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Clifford Lawrence Meth (February 22, 1961) is an American writer best known for his dark fiction. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish" and largely informed by his experiences with the Chabad movement.

Contents 1 Early career 2 Aardwolf Publishing 3 Relations with other comic creators 4 Quotes 5 Online short stories by Clifford Meth 6 External links

In the early 1980s Meth worked as a freelance writer for The Los Angeles Times Entertainment Newswire and numerous periodicals including Billboard, Fangoria, Hit Parader, Seventeen, Starlog, and Video Magazine. By the mid-1980s, Meth had become involved with Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivas but in 1994, the group's reaction to the death of The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, led to Meth's disillusionment with the group. Encouraged by his friend author Harlan Ellison, Meth embarked on a fiction-writing career. One of his first published pieces was the controversial I, Gezheh (an allusion to Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot), which dealt with corruption in Chabad. Author Robert Bloch wrote an afterword for the story, which was also illustrated by Dave Cockrum (co-creator of Marvel Comics Uncanny X-Men). I, Gezheh appeared in several anthologies before being e-published by www.BarnesandNobel.com.

With the aid of Cockrum and fantasy artist Gray Morrow, Meth co-founded Aardwolf Publishing along with partner Jim Reeber in 1994. The company published a series of successful comic books, art portfolios, and collections of illustrated fiction. Aardwolf also published a series of Meth’s short-story collections featuring covers and art contributions from comics illustration pioneers, including Jim Steranko, Joe Kubert, Mike Ploog, Frank Brunner, Alex Toth, Gene Colan, Marie Severin, Michael Kaluta and George Perez.

On numerous occasions, Meth has spearheaded campaigns to raise money and awareness for troubled comics’ creators, including Gene Colan and William Messner-Loebs. The most significant of these actions took place in 2003 when Meth, along with Neal Adams, negotiated an unprecedented royalty settlement with Marvel Entertainment on behalf of Dave Cockrum for his participation in creating X-Men characters.

Meth's personality and outspokenness have sometimes led to personal differences with some of his comics peers, including artist Barry Windsor-Smith, whom Meth lambasted in his column Past Masters. But Meth is highly regarded by most of his peers and noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its deft mingling of real-world issues with humour and references to popular culture.

"The only thing about Cliff’s writing that makes me crazy is the demented titles he puts on them. They’re just so fucking bad. For a guy who writes as well as he does, and who thinks as deeply as he does, I can’t figure it out..." - Harlan Ellison

• "I, Gezheh"

• Clifford Meth : One Small Voice

official website

• Cliff Meth's "Past Masters" column