If you’ve been reading this column for a bit, perhaps you’ve been wondering, “Gee whiz, Jeanette, how did you get so hooked on webcomics?” (You probably haven’t but I’m going to tell you anyway.) Well,  I got bitten by Bite Me! by Dylan Meconis. It wasn’t the first webcomic I had seen, but it was the first one that really showed me that webcomics could really challenge all the things I that disappointed me about mainstream comics. Here was something that was funny, action-packed, historically based, bloody, full of puns, and most of all original. I hadn’t felt like I’d seen anything unique happen in the mainstream comics I had read for a long, long time. And then here was this hilarious romp through the French Revolution with some old-school Undead vampires loaded with decapitation puns, Anne Rice references, and history jokes!

Bite Me! begins with Claire, a sassy and bored tavern server who is passionately following the revolution in Paris. In walks in this smooth, dashing, and heroic gentleman and Claire; who is a heroine who pursues and doesn’t wait to be pursued, unfortunately stumbles… literally… into a new life as a Vampire. Lucien, our dark chevalier, must save his coven from the bloodthirsty new government and take this over-eager new  fledgling along with a bizarrely useful skill set along for the ride. They are joined in their mission by Ginevra, who takes being EEEVIL very seriously, and Luther,  Lucien’s sarcastic, German werewolf BFF. The comic was begun when the the author was in high school and completed over a few subsequent years as she did a lot of growing as an artist. She keeps the art style admirable consistent as her skills grow, but you can also see her shading and anatomy drawing smooth out. Watching someone’s art skills grow is something I always love doing! The comic is also complete as well, and recently had it’s tenth anniversary.

The Author and her other Works

Dylan Meconis is a freelance artist and illustrator. She’s worked on illustrations for some of the illustrious Thursday Next series and Portland’s Alt-Weekly the Portland Mercury. She works out of the Periscope Studio, a Portland, Oregon freelance art studio that seems to be a think tank of brilliant artists and writers. Her current ongoing webcomics project is Family Man, a more serious prequel for Bite Me, a surreal historical fiction telling Luther the Werewolf’s origin story. (You can bet I’ll be writing about that soon, but don’t wait for me if you want to read it.) Bite Me! was unfortunately out of print for some time, and for the tenth anniversary a Kickstarter was successfully funded to print a special edition as well as some of her other digital comics that had never been printed.

The cover sums up EVERYTHING I love about this comic.