DF Interview: Meredith McClaren invites us to enter the blood-soaked story of a newly undead 19-year-old in the ‘Meat Eaters’ OGN

By Byron Brewer

Let it be said that dying is rough. Nineteen-year-old Ashley Moore found this out the hard way.

All Ashley wanted was to keep her head down and work hard until she could escape the small town where she felt she was stagnating. But after waking up one night covered in blood—and irrevocably dead—Ashley finds her foolproof plan for getting out has gone up in smoke, and something within her has changed.

Without a heartbeat and with a disturbing craving for fresh—preferably bloody—meat, Ashley finds herself privy to a world that exists just beneath our own: a world of ghouls and monsters and things that go bump-in-the-night. Despite her desire to be left alone—and to not think about the night of her death at all—Ashley is slowly drawn into the realm of the unusual, getting advice from ancient vampires, dodging angry pack leaders, and becoming the reluctant big sister to werewolves Motley and Harrison. As she does, she finds it increasingly difficult to put away the parts of herself she wishes to ignore—namely, what happened that fateful night she stopped breathing. The truth, it turns out, can’t stay buried forever.

From cartoonist Meredith McClaren — co-creator of the acclaimed series Black Cloak — comes a punishing and poignant original graphic novel about the monsters that lurk both in the darkness beyond and within us all. I had the honor of chatting with Meredith about the coming OGN.

Byron Brewer: Meredith, tell readers about the inspiration and genesis for your coming graphic novel, Meat Eaters.

Meredith McClaren: When I was younger, I was a big enthusiast of the teen horror 'Monster of the Week' TV shows. I think I wanted to tap into the feeling I got from those shows in a comic of my own, but also answer the question of 'what would I have done better?' I think I was also trying to find something a little truer to my own experience growing up. A lot of programming shows a teen culture that wasn't true to me, with a desire for popularity and romance. Meat Eaters gave me the chance to bring in a character who didn't want those things for herself.

Byron: Introduce us to Ashley Moore. Without spoilers, can you tell us who she was before her death, after her “reawakening” as one of the undead, and the key challenges she faces in Meat Eaters?

Meredith McClaren: Ashley's a girl in a particular headspace that I think is fairly common, believing that if she can just get her life 'right' she can figure out who and what she's REALLY supposed to be. Become the person she wants for herself, even if she doesn't know who that is right now. Dying is obviously a really big wrench in those plans. And so she's stubbornly ignoring that her set of circumstances has changed in a way that has moved her farther from her goal. The most obvious signs being her new diet.

Byron: Who are Motley and Harrison? What is their relationship to each other, and to the un-life of Ashley?

Meredith McClaren: Your local hapless werewolves. Unlike Ashley, they grew up always knowing about the weird and creepy, so they're kind of blase about it. What REALLY interests them is the lives of 'normal' teenagers, something they've always felt they were on the outside of. They've seen it on television, and in finally having a resource in Ashley, hope to gain a means of accessing it. Unfortunately, Ashley is not the best guide, nor a particularly willing one.

Byron: Could you introduce us to some of the other unworldly characters in this great, imaginative OGN?

Meredith McClaren: I love my vampires. They're not suave, graceful, intelligent creatures. They were normal people who died and came back and still have all the defects that plagued them in life. They're not inherently bad for being undead (no more than anyone else), they might even try to be helpful, but they're hampered by the same kind of poor decisions their living counterparts also suffer from.

Byron: Talk a little about how you wove into this epic undead yarn the very real effects of trauma and anxiety in life. And in facing death.

Meredith McClaren: Meat Eaters is at its heart about how sometimes we feel betrayed by our circumstances. While Ashley's is an extreme case, I think people can relate to parts of themselves being irrevocably changed in ways they do not like and didn't agree to. It happens to everyone to varying degrees emotionally and physically. With Ashley, I got to really dig into how much we resist those changes, how those changes span out into the minutiae of our lives, and the further harm that comes from denying their existence.

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Meredith McClaren for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer our questions. The Meat Eaters OGN from Oni Press is slated to be on sale in July 9!

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