced always looked like a hair dryer. I like drawing hair dryers for some reason. Uncle Freddy anyone?


Seems Tom handed it off to Mark Martin. I'm a huge fan of thus guy, he did a parody of Dark night called Gnatrat, but my fave was the hard to find book 20 Nude Dancers 20 Poster Book.  Very funny stuff if you can find it.

Here's what Mark added to the Isz saga..

Whoever drew this last two pages is a mystery. The only name i have written down is Don.

Maybe.. Don Simpson? Not sure just who drew these two pages, but here they are for what it's worth..

And with that, our story trails off.  Unfinished.  These hand 'round robbin' stories are hit and miss, and the plot always takes a beating.  Probably not worth publishing, but worth throwing up online. My apologies to all the artists here for taking... what was it? 20 years? 25? (before it seeing the light of day.)
Sheesh. Pretty tacky of me, but at least it's out there now.