Dave Cockrum and Rob Liefeld: A View From the Throne

Difficult as this might be to swallow, there was a time when Dave Cockrum couldn't get work as an artist. I'm not talking about when he was just back from the Navy seeking that first soon-to-be-fabled assignment as a professional. That actually didn’t turn out so badly. Armed with a folded letter of introduction from Neal Adams, who saw something in the young Cockrum that the rest of us would soon discover, Dave’s early career was something America’s Got Talent legends are made of.

But two decades later, it was over. Just a single generation after Cockrum’s ground-breaking Giant-Size X-Men #1, which introduced his characters Nightcrawler, Storm, Thunderbird and Colossus to the world, there was a new Pharaoh. And suddenly Dave Cockrum couldn’t catch a cold at Marvel. He was viewed as old hat by the new turks. Stodgy. That’s the word Joe Quesada used for Dave Cockrum’s art.

Leap forward another two decades and Dave’s artwork is selling for stupid money. You can hock one of his original covers, if you have one, and buy a car with the proceeds. Fans have canonized his creations. A sure sign of that is their inability to accept anyone touching the Futurians.

Don’t get me wrong. When the announcement that Rob Liefeld would be taking on the Futurians was made, I didn't exactly expect old fans to wet themselves in anticipation nor trample the halt and the lame on their way out the door to buy a copy. I know how old guys are. I had one staring back at me in the mirror this morning, bleary eyed, slack jawed. It's not a pretty sight. Old guys don't like any manner of change. I get it. Give me the same bran cereal I've always eaten. Give me the same beer. And don’t expect me to segment kitchen garbage into compost piles and "legit" trash. Julie Newmar—now that was a Catwoman. Adam West is the real Batman. I get it.

We all hate change. Change is evil. Nothing new can ever hold a candle to what was. I don’t care when you were born—you know as well as I do it was better back then.

But tell that to young folks just graduating from school this month, or just attempting to break into show business. We don’t want young punks looking for work in the comic book industry. Comics represent the idyllic Golden Age of our fleeting youth—a plane of reality where good is good and bad is bad, and no one ever ages or dies.

Except creators.

It partially explains why the entertainment world seems to contain a finite creative well, a manifesto where 90% of everything is recycled or at least derivative. Is it because there’s so few fresh ideas or just a bludgeoned audience that’s unreceptive to novelty? Perhaps certain things really are worth revisiting? And revisiting. And revisiting.

I'll leave that riddle to you smarter people to solve. The old guy in the mirror doesn’t like to burden himself terribly much with things he has no control over, which is just about everything. But one thing he has some say in is the Futurians.

Years ago, Dave Cockrum took a chance on me and gave me license me to write a Futurians story. Some years after that, Steven Brown, the head of IDT Entertainment, took a chance on me and allowed me to write a Futurians screenplay.

Paty Cockrum—Dave’s widow—took a chance on undiscovered comics creator David Miller and allowed him to develop a comic series out of one of her husband’s Futurians characters. She took a chance on undiscovered comics creator Richard O’Hara and allowed him to pencil the final pages of Dave Cockrum’s last, unfinished, final Futurians.

Forty years earlier, Sol Brodsky and John Verpoorten at Marvel took a chance on Paty.

Sometimes you have to take chances.

The old guy in the mirror laments the abandonment of childhood pleasures that just don’t present themselves anymore. Worse, he misses his pal Dave, who just isn’t around to phone and shoot the shit with, or drive out to visit, or produce terrific new comics and characters. But the physical absence of Dave Cockrum does not mandate the absence of characters he designed and blew life into. You can be certain Marvel won’t let their Dave Cockrum creations die.

It’s up to the Dave Cockrum estate to make certain that intellectual properties Dave conceived continue to delight generations to come. Even if it doesn’t delight old guys who insist that Neal Adams was the only Batman artist or prefer Adam West wearing the cowl.

So maybe Rob Liefeld isn’t your favorite artist. He isn’t mine either. My favorite was Gene Colan. How dare David Mazachelli or Lee Weeks or Tim Sale touch old horn head after Gene had been on the book for a decade!

Rob Liefeld wasn’t selected because Paty Cockrum and I expected a clone of Dave’s artwork and writing style. He was accepted because he loves Dave's work enough to ask for the project. He’s been wanting this for 15 years. And Rob’s own accomplishments are vast. It would be demeaning to enumerate them.

When the announcement was made that Rob was taking on the Futurians, his fans were thrilled. But the old boy’s club held their midnight convention at the Dave Cockrum Appreciation Society on Facebook and I was unprepared for the vitriol that poured out of some of these codgers. One guy compared the announcement to Donald Trump winning the presidency. He didn’t mean it as a compliment. Another individual’s hysterical invective, which seemed to gather hysteria with each subsequent post, demanded a boycott of Liefeld’s Futurians. To be staged at the U.N., no doubt, or at least on the steps of City Hall.

“You could—you know—wait and see,” suggested unreasonably sane author Mark Ellis.

But that would be too easy. When change comes, it's better to rail against it, better to bash one's own head on the wall, to scream at the top of one’s Facebook lungs and proffer a call to arms, and perhaps take out a Senator or Congressman on their way to a baseball game just for good measure. Clearly, one’s level of ire must rise to the degree of the offense. A comic book drawn by someone else?! Heresy!

I thought about that as I stepped away from the old guy in the mirror and took the throne of indignation. And upon further pondering such, I concluded that those who spend so much energy bashing projects before they are even born have likely never struggled to produce anything beyond a good bowel movement. And even that was hard.

Paty Cockrum Makes Joe Kubert Blush

Just found this piece from 12 years ago and thought I'd share it. --Cliff

I was privy to a few moments of sunshine last week when I introduced Paty Cockrum to Joe Kubert.

“Thrilled to meet you, sir,” said Paty in a voice I didn’t recognize as hers. Sir? Hell, this is the toughest old gal I’ve ever known, famous for dragging men out of burning buildings and pointing shotguns at strangers. The occasion was the initiation of The Dave and Paty Cockrum Scholarship Fund, which we’ve been planning for a number of months.

“You were one of the first comic artists that I was truly a fan of,” Paty said to the blushing legend. “You and Bill Everett were the only two who signed your work back then, but you were the only one who knew how draw horses. Everyone else bent the horse’s legs the wrong way.”

Joe, who always has an easy smile, had a good laugh from that. “I had great respect for your husband’s work,” he said. “I watched it very carefully.”

“Well, your Hawkman was formative in his design concepts,” said Paty. “He revered you as an inspiration.”

As for Mr. Meth, I’m proud to sit on the committee that will bestow the newly established scholarship. I’m not a big believer in ghosts. Paty is, but I’m not. Either way, I can’t help thinking that ole Dave would be very happy about this if his ether has any sense of happiness. Dave got his big break because Neal Adams had a generous spirit and sent Dave to Jim Warren with a note saying, “Give this boy work.” He spent his whole career paying that forward. I never saw anything other than a generous spirit on my friend?generous with his time, with his meager funds, and with his praise to burgeoning young artists who would come to him for advice.

But let’s not neglect Paty in this equation. As long as I’ve known the lady, she’s been going out of her way for anybody who needs a helping hand, giving away art, giving away art lessons, and now giving away cash.

A $1000.00 grant will be bestowed each year on a second- or third-year students at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon Graphic Art, Inc. The school currently has about 120 students and has graduated more than 3,000 since its founding in 1976, including some of today’s leading artists and many of my pals.

The scholarship will be funded by the sale of Dave Cockrum’s personal comics collection, which you can see at my blog.

This article (c) 2004 by Clifford Meth first appeared at comicsbulletin.com

Aardwolf Publishing to release Dave Cockrum's Final FUTURIANS

Contributed art from Ray Lago

Dave Cockrum’s final, never-before-seen FUTURIANS story has everything you loved about Dave’s X-Men work—and more. But Aardwolf Publishing wasn’t satisfied just assembling a sensational graphic novel scripted and penciled by Cockrum, and inked by his X-Men collaborator Bob Wiacek—we also recruited the industry’s royalty to create pin-ups, write-ups, and signed and remarqued bookplates: Neal Adams, Neil Gaiman, Jim Lee, Ray Lago, Ricardo Vilagran, Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, Bill Sienkiewicz, Walt Simonson, Mark Wheatley, Mark McKenna, and Mike “Bru-Hed” Pascale are just some of the sensational team adding many delicious extras to this project, which also sees the professional return of Paty Cockrum (Amazing Spider-Man, Claws of the Cat) on colors.

Pre-order the hard copy graphic novel now and receive the expanded digital version FREE. You will also have exclusive opportunities to purchase inexpensive original art and signed bookplates from our all-star team--as well as Dave's personal items (his pen, his sword, his personal file copy of X-Men #94).

U.S. Price for THE FUTURIANS RETURN is $25.00 (customers outside of the U.S. will be billed for additional shipping). You can even ask Aardwolf to reserve the book for just $10.00. Are we good guys or what?

To participate in this special pre-Kickstarter offer, PayPal your reserve money to sales@aardwolfpublishing.com and note “Futurians Reserve.”

What Really Happened to Dave Cockrum and Gene Colan?

Colan kept dignity and high spirits in spite of dire circumstances.

If you've followed my blog, you know how I felt about my pals Dave Cockrum & Gene Colan. What you probably don't know is what went on behind the scenes of their struggles with Marvel. Perhaps you read between the lines. Maybe you missed the episodes entirely and are content collecting their comics and art. Fair enough.

But if you're interested in their real stories--and some of the other sordid happenstances in the world of four-color comics--you might want to check out this video.

Cockrum was cheated but never complained. 

Aardwolf Publishing has launched it's first Kickstarter project around my book Comic Book Babylon. With an introduction by Stan Lee and art by Michael Netzer, it's little wonder why the project funded in less than two days. But the Kickstarter is just the beginning. The book will be the real event. Come meet the real Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Joe Kubert, Walter Simonson, Bob Layton, Herb Trimpe and many other key creators of the comic book universe. Come read Harlan Ellison answer tough questions for tough Jews. Take a look at what I consider my most exciting project in more than a decade. Click here to start the journey.

Scholarships Are *NOT* Entitlements!

As a student at Rutgers and FDU in the U.S., and at Wroxton College in the U.K., I often competed for writing scholarships. The competition and awards proved invaluable on numerous levels:

1) As an amateur/student, I was forced to bring my writing to the highest possible level without assistance.
2) I learned to meet deadlines and follow word-count and guideline parameters.

3) Winning awards for my writing increased my confidence and allowed me to envision life as a professional.

4) Awards are solid resume material for as-yet unemployed wannabes.

5) Any monies I won were enormously helpful to my father, who earned a meager living but was otherwise happily burdened with my tuition and upkeep.

Needs-based awards have some value but, let's face it, everyone has needs.

Merit-based awards are far more valuable and character building.

After Dave Cockrum's passing, Paty Cockrum and I launched the Dave and Paty Cockrum Scholarship at the Joe Kubert School where we annually award a second-year student with some tuition assistance based on their ability to create seductive, sequential art. We designed the award for someone who has demonstrated a stick-to-itiveness by hanging in for that second term. The scholarship now enters its 6th year and is funded, in part, by sales of Dave Cockrum's personal comics collection.

After Gene Colan's passing, I began funding a second scholarship to a promising penciller at the school, also in his or her second year. I was pleased to be informed that these scholarships inspired the creation and private funding of other named scholarships, including one in Dave Stevens' memory.

With Joe & Adam Kubert at 2012 Scholarship Ceremony

This year's award ceremony will take place next month and I plan to be on-hand once again to meet and congratulate winning students. This will be the first year my friend Joe Kubert is not there to emcee the event. But in contemplating that loss, I've decided to add a third scholarship (as yet unamed), which will be funded by selling signed comics. Today's collectors like their comics signed and, fortunately, I am able to pick up the phone and ask some old friends for signatures. Stan Lee, Walter Simonson and George Perez were among the first to offer help.

I invite your participation in this new scholarship, too. If you have any signed comics that you are willing to part with (even one), please send them to: Clifford Meth (attn: Kubert Scholarship), 179-9 Rt. 46 West, Rockaway, NJ 07866. Or email me at cliffmeth@aol.com  Donated items will be auctioned on Ebay under the account DaveCockrumEstate (which is currently in use to fund the Cockrum and Colan Awards).

Scholarships helped me and kept me going forward. I am delighted by the opportunity to maintain the circle of life.

Thank you in advance for your kind support.

Dave Cockrum & Gene Colan Updates

Many of you have noticed that more comics from the Estate of Dave Cockrum, as well as some of Gene Colan's file copies, are now being sold on Ebay. And if you haven't noticed, come take a look. There's some terrific collectibles at great values, and proceeds help finance the Dave and Paty Cockrum Scholarship, as well as the newly established Gene Colan Scholarship, at the Joe Kubert School for Graphic Art. I miss Dave and Gene and Joe very much. Harlan Ellison (he should live and be well) warned me that having older pals would be painful one day. It's painful now. I've lost too many.

I will be creating a NEW LIST of available items (books, comics, original comic art) and posting it here soon. These items will be available before going up for bid on Ebay or ComicLink or one of the other auction sites. These days, my charity work is limited to these scholarships. Wish I could do more for others but I am limited in resources.

Even if you are no longer a collector or comics or comic art, please share this blog with others on FaceBook or wherever you virtually hang out. Paty Cockrum sends her love to everyone. Gene's son Erik says hello. I say hello. And Saints Dave, Gene and Joe are looking down or sideways and giggling  at how much fuss we continue to make about them.

bruchas,

Cliff

Gene Colan, Dave & Paty Cockrum Continue to Enrich

Joe Kubert (center, top) and his students with Adam Kubert (bottom right)

This afternoon, I was honored to participate again in the Scholarship Ceremony at the Joe Kubert School. Joe and his son, artist Adam Kubert, were both on hand to present students with cash awards for outstanding work--monies that we hope will help them in their training before they head off to work in the very competitive field of comic art.


From Joe Kubert:

"THE GENE COLAN SCHOLARSHIP was established by writer Clifford Meth in memory of his friend Gene Colan, who passed away last June. Gene is regarded as one of the most influential and beloved artists of Marvel's Silver Age. He worked for Marvel for 64 years--longer than anyone else to date--touching nearly every major Marvel character and defining many including Daredevil, Iron Man, Tomb of Dracula and Howard the Duck. In the last decade of his career, Marvel and Dark Horse stopped assigning inkers to Gene's work--his pencils were regarded as too perfect to cover up. This is the first time the GENE COLAN SCHOLARSHIP has been awarded and the award is presented for outstanding craftsmanship with a pencil."

"THE DAVE and PATY COCKRUM SCHOLARSHIP was established by Dave's widow Paty and their friend and collaborator Clifford Meth. Paty was a production artist at Marvel during the last years of the famed Marvel Bullpen, where she also did occasional pencils on Marvel's British magazines and such U.S. books as Amazing Spider-Man and Claws of the Cat. Her husband Dave Cockrum, who passed away in 2006, was considered by many the the greatest character designer Marvel had after Jack Kirby and John Romita. Cockrum's designs and creations for Marvel included Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, Mystique, Thunderbird, Ms. Marvel, the Black Cat, Starjammers and the Futurians among others. Having trained under Murphy Anderson at DC, Dave spent most of his career at Marvel. The annual DAVE and PATY COCKRUM SCHOLARSHIP is awarded for creativity and outstanding story-telling ability."

Dave Cockrum Speaks from Beyond

As usual, Tom Spurgeon offers the most compelling round-up of bio and analysis at his site The Comics Reporter following the death of the extraordinary Jeffrey Jones. I have little to add other than I remain very sad about Jeff's passing. We were working on a book together for better than four years now called Silent Light (Jeff chose the title), which I now feel obliged to finish more quickly. I also suppose we'll find some worthy cause to benefit from this book's publication because now it will disturb me to make any money from this project in Jeff's absence. Jeff already created and signed several hundred tip-in sheets for it; Michael Netzer, our mutual friend, offered more than a year ago to write the introduction.

Yes, I'm avoiding the pronouns. It's not a judgemental thing at all. Gender reassignment notwithstanding, Jeffrey Catherine Jones always signed letters and emails to me simply "Jeffrey"--and on the phone continued to say, "Hello Clifford. It's Jeffrey." I knew the artist and writer (Jeff wrote beautifully) and had no regard, one way or the other, for anything beyond that. His/her personal life was just that.

Then out of nowhere, I was pointed to a 1995 audio interview with Dave Cockrum and myself conducted at Icon-IVX in Long Island regarding Dave's Futurians and the beginnings of Aardwolf Publishing. This was a nice memory. Click the link--it's worth a few minutes to hear Dave's sweet voice again. Thank you Howard Margolin, who hosts DESTINIES - THE VOICE OF SCIENCE FICTION. His show airs on Fridays at 11:30 PM on WUSB, 90.1 FM, the radio station of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Hundreds of writers, artists, editors, actors, producers, directors, and musicians have appeared on the program since its debut in April, 1983.

My Friend Dave Cockrum

Everything about Dave Cockrum was extraordinary--his draftsmanship, his designs, his storytelling... and the man himself.

The Future of Dave Cockrum's Futurians

A number of you have written and even more have hit this blog via keyword searches (yes--we can see you; Google cuts both ways).

The wheels on the FUTURIANS move slowly. There's 20 unpublished, tightly pencilled pages of The Futurians by Dave Cockrum sitting on my desk and inquiries and interest from a number of major comics' publishers to roll-up existing (previously published Futurians' stories) into one BIG book. And there's still the half-interest of occasional Hollywood vecks. Paty Cockrum owns all of the originals and rights to everything so it's not complicated legally, just a question of what we want to do, and with who. Or is it whom?

We Get Letters

I just wanted to say thank you for all you've done and continue to do for Dave Cockrum and his wife Paty. As you can guess from my name, I was/am a big fan, and when he passed, I read about how tough his last years were, and how you were there to help, and still are to this day. It made me want to thank you personally, but I've never had the chance, until now, when I noticed you were a mutual friend of my old pal Tom Orz. Just please know, at least one fangirl in this world thinks you're pretty damn awesome, and appreciates you and what you do; truly, you are the embodiment of the word "friend". Please, continue to ROCK.

Your pal,
Storm Bourbon-Glossen

Thanks for the nice note, kiddo. I don't know Tom Orz but I'm sure he's a swell guy. I only love Dave & Paty, and helping them was the greatest pleasure. Better than sex. Better than vengence. Better than publishing. -CM

Dave Cockrum's FUTURIANS Return

If you read this blog or follow the comings and goings of Mrs. Meth’s son Clifford, you’re aware of my decades-long association with The Futurians. Created by my pal Dave Cockrum, The Futurians have had several shots at the big screen that didn’t quite pan out (partly due to the ineptitude of Howard Jonas’ IDT Entertainment, partly due to that disingenuous, mealy-mouthed sleaze ball of a stuffed shirt Richard Saperstein). But interest in this title has never waned and there are a number of Futurians projects on the horizon, and several proposals on my desk.

First at bat is the new Avatar mini-series from David Miller Studios. This is the first time Cockrum’s “Andrew Pendragon” gets top billing. As David Miller explains, “Avatar returns to his English home for a family funeral and encounters an ancient evil from his past; an evil that could consume all of Great Britain.” Issue #1 features a cover by Greg Larocque, who was drawing DC's Flash back when my buddy William Messner-Loebs was turning in the finest scripts that title ever saw ever (note the double use of the word ever). The incomparable Michael Netzer and inker Joe Rubinstien will be joining the series with issue #2.

Avatar of the Futurians #1, which includes an introduction by your rarely humbled author, is available now from the May Diamond Previews (p. 292).

A Tale of Symmetry

My recent account of how producer Richard Saperstein refused to pay me for contracted work on Snaked and how I handled it have brought in e-kudos all day long from friends and strangers:

"Clifford Meth is my Alpha Dawg of the Week," writes long-time comics writer Tony Isabella at his website.

Jason Brice at ComicBulletin.com refers to it as, "The amazing tale of how Cliff Meth and The Futurians got snaked."

Comics journalist Daniel Best gives the story a compelling and appropriate introduction at his blog.

Glenn Haumann at ComicMix summarizes it as "how to deal with producer Richard Saperstein."

Isn't it high time you read what all the hullabaloo is about? Click here.

(note added 3/13/2010: links to the original column were removed)

Something for Nothing

I imagine that if I were stranded on a desert island (with neither Ginger, MaryAnne nor Kate Austen) I would fashion something to write with and hunt up flat surfaces to write upon and conjure in my fevered brain the vision of someone someday somehow discovering what I wrote, which is to say that once the sickness of Must Write takes hold, most of us do it even without a discernable audience. After all, how many non-writers "write" for no audience now? No one reads your blog. "So what?" they mutter to themselves. "I'm not writing to be read." A delusion, of course, but no matter.

The point, if there must be one, is that anyone insane enough to bare innards thus does so because of some twisted exhibitionistic tendency. Nowhere is this more apparent than with genuine writers who call off asides to readers in near-desperate attempts to make sure that someone is listening. I dare say the writers I admire most do this from time to time. More's the pity.

The conclusion, if there must be one, is that I woke up this morning aware of my own need to peek beneath the curtain before it rises, to check Google analytics on occasion to see who is listening and on other occasions (this occasion, here, now) to make certain that my island has "others" on the southside of the lagoon.

So:

If you subscribe to this blog (free, just follow the instructions in the right-hand window) and stay here for 30 days or more, I will send you one of my comics for free, signed if you like. You just need to mail me a large enough SASE. That's the deal.

Something for nothing. Well, not exactly nothing--something for effort. The signed comic will be the one pictured, with a cover by Gray Morrow interior art by Dave Cockrum.

I Am Gene Colan's Dawg

The below is an interview that I just gave to John Hogan, the editor of GraphicNovelReporter.com, regarding The Invincible Gene Colan (Marvel Entertainment), which I believe is just weeks away from shipping.

When and how did you and Gene meet?

I met Gene at the first MarvelCon in New York City in 1976. I was 15 and Gene sketched a little Captain America head for me in the program book. Those were the good old days—guys like Gene and John Buscema and John Romita doing free sketches for kids. It was like being at the Yankees’ dugout in ’51 with a pen and a baseball.

How did you first get involved in comics professionally?

I read and collected comics as a little kid starting in 1966, then became a fanzine contributor as a teenager. When I was in my 20s, my local comics shop (The Comic Book Emporium in Union, NJ) went up for sale so I bought it, renamed it “Clobbering Time” then opened two more shops. I had frequent guest artists coming in to sketch for my customers and befriended several of them. I was also writing for ComicScene and Wizard and making new friends. So one thing lead to another and in 1994 Jim Reeber and I launched Aardwolf Publishing with the help of Dave Cockrum and Gray Morrow.

You’ve been working in the comics industry for decades now. Do you enjoy it as much now as you always did?

Now that I’m back to freelancing I enjoy it more. I was frustrated as a full-time professional. It was political instead of creative. I suppose everything is when you get too close.

What is the industry like now versus when you first became a part of it? Has it changed for the better?

From what I can see, it is more political than ever. Business is always about making money but there was more of a sense of fraternity in the ‘70s, when I started hanging around. I suppose you had jerks then, too, but I didn’t know them.

You do a lot to acknowledge the impact and importance of comics’ legends, recently with both Colan and Dave Cockrum. Does the industry as a whole do enough to recognize its classic talents?

You can’t personify the industry—there’s just individuals doing what they do. In the 80’s, Neal Adams set a great example for the rest of us; he wasn’t only about his own pocket—he was willing to invest in helping two impoverished old men who’d created Superman and seen little for their efforts. Today, it’s a little easier on old timers, but not much. Most of them didn’t get their due, let’s face it… People pretend to be rebels today, but real rebels, as I see it, run the risk of rejection, of disapproval. The old guys—some of them like Ditko and Gerber—risked shock, disgust, outrage, censorship... The new rebels might be willing to risk rolled eyes and yawns but outside of Alan Moore, I don’t see risk takers—not creatively and certainly not when it comes to watching out for the guys who came before them.

How do you define Gene Colan’s influence on comics?

Gene was cinematic in a time when artists were still Kirby-esque. He was terribly important.

What made you decide to do a book on his art and his life at this point?

Gene came to me and said that he wanted to retire; he asked if I would negotiate a retirement package with Marvel for him and I agreed to. What I did for the Cockrums is fairly well known among the older generation of comics’ creators, and Gene and I have been friends for decades, so it made sense that he came to me. The Invincible Gene Colan was part of the deal; Marvel allowed me to reprise what I had done with The Uncanny Dave Cockrum collection; they said they would publish it and give all profits to Gene. It was a win-win for everyone.

How is Gene doing now? He continues to work—is he going to be involved in promoting the book?

He’s out there to the extent that his health allows him to be out there.

Does any of Gene’s work stand out and particularly resonate with you? Was there any series that you consider definitive in terms of his style?

Despite the fact that I created Snaked and write what Barnes and Noble and others have described as “dark fiction,” I am not a horror reader. So I was never a Tomb of Dracula fan. But I believe Gene was at his best there—he had evolved from Daredevil into a place where he could stretch the limits. I personally preferred DD and Iron Man and especially his run on Captain America, but that’s because I prefer superheroes. Gene’s style, as I said, is cinematic. He goes beyond the necessity just to tell a story—he infuses his visual storytelling with mood. Most comic artists recognize that but are incapable of producing it; they wow you with fantastic figure drawings, but there’s no soul. With Gene…It’s a feel that he has, I think—not something that can necessarily be learned. We recognize and adore certain writers by their voices. With artists, it’s by their taste.

What are you working on next? What other projects can we expect from you?

I continue to write fiction and find different vehicles for it. My next book will be a collaboration with Jeffrey Catherine Jones. You can see my current projects—including some signed and remarqued copies of The Invincible Gene Colan—at www.aardwolfpublishing.com

Books for Sale: The Meth Library

This post will be updated regularly as I add new books.

Many of my books are now out of print. I have author's copies of each of the following. If you'd like one or more, email me at cliffmeth@aol.com. Also, let me know if you want books signed or personalized.

Books written by Clifford Meth:
Billboards (IDW Publishing, 2009) - hardcover - $15

This Bastard Planet (Aardwolf Publishing, 1996) Cover by Joe Linsner - TPB $8

Conflicts of Disinterest (Aardwolf Publishing, 2004) TPB $10

Crawling From the Wreckage (Aardwolf Publishing, 1998) Cover by Joe Kubert - TPB -$10
god's 15 Minutes (Aardwolf Publishing, 2004) Cover by Wm. Michael Kaluta, afterword by Harlan Ellison - 244-pg. hardcover $35

god's 15 Minutes (Aardwolf Publishing, 2004) - Trade paperback of above - $22

Aardwolf #1 (rare comic from Aardwolf Publishing, 1994) - Cover by Gray Morrow and art by Dave Cockrum. Contains two Meth stories. Signed by Gray Morrow, Dave Cockrum & Clifford Meth. - $6

Snaked #1-3 (comic series from IDW Publishing, 2008) - Cover by Ash Wood, art by Rufus Dayglo, story by Clifford Meth; full series (all three comics) $12

Edited by Clifford Meth:
Strange Kaddish (Aardwolf Publishing, 1996) Stories from Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Clifford Meth, Bill Messner-Loebs, others; art by Gray Morrow, Dave Cockrum, Nelson deCastro, Mike Pascale - $10

Stranger Kaddish (Aardwolf Publishing, 1997) Stories from Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Clifford Meth, Peter David, Bill Messner-Loebs, Mike Pascale, Ilan Stavans and Walter Cummins; art by Bill Messner-Loebs, Janet Aulisio, Paty Cockrum; cover by Dave Cockrum - $12

The Dave Cockrum Benefit Auction Catalog (Heritage Auctions, 2004) - $5.00

Lori by Robert Bloch (IDW Publishing, 2009) - $12.00

Heroes and Villians (Two Morrows, 2005) The ltd. edition William Messner-Loebs benefit sketchbook, with cover art by Neal Adams and contributions from John Cassaday, Dave Cockrum, Gene Colan, Alan Davis, Adam and Andy Kubert, Joe Kubert, Joe Quesada, John Romita Jr. and Walt Simonson... and essays by Clifford Meth and Neil Gaiman - $25

Other books worth having in your library:

Whirlwind: Stories and Art by Dave Cockrum (Aardwolf Publishing, 1997) Ltd. edition; cover by Marie Severin, introduction by Chris Claremont. - $10

60% Off Dave Cockrum's Personal Golden-Age Blackhawk Comics Collection

Dave's favorite title. And he had all of them.

Proceeds benefit Dave Cockrum's widow. And these prices are sensational. Have a look.

Dave Cockrum Estate Blowout

Dave Cockrum's personal collection of comics are now 35% off. Have a look.

Dave Cockrum's Personal Collection: Sale Continues...Books Added

If you haven't seen this collection yet, do yourself a favor: Here's a chance to own a piece of comic's history. And if you have visited, look again--more comics have been added--and more will be added later tonight, including file copies of Dave's.

The prices are right and will be further discounted if you purchase a handful... and the proceeds help his widow. Click here.