COMICCON.COM Interview
"SAM KIETH ON ZERO GIRL, 4 WOMEN, AND HULK/WOLVIE"
originally posted by Matt Brady on Comiccon.com

After a conspicuous absence from comics, Sam Kieth has returned with a tour de force that spans the market.

Starting with last year’s Zero Girl miniseries from Wildstorm’s Homage imprint, Kieth followed that up with the rather introspective, five issue miniseries, Four Women, again with Homage, and follows that up with Wolverine/Hulk, a four issue miniseries from Marvel Knights beginning next February.
What is he smoking, and hey – where did he go after The Maxx?

Okay, a few things first – while Kieth was out of the comics spotlight for a few years following The Maxx, he was not involved with pygmies, he did not have a run in with Colombian drug lords in a Rio casino over a showgirl named Lola, and he categorically denies any romantic connections between himself and Swoozie Kurtz.

He did however, direct a movie for Roger Corman, entitled Take it to the Limit, and honestly, he wouldn’t mind if you didn’t search it out at your local video store.

So why leave The Maxx, which was one of the few Image Comics’ properties to be adapted as an animated series for MTV, and comics all together?

Burnout.

“I had to recharge my batteries after The Maxx,” Kieth said. “I kind of ran out of steam on it, so I did go off and do a movie for Corman. There were a couple of movies that he was doing when I was working for him, none of them horror, though. I was originally asked to direct a fantasy film, but the bottom fell out of a bunch of markets, and he gave me a choice between a kickboxing movie or a family movie. The family movies were these Afterschool Special kinds of things, so I ended up directing this family movie, Take it to the Limit up in Lake Tahoe for something like $200,000 budget.”

Kieth feely admits that as a film director, he makes a good comic creator. “It was a humbling experience,” Kieth said. “There’s nothing like learning from the ground up. I went into it though to gain some experience and pay some dues in a whole new field. I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to go off and be a big film guy any more than I’m a big comic guy, though. So I went off and made some bad movies and discovered that I don’t know how to direct movies. I’m not completely done with that world, but I discovered that you have to have some patience – directing movies is something that I’ve only been doing for two or three years, and I’ve been doing comics for quite a bit longer.

“After that, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do something in comics, but I didn’t want to do more of The Maxx, because I had run out of ideas on it, the book had run its course, and everybody’s sales were down. I associated it with lawsuits and a whole bunch of other bad things that had happened along the run, so I really didn’t want to come back to it. It almost felt like doing it right now would make it an ugly kind of thing. Besides, Matt Wagner waited a long time before he went back to Mage, so maybe when I’m an old fart, I’ll get back to it.”

Instead, Kieth started talks with Wildstorm editor Scott Dunbier, who he’d known for years, dating back to the days before Dunbier worked at Wildstorm. Turns out that Dunbier had been hoping to work with Kieth for a while.

From the outset, Kieth had no misgivings about heading back into “corporate” comics after a rather successful run with a creator-owned character. “I wasn’t opposed to doing work for him, or Marvel, or anybody that was work for hire, or even creator-owned,” Kieth said. “It was all the same to me, and I’d been on both sides of the fence – I’d owned the character and participated in it. I was one of the creators on the Sandman with Neil, and it didn’t seem to really be that different from work for hire as long as you understood the differences.”

Like many other freelancers, Kieth didn’t approach Marvel initially when he was coming back into comics, primarily because the rapid turnover of the editorial staff pre-Quesada left few people in the office that Kieth actually knew.

Kieth’s project under Dunbier was the critical success Zero Girl, a book which found a small but loyal audience, which was, in part due to it being collected as a trade paperback this month by DC/Wildstorm. “It was a character that didn’t have giant, triple D breasts, power bracelets and all that, so I knew it wouldn’t be a huge seller, but it kind of surprised me that people responded to it,” Kieth said.

With Zero Girl, Kieth expanded on the quirky ground he tread upon in The Maxx, telling the story of Amy Snooster, a teenage misfit and social outcast. Amy can talk to insects, and believes that squares are evil and circles good. Along with her…different beliefs, Amy also has begun to manifest odd powers, like the sudden appearance of puddles wherever she goes. Zero Girl was Amy’s first outing, and showed her learning the meaning behind her abilities, as well as finding her place in the world.

As Zero Girl was winding down, Kieth had put together a follow-up for Wildstorm’s Homage imprint, Four Women, which begins this month. Another experiment by Kieth, Four Women is a story about four women, held together by a dark secret. Limited in its action, Kieth admits the miniseries tested his abilities.

“In Four Women, there were no tricks – it was four women in a car, and there was nothing I could get away with as a supehreoic or moody, otherworld look,” Kieth said. “Doing a story like that is a quick way to find out all of your limitations as a writer and artist. It’s a strong story, and I hope it will ring true, although I’m not a middle-aged woman who has faced physical jeopardy in car. I wanted to try to be storyteller boy instead of artist boy, but it’s hard to be storyteller boy when you’re also artist boy, because storyteller boy makes artist boy draw things that he doesn’t want to draw.”

The protagonists of Four Women, Bev, Donna, Marion and Cindy begin driving to a wedding – but never make it. During the ride, their friendship is tested unlike ever before, as Donna tries to pull her life together after the horror that she ahs both seen and experienced. “As I wrote it, I would transcribe it to my wife, and she would stop now and then to tell me how much it was affecting her,” Kieth said. “And not in a good way – it’s a rough story to tell as these four women go through hell and try to come back.”

As for Kieth’s other forthcoming project, between completing Zero Girl and beginning Four Women, he had heard about Joe Quesada getting the gig as the Marvel Comics Editor in Chief, and decided to place a call – or try to, at least.

“I couldn’t find anyone who knew it,” Kieth said. “I ended up calling Scott, and he knew somebody who knew some kid named Brian Bendis, who had it. So I called up this guy, and he told me that he really wanted to work with me. I said, ‘Yeah, sure kid, I need Joe’s number.’ He gave it to me, and started telling me about this book he was doing that we could maybe work together on. I wasn’t trying to be rude, I just didn’t know who he was – so I said, ‘Yeah, sure, fine, whatever,’ and then called Joe.

Kieth told Quesada how pleased he was to see an artist get the job, but Quesada cut to the quick, asking Kieth what he would like to do at Marvel. After a little pestering, during which, Kieth insisted he only called to congratulate Joe; he gave in.

“I told Joe that there were three characters I loved at Marvel,” Kieth said. “I told him that I loved Dr. Strange, and he said, ‘Yeah,’ and then I told him I loved the Hulk, and he said, ‘Yeah,’ and then I said I love Wolverine, and he said, ‘All right – Wolverine!’ I asked about a miniseries with all three of them, and he countered with a miniseries about the Hulk and Wolverine. I said I’d love to do a Hulk miniseries. And then Joe said that we should squeeze Wolverine in there as well. It was fine – I like Wolverine.”

But even though he was working with two of this three favorite Marvel characters, Kieth was still slightly reluctant. “I didn’t know what Joe could offer that would offer me any freedom, but he basically told me that I could do whatever I wanted,” Kieth said. “I never had a chance to do that. I could do that with my own characters, but I never had a chance to do that with Wolverine, back when I was drawing him in Marvel Comics Presents. The question was then, will I just be one of those guys who screws it up again – a spoiled writer/artist that can’t really write and can’t really draw, but just happens to be vain enough to think that he can do both?”

The result was the Wolverine/Hulk miniseries which begins in February of 2002. As Newsarama spoke to Kieth while he was working on the art for the series, it was what his thoughts, and comments, gravitated towards.

As for the miniseries itself, it’s an amalgam of Kieth over the years. There’s the big brute in the form of the Hulk, Wolverine, and a semi-creepy little girl. “I wanted to try to blend the typical two guys beating each other up story with a story about a little girl with long stringy hair standing in the snow that seems like a ghostly apparition,” Kieth said. “I asked myself if these things went together – and hey, we’ll see. I’m in the middle of drawing it right now. I’m doing a sequence in the story that needs to be drawn with crayons, and I didn’t have any crayons in the studio, so I had to go downstairs and buy some. The only cost $2.00 for 24 crayons – that’s so cool. I felt like a kid again, playing with my crayons.”

While Kieth was quick to point out he’s not drawing the entire miniseries in crayon, the approach he’s taking to the art is something, he’d like to think at least, that is different than anything he’s done previously.

“The thing is, I think my work will look like a different artist than what people are used to,” Kieth said. “I end up using photo reference and do some of those angles that are really hard to capture – but then it winds up looking like me anyway. When I would turn in pages for Scott, he would tell me he thought it was some of the best art I’d ever done, and I told him it was some of the suckiest work I’d ever done. I didn’t see at the time how off the noses and eyes were, and then I had to look at it all over again for the lettering. Scott calmed me down on that though.

As he sees it, Wolverine/Hulk is giving him a chance to blow off some steam, and once again draw “goofy stuff that I haven’t been able to draw anywhere in five issues of women in a car, talking.”

“Ultimately, it will be whatever it is,” Kieth said. If people are expecting the old Hulk from the book I did a million years ago, then they’re out of luck. While I am someone who only has four tricks up my sleeve to begin with, and have already used three, I have changed a little as an artist, and so the art won’t be exactly as it was the last time I drew these characters.”

Interestingly, the final fate of the artwork that Kieth is headed towards an unhealthy obsession on is that it will all be auctioned off, with the money being split 50/50 between ACTOR and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

While he’s sweating the details on the art, Kieth isn’t glossing over the story either. The miniseries begins with Wolverine stuck out in the snow after a plane crash. Just as Logan is getting his bearings and figuring out how to get back to civilization, an apparition appears in front of him – a little girl, telling him that she and her father are trapped in a plane wreck underwater, and are going to die unless he can help them.

The trick is, the plane has a special harness that the now-unconscious father is bound by, and only the little girl’s uncle, who helps with the flights, knows how to undo it without causing harm to the father. Luckily, the uncle is nearby, and the little girl leads Wolverine to him.

“Finally, after trudging through the snow, the image of the little girl points ahead and says, ‘There’s my uncle, uncle Bruce,’” Kieth said. “Wolverine looks to where she’s pointing, and sees that she is pointing at the Hulk. Now Wolverine has to calm the Hulk down enough so he’ll become Bruce Banner and be able to tell Wolverine which strap to pull, and how to rescue the girl’s father.”

Lesson one – never send a superhero with berserker tendencies to try and calm the Hulk down. “I just did a scene where Wolverine finally gets the Hulk to sit down and try to think about calm things, so for three panels, the Hulk is sitting there, staring at Wolverine like the Thinker, and finally, after getting more and more frustrated, just blows up and says, ‘Hulk doesn’t like thinking!’ and hits Wolverine,” Kieth said.

“I thought it would be interesting to have this dilemma of Wolverine, who’s instinct is to fight back when challenged, to have to ignore all that and calm the Hulk down. The girl realizes what’s going on and tells Wolverine that he can’t lose his temper, because if he does, they’ll never get the information they need. It’s a pressure-cooker situation for Logan.”

Kieth pulled his inspiration for the story from his love for classic Hulk stories that often placed the Hulk in a rather unwinnable situation, given his temperament and somewhat limited intellect. “I know folks like Peter David have said that writing the dumb Hulk isn’t that easy, and it might not be for a long run, but I think it’s like writing a child when you’re writing that version of the Hulk. Even though there’s a limited understanding on his part, you can writ the story around the Hulk, rather than focusing in on him.”

So inspired by classic Hulk stories was Kieth, that he recently sent the plot for Wolverine/Hulk to former Hulk writer, Len Wein, for some advice. “I probably wouldn’t be working on the Hulk if it wasn’t for the stories he used to write,” Kieth said. “I was a big fan of his stories where there would be some comedic stuff, and then by the end, it would be sad, and the Hulk would stand there, alone, not completely understanding why his tantrum had caused everyone to run off and leave him, and the very thing he wanted, he never got. It was all very adolescent angst that fit both the Hulk and me, as a kid reading it, perfectly. I would wonder the same things as the Hulk, but I wasn’t big and green and powerful, I was just sitting in my room, but at the same time, there was a character that seemed to justify or at least go through similar pouty, adolescent moods as well.

“But now, after saying all of that, and what I’m trying to accomplish, people will probably read my story and say, ‘I got absolutely none of that out of the story – it was just some cheesy excuse to watch the characters beat each other up while a little girl runs around behind them in the snow.’ Or maybe they’ll say they saw what I was trying to do, but could see why it didn’t work. Eh, it’s a comic – it’s three bucks, it’s fun.”

On a total side note – it was Kieth’s affection for the classic version of the Hulk, or rather, his pants, that resulted in his choice of color for his own character, The Maxx.

“I thought it would be great to color a character purple,” Kieth said. “I remember when I showed Steve Oliffe the art, he thought the character looked really cool, and was anxious to color him with fleshtones. I said no – he’s running around in fields, so it will be relay organic, but the Maxx would have a bright purple costume on. Steve thought I was kidding, and told me that that would ruin the book and begged me not to make him paint the Maxx purple. He couldn’t think of anything else worse than a guy wearing purple in nature. Well, he was right, but I stuck to my idea, anyway, so now I’m stuck with a purple Maxx.”

And while Kieth remains noncommittal on where and when the Maxx might reappear, he does have plenty of projects coming in the interim to keep him busy, and keep his return to comics going in full swing.

On potential project may involve working with that guy who had Quesada’s number. “Hey, from all of this, now I know that Brian Bendis is a real guy – and, from what I’ve seen since I spoke with him, a pretty popular writer,” Kieth said. “Someday we’ll probably wind up doing something together, if I don’t crap out on him.”

On the immediate horizon is a sequel to Zero Girl, and possibly that third Marvel character Kieth likes. “Going back and doing Zero Girl seems like the thing to do – people really seemed to like it,” Kieth said. “I’ve suggested that I could write it, and have someone else draw it, but when I do that, everyone starts squealing like stuck pigs, so I guess I’m stuck with it.

“I’ve also been talking to people at Marvel about a Dr. Strange story, so, in my ongoing quest to work on characters with zero match with my style, I thought I would probably work my way over to Dr. Strange sooner or later,” Kieth said. “Doing Dr. Strange is going to be purely a labor of love. It won’t be quite as hard on me as Four Women, and it won’t have Dr. Strange sitting in a Honda talking to four women.

“To tell the truth, even though Four Women has an uphill battle in front of it, it’s something that I hope people will check out, because I worked my ass off on it. I know there are people who are saying that I’ve sold out by going with Marvel, but hey – I’m looking at working with just as stupid a character at Marvel with as much potential as four women in a car, and also, I just did two miniseries that are as far outside mainstream work as you can get. I’m as ready to shoot myself in the foot commercially as I ever was.”

And finally, Kieth does have more films in the works, both involving his properties and also as a director, but for both, he’d rather stay mum. “I’ve learned my lesson – any comic guy that talks about a film of his stuff before it’s greenlit is just wasting their breath,” Kieth said. “But I’m still leaning about films, and am a little more hesitant to do anything too big. I feel fine about making small bad, things in New York for the next ten years rather than making really big bad things in Los Angeles that everyone sees, and I’m terribly embarrassed because they have my name on them. But then again, I’m terribly embarrassed about my stuff that’s out there anyway. I’ll be embarrassed no matter what happens, I guess.”