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.

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

People Who Die

New Year’s resolution: If I am ever stricken with terminal cancer, I’m taking a few of my enemies with me.

When my buddy Gray Morrow (67), that wonderful artist and human being, realized he was in the grips of something modern medicine couldn’t cure, he did the honorable thing and put a bullet in his head, rather than drag his wife Pocho through a prolonged and expensive ending. I know there are people with the audacity to judge that harshly but that’s because they are selfish cowards or religious fanatics. Or don’t own a gun.

Looking back on 2007, I lost more friends than enemies. Dave Cockrum (63) died in late November, 2006, but that’s close enough. My Fraternity Brother Joe Vitolo (41)—who appears in several of my “fictional” pieces as “Shaky Joe,” died in April, 2006, but that was close too. But actual ‘07 death toll stats include Hilly Kiristal (75), founder of the New York punk mecca CBGB. I didn’t know Hilly beyond a few phone calls that finally landed my band The Orphans a gig at his joint. That was 1984 when I still thought I had a better chance of survival when surrounded by people who could play instruments. Hilly was, by all reports, a glum bear of a guy, and his club was the single most important shithole on the planet.

Evel Knievel (died November 30, 2007 at the age of 69) and I got drunk together at the Essex House Hotel in Manhattan in 1986. I liked the guy. He walked like the Frankenstein Monster but if you had that many pins holding you together, you would too. The cat broke every bone in his body at least twice, which is what you get for trying to jump over big objects with a Harley. Evel told me the story about promoter Shelly Saltman’s book—how he’d taken an aluminum baseball bat to Saltman in the parking lot of the MGM Grand for writing that Evel abused his wife and kids. “He was a Jew like you, Clifford, but he didn’t have the guts to wear one of those beanies on his head like you do. Hell, I respect you.” Maybe it was the beer talking. Maybe it's because I'm a better fighter than he was. Evel regretted beating Saltman half to death then spending six months in jail for it. “I shouldn’t have gone after him,” he told me. “Next time, I’d send somebody.”

Brad Delp (died March 9, 2007 at the age of 55), lead singer of Boston, sang the songs that formed the soundtrack of my early freshman year at Morris Hills High School. I saw the band perform at Madison Square Garden that year and arrived early enough to find Brad restlessly strolling around the first few rows of the orchestra. Most of the people sitting there were oblivious to his presence.

Norman Mailer (died November 10, 2007 at the age of 84) forged an early path for authentic American cultural criticism. Sadly, I didn’t read him until much later in life when my professor Bill Zander shoved a copy of Armies of the Night in my direction. Never met Norman either, but there’s a lot of people I’d rather see dead.

Kurt Vonnegut (died April 11, 2007 at the age of 84), perhaps the most important novelist and essayist of the last half-century, was one of my dozen or so REAL heroes, the list of which includes Meir Kahane, Mordechai Anielewicz and Batman. Kurt gave this young writer some help as well as such a harsh critique of my first novella that I didn’t know what to do with myself and needed Walter Cummins to talk me off the ledge (explaining that Kurt was only raising the bar for me and, “don’t think for a second that he takes this kind of time for every young writer who comes down the pike” and “get off that ledge and come back in here before you catch cold.”) Years later, I had lunch with Kurt above the Harley Davidson Café in NY City and interviewed him for Barnes and Noble’s new on-line site. He was one of the few people who could write anyfuckingthing and whether I agreed with him or not, all I could hear was that sensational voice. And usually I agreed. He was that impossible hybrid of great artist and good man.