"It's true... no man is an island. But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a pretty good raft."
— Bug-Eyed Earl
Red Meat is a three-panel gag-per-day comic by Max Cannon that started in 1989 before moving to the web in 1996. It specialises in crossing the line twice, starring a host of bizarre characters talking in supposedly normal situations that are turned on their heads by the punchline. Stark, motionless art and a lack of backgrounds add to the feeling of straight-faced madness.
Recurring characters:
- Milkman Dan, the most evil and depraved milkman ever. Forever in conflict with his boss, customers and his eternal foe Karen, the little girl.
- Ted, the devoted family man with some very strange hobbies.
- Bug-eyed Earl, whose viewpoint of reality is at 37.34572 degrees to the rest of us.
Main website here
. Not as active as it used to be — posts repeat or touched-up strips, but there are some new ones as well.
Tropes provided:
- Butt-Monkey: Ted's son.
- Lemonhead Johnny, a man with a lemon-shaped head, is the whipping boy of the neighborhood.
- Catchphrase: Sooner or later, every character who isn't Milkman Dan will utter the magic words:I hate you Milkman Dan!
- Chew Toy: Johnny Lemonhead.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Earl is this in his more benign or plainly weird strips.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Every character has their own version of this: Ted has weird and offputting ideas he insists on seeing to completion regardless of what other people think of them, Milkman Dan torments Karen and his boss just for his own amusement, Earl often has "unique" ideas on how to interact with people or animals, Wally has long since given up on trying to be nice to people if being an asshole gets results faster and he's a disgusting senior to begin with, Bix masks his behavior as either being uncaring towards humans as he thinks they're an inferior lifeform or as misunderstandings brought on by faulty programming and Papa Moai and God naturally don't care what people think of them as none of the characters could realistically be expected to enforce them to act any better.
- Cut and Paste Comic: A deliberate choice, as Max wanted the text to stand out.
- Eldritch Abomination: A floating skull sometimes haunts Bug-Eyed Earl. Or tries to.Skull: Gaze upon me...Earl: If I didn't look while it was screamin', what makes it think I'll look now?
- For the Evulz: Milkman Dan. Dear God, Milkman Dan. There is nothing that's off-limits for him.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each comic is given a bleakly funny title that describes the general tone of Red Meat.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: An early example: Mr. T vs. Red Meat.
- King of All Cosmos: God is a jerk.
- Papa Moai sees all, knows all — but can't be bothered to help a little boy because it'd strain his back.
- Papa Moai sees all, knows all — but can't be bothered to help a little boy because it'd strain his back.
- Phrase Catcher: I hate you, Milkman Dan.
- Recycled In SPACE: Some of the Milkman Dan comics take place in a futuristic setting with Dan and Karen wearing Future Spandex suits and using futuristic technology to torment each other.
- Robot Buddy: Mr. Bix is a subversion. A vomiting, kid-microwaving subversion.
- Smug Snake: Milkman Dan tries to be one and usually succeeds. It makes him getting pwned by little Karen all the funnier.
- Standard '50s Father: Ted is a very deranged parody of one: he looks and sounds the part, but even discounting his strange bedroom ideas, most of the things he comes up with are just out there, such as tying his son to a movie theatre seat to prevent him from escaping or getting both of them a blow-up doll for a Christmas present that he insists they put to use in full view of the entire neighbourhood.
- The Voice: We almost never see Ted's wife, just her speech bubbles. (She has appeared once from behind in a strip but otherwise follows this trope.) One strip implies she may be some kind of alien.
