Kieth first came to prominence in 1984 as the inker of Matt Wagner's Mage, his brushwork adding fluidity and texture to the broad strokes of Wagner's early work at Comico Comics. In 1989, he penciled the first five issues of writer Neil Gaiman's celebrated series The Sandman, but felt his style was unsuited to the book (specifically saying that he "felt like Jimi Hendrix in The Beatles") and left, handing over to his former inker Mike Dringenberg.
He acted as illustrator on two volumes of writer William Messner-Loebs' Epicurus the Sage, drew an Aliens miniseries for Dark Horse Comics, and drew a single issue of The Incredible Hulk (#368), which led to a long-term gig drawing covers for Marvel Comics Presents, cementing his reputation as one of the quirkiest artists in the superhero genre.
The Maxx
In 1993, Kieth left Marvel to create the original series The Maxx for fledgling publisher Image Comics. The Maxx ran for 35 issues, all of which were plotted and illustrated by Kieth (though William Messner-Loebs handled scripting duties on issues 1-15), except issue 21, which was guest-written by Alan Moore. The series was a massive success. The first issue sold over one million copies, and was adapted into an animated series for MTV.
MTV's The Maxx Animated Series
In 1995, with Kieth's blessing and creative assistance, The Maxx was adapted as part of MTV's short-lived animation seris MTV's Oddities, which also included Eric Fogel's The Head. The series broke ground in the use of computer animation on a limited budget, and was praised for its unique "living comic book" style of animation, which retained much of Kieth's original art. MTV's The Maxx went on to win the Special Award for a TV series at the 1995 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Zero Girl and Four Women
After taking a break from comics to pursue other interests, Kieth created the surreal series Zero Girl for DC's Wildstorm imprint, along with its sequel, Zero Girl: Full Circle. He followed these up with the slice-of-life drama Four Women, a departure from Kieth's usually surreal subject matter.
Batman & DC
Kieth then wrote and drew the five-issue series Batman: Secrets, featuring his own grotesque take on the Joker, and Batman/Lobo: Deadly Serious, a two-issue prestige format mini-series starting in August 2007. This was followed by 2009's Lobo: Highway to Hell, written by Anthrax's Scott Ian, and the fully-painted story 'Ghosts' which appeared in Batman Confidential 40-43. In 2010, Kieth wrote and illustrated the original hardcover graphic novel Arkham Asylum: Madness, which spent 2 weeks on the NYT best-seller list, reaching number 5. Another Batman graphic novel, this one centered on the Mad Hatter, is scheduled for release in 2011.
The Trout-a-Verse
Ojo comprises the first, and My Inner Bimbo the second, in a cycle of original limited series or graphic novels to be published by Oni Press, which he has dubbed "The Trout-a-Verse". The books deal with a variety of themes, including faith, sexuality, couples with age differences, mother-daughter differentiation, and feminism.
Kieth says: "Each graphic novel can be read as a stand alone story, yet every book/character also representing a part of my personality." The cycle will concern the intertwined lives of Annie (Ojo)< http://www.readaboutcomics.com/2004/08/19/ojo-1/ > , Lo (My Inner Bimbo ), Dana, Nola, Otto, and various others that have yet to be introduced... all connected by an encounter with an urban legend known as the Magic Trout" . Kieth previously stated that characters from The Maxx series may appear in the Trout books, but has since decided against this idea.
Art Books
IDW Publishing released The Sam Kieth Sketchbooks: Vol. 1 48 pages of previously-unseen art from sketchbooks dating back more than 25 years. Volume 2 was released in August 2010, and future volumes are planned. A re-release of the 300+ page Art of Sam Kieth is currently underway also.
Other work
In Britain, he has contributed to 2000 AD's Judge Dredd and provided several covers for the Nemesis the Warlock reprint title.
Kieth provided the cover art for punk band Groovie Ghoulies' 1997 single "Running with Bigfoot".
He also provided all new album art work for San Francisco metal band, Giant Squid for their album, The Ichthyologist released 2009.
