Nationality American Role Writer Name Clifford Meth | Pseudonym(s) Hank Magitz Area(s) Writer, Editor | |
Books Crib Death: The Baby-sitter's Companion | ||
Clifford Lawrence Meth (born February 22, 1961) is an American writer, editor, and publisher best known for his dark fiction, as well as his publishing imprint Aardwolf Publishing. He has said that his work is often "self-consciously Jewish."
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Early life
Clifford Meth attended Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University in the United States, and Wroxton College in the United Kingdom.
In publishing
In the early 1980s, Meth worked as a staff editor for Electronic Design while freelancing for the Los Angeles Times Entertainment Newswire, Fangoria, Starlog, Billboard and other periodicals.
By the mid-1980s Meth became involved with Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivas, but in 1994 the group's reaction to the death of its leader, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, led to Meth's disillusionment with the movement. Meth embarked on a fiction-writing career. One of his first published works was "I, Gezheh", which dealt with abuse in Hareidi schools. Author Robert Bloch provided an afterword for the story, which was illustrated by Dave Cockrum.
With the aid of Cockrum and fantasy artist Gray Morrow, Meth co-founded Aardwolf Publishing, along with business partner Jim Reeber in 1994. The company has published a series of comic books, art portfolios, and collections of illustrated fiction.
In 2004, Meth joined IDT Entertainment's Creative Development team. and worked on Showtime's Masters of Horror series and ABC's Masters of Science Fiction. In 2004, he was story editor for Gene Roddenberry's Starpoint Academy, an animated feature screenplay IDT hired Peter David to script. Meth left IDT Entertainment in 2006 when the division was sold to Liberty Media. In 2007 he oversaw the acquisition of IDW Publishing by IDT Corporation and joined IDW as executive vice president, editorial/strategies. The following year, producer Richard Saperstein optioned film rights to Meth's IDW horror comic-book series, Snaked, with Meth as screenwriter and an executive producer.
In 2008, Meth launched IDW Publishing's "New Classics of the Fantastic Series", which published out-of-print Hugo and Nebula Award-winning books, beginning with Robert Silverberg's Nightwings.
Charitable work
In 2008, Meth established the Dave & Paty Cockrum Scholarship at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. In 2010, Meth founded the Kars4Kids Literacy Program, which has made significant contributions to such universities as Seton Hall University.
On numerous occasions Meth has spearheaded campaigns to raise money and awareness for financially challenged comics’ creators, including Gene Colan, William Messner-Loebs and Dave Simons.