Sam Kieth, Co-Creator of ‘The Sandman’ and Creator of ‘The Maxx’, Dies at 63

Tonight, Bleeding Cool confirms the passing of legendary comic book creator Sam Kieth, best known as the creator of The Maxx, at the age of 63.

Kieth died on March 15 after battling Lewy Body Dementia, a horrific degenerative condition often described as sharing characteristics of both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Kathy Kieth.

The website provides a wonderful bio:

“Born on the 11th of January, 1963, Sam Kieth was a comic book polyglot, writing, drawing, painting, and bringing a graffiti aesthetic to his art, influenced by the likes of Frank Frazetta, Bernie Wrightson and Vaughn Bode, but finding a way to turn that to mainstream success in the superhero field, on the likes of Wolverine, which he made a bestseller in Marvel Comics Presents, as well as working sporadically on The Hulk.

“But it was his Image Comics creation in 1993, The Maxx, that brought him true fame, not only for creating a comic book series about identity, existence, dreams, and reality, but also for lightly disguising it as a superhero comic. It delighted Alan Moore to guest-write an issue as well, as well as the introduction years later to his Zero Girl. The Maxx was adapted to an animated series for MTV’s Liquid Television strand and went global. Years later, Todd McFarlane would have a massive hit making Maxx toys, including hard-to-find bags of Izs.

That legend creation might have been enough for any man, but he also co-created Sandman with Neil Gaiman, drawing the first five issues for DC Comics, bringing in the Bernie Wrightson aesthetic of the DC horror legacy, on which the series was initially based. And that was only the start. For Wildstorm, he would also create titles such as Zero Girl and Four Women, and from Oni Press Ojo and My Inner Bimbo. He also wrote No Smoking, the pilot to Cow and Chicken, created by his cousin, David Feiss, and directed the film Take It to the Limit in 2000, for ‘s Concorde-New Horizons.