What is this, and how did it get here?

I began Bite Me! in the winter of 2000, when I had a bunch of free periods in my senior year of high school, a burning desire to simultaneously make fun of A Tale of Two Cities and Interview With the Vampire, and easy access to a scanner I had gotten for Christmas the year before.

I began posting pages at the rate of one a week on my own little website: being on the web, and being a comic, it thus became a webcomic.  In 2002 I was asked to join Girlamatic.com, a subscription-based website in the ModernTales family.

I completed it in 2004, my junior year of college, having spent a semester on-site in Paris the previous year.  The comic became free again after its completion.  It is now hosted independently by me and is still free to read – and it’s also available in a shiny print edition (from my own imprint, Elea Press) for your bathroom-reading pleasure!

Who are you?

My name is Dylan Meconis, and I’m a cartoonist and writer living in Portland, Oregon.

For more information on me you can visit the cunning bio page at my main website.  For now, take it on faith that I have a scintillating wit, am great at parties, and do laundry every Thursday night and fold it right out of the dryer.

I also eat children, but only the ones who misbehave.  Pass it on.

What did you use to make the comic?

All of Bite Me! was drawn on normal printer paper – heaven help me.  I would typically scribble the dialogue on the back of the page, coming up with it each week as I went – there was never a complete script!  Then I would flip the page over and draw most of the content with a mechanical pencil.

I then used Micron technical pens to ink the lines.  Next I would add fields of solid grey and black using Prismacolor markers (the since-discontinued “Tria” line, now the “Premier” markers).  Then I would add extra shading using that same mechanical pencil.  White lines were applied using various gel pens.

I can recommend this technique to nobody.  It produces beautiful-looking pages in real life and on-screen, but it’s expensive to reprint all those subtle greys, and while the thin printer paper allowed for the markers to look very creamy and act like ink washes or watercolor, it also makes for some very frail pages! Teasing line-quality of stiff technical pens like Microns also caused no shortage of hand pain. If you’re looking to create a similar line for your own comic, I recommend the Faber Castell PITT Artist pen line, especially the Fine Tip (F).

Do you make a living doing this?

I do! It’s my job, for real.  If you would like to see more of this stuff from me, please consider buying the print edition, other merchandise, or supporting me on Patreon.

Hey, doesn’t this comic have spoilers for one of your other comics? I thought Family Man was a prequel.

No, not really.  While Family Man does feature two characters loosely derived from their Bite Me! namesakes, they’re from different stories taking place in very different worlds. Bite Me! has a very cartoony, anything-goes kind of mentality; Family Man is a pretty somber piece of historical fiction. There are no guaranteed outcomes connecting the two, and some things I’ve even outright changed.  So rest easy, gentle reader.

Where can I find your books for sale/meet you in person?

Currently books are for sale via my website, on Amazon, or at your local comic book store (through Diamond Distribution) or particularly enlightened bookstores.  If you are a retailer interested in stocking Bite Me! but don’t order stock through Diamond or Ingram, please contact me.  All my books come fully equipped with ISBN and barcode information so they’re shelf-ready.

The best way to see me is to attend one of the many comics conventions I’ll be appearing at in the future.  I am always at the Rose City Comicon in my home town of Portland, OR, Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, WA, and often appear at other comics conventions outside of the West coast of the USA, like SPX or TCAF. If you’d like to see me at your favorite show, please recommend me to the organizers as a guest.

You can check the appearances sidebar on my site for information on my next appearances!

I’m a member of the press.  I want more info.

Please send me an e-mail at dylan(at)dylanmeconis.com with subject line PRESS REQUEST.  I’ll kick you the address of my press page with press releases, author images, and more.  Please tell me which publication or blog you write for!