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With Great Power #345... 22 Panels with Meredith McClaren · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:02
Tad Eggleston: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels, my guest today for… the fourth time, I think?
0:11
meredithmcclaren: Fourth.
0:12
Tad Eggleston: Fifth timer, yeah.
0:12
meredithmcclaren: Not sure.
0:14
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, third, fourth, fifth, maybe? I don't think you're a 5th timer yet. I kind of keep track. I'll keep track when I put it up, because I'll do a search of the episodes. Is Meredith McClaren. Hello! So good to see you again.
0:27
Tad Eggleston: Good to see you as well.
0:28
Tad Eggleston: Congratulations on your part of an Eisner.
0:31
meredithmcclaren: I know, I have one now. I'm waiting to get it in the mail so I can make it do the spinny thing.
0:37
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it was actually my favorite part of that issue, and that was a really good issue, but…
0:43
meredithmcclaren: Thank you. I, I keep… I keep kind of being sideswiped by that… that issue, because I…
0:50
meredithmcclaren: I did my comic, I think I pitched, like, 3 different stories, and that's the one they stuck with.
0:56
meredithmcclaren: And…
0:58
meredithmcclaren: you know, I was happy enough to go along with my art, and doing the story and everything like that, and getting it to them.
1:05
meredithmcclaren: And then I forgot about it for a while, and then the comps came in, and I'm like, oh, my comic's here. And flipping through it, it's just, it sort of fell out of my brain that this was an absolute Batman comic. And so I'm like, oh, it's a two-page spread of somebody's shit being wrecked. It's like.
1:23
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:25
meredithmcclaren: And then my cute comic in the back!
1:27
Tad Eggleston: Great.
1:28
Tad Eggleston: Really?
1:29
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:29
Tad Eggleston: I, I,
1:31
Tad Eggleston: I was disappointed that Meat Eaters didn't get nominated. I was… I was watching for it as I was reading.
1:37
Tad Eggleston: Because I was reading, like, because when the nomination list comes out.
1:42
Tad Eggleston: I just go through the list, and I put together, you know, because we'll give the on-air shout-out to all of our… all of our guests that are nominated.
1:51
Tad Eggleston: So just go down through the list, and make my little spreadsheet, and what people were nominated for, and when I put you down for best single, I'm like, oh, she's gonna get nominated again later, awesome. And then you did it, and I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with them?
2:06
meredithmcclaren: That would have been nice. Yeah, I was, I was a little like, aw, but,
2:10
Tad Eggleston: as I rewrite it today, I think it… it fell… Too much in between.
2:20
meredithmcclaren: That's fair.
2:20
Tad Eggleston: IA… and not YA.
2:24
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
2:25
meredithmcclaren: I was happy to see, though, the book that I, you know, I've been telling everyone, I'm like, if you like meat eaters, you'll like this book. Did get nominated, and that was… and I can't remember, I think they might have won, too, was Hello Sunshine with Kisey Young.
2:40
Tad Eggleston: I think it might have, and that is a great, great, great book.
2:44
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. I still need to talk to Casey Young. Yeah.
2:48
meredithmcclaren: I guess they're going forward with a sequel, which is great.
2:52
meredithmcclaren: You know…
2:54
Tad Eggleston: That, that actually,
2:58
Tad Eggleston: leads into a question that would have been way later, but as I finished it this time, I realized that this story doesn't need to be done.
3:07
meredithmcclaren: No, no it doesn't.
3:09
Tad Eggleston: Any thoughts?
3:10
meredithmcclaren: I do, I have many thoughts.
3:12
Tad Eggleston: Gardening.
3:15
meredithmcclaren: nothing is known yet, I'm waiting to hear from people. I am… I'm trying to sort of finesse a sequel out of them. I might have to go Kesey's route, because I think Keezy was having issues where they're like, no, I want to do a sequel for this, and…
3:33
meredithmcclaren: They were just not getting the kind of traction they wanted.
3:38
meredithmcclaren: they're like, I'm just gonna do it myself, because this is my story.
3:40
Tad Eggleston: Right.
3:42
meredithmcclaren: If we have to go that way, we have to go that way, but I have a couple ideas, and I really would like to see if Onei's interested. It always helps if I get a little bit of an advance to grease the wheels.
3:53
Tad Eggleston: It is, and I think Kesey lost to Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goo.
4:00
Tad Eggleston: Place Kills Me, which.
4:02
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, that might… yeah, Morocco… Really fucking good. They… they swept at the Eisners, didn't they? They got a lot of noms and…
4:10
Tad Eggleston: No, Dennis Camp was the one that really walked away with everything this year. He had Absolute Martian Manhunter, Assorted Crisis Events.
4:19
Tad Eggleston: I think Best Artist went to his absolute Martian Manhunter…
4:30
meredithmcclaren: That's the one I still haven't picked up. Hardish. I… I know I can get it all.
4:34
Tad Eggleston: So good.
4:34
meredithmcclaren: digital library, so maybe I'll do that over the weekend.
4:37
Tad Eggleston: It's so… well, I mean, I invited you, but you went and, like, had to help your mom out, which is totally understandable. We had a great…
4:49
Tad Eggleston: Absolute Martian Manhunter.
4:51
Tad Eggleston: Book Club.
4:53
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, that's right, that's right.
4:54
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
4:56
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I do need to pick that one up. And then I… I keep threatening Kelly that I'm gonna do a bunch of fan art of…
5:03
meredithmcclaren: The absolute Wonder Woman character designs.
5:07
meredithmcclaren: Because they can't Keep knocking out the… the cheetah.
5:11
Tad Eggleston: That's so good.
5:12
meredithmcclaren: the Cheetah one that they premiered over the weekend, I'm like, what… what am I supposed to do with this? This is amazing! This is so good and terrifying!
5:22
Tad Eggleston: No, it's… I mean… I've said more than once that, like, it almost annoys me that,
5:35
Tad Eggleston: Absolute Martian Manhunter is, like…
5:38
Tad Eggleston: seminally good, because I wanna call Kelly's Wonder Woman the best absolute book, and I have to settle for the best ongoing absolute book.
5:49
meredithmcclaren: I mean, we can just say that, you know, DC is sweeping with this line, and we can just.
5:55
Tad Eggleston: They're doing pretty damn good.
5:57
meredithmcclaren: I mean…
5:58
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I… but I don't even like doing that, because, like, the rest of the line…
6:03
Tad Eggleston: good. Not enough so that I'm reading it month in, month out. I'll read chunks of it from time to time, whereas Manhunter and Wonder Woman are like.
6:13
Tad Eggleston: must read, near the top of the pile, and only… only, like, near rather than automatically the top, because there are so many goddamn good comics out right now. Like.
6:24
meredithmcclaren: That is the truth.
6:26
Tad Eggleston: It's either a great time to be a reader, or a horrible time to be a.
6:29
meredithmcclaren: I know.
6:30
Tad Eggleston: And how much money you have, and the number of hours in a day you have to read.
6:35
meredithmcclaren: the pile just gets bigger and bigger, and I set up a goal for myself this year, because I knew…
6:41
meredithmcclaren: the last couple years… I tell people, it's like, when you start working in comics, like, your ability to read comics drops dramatically.
6:48
Tad Eggleston: Particularly among artists.
6:49
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and so…
6:50
Tad Eggleston: Like, double so for artists.
6:53
meredithmcclaren: I've been really frustrated with myself the last couple of years, because I'm like, I'm not reading anything, and I need to start doing that again. And so this year, I made a goal for myself. It's like, listen, I gotta… I gotta put, like, keep a list, and put some titles on it to… to, like, in the red, it's been red, pile, and so…
7:13
Tad Eggleston: I've proposed it before, I'll propose it again, Meredith, if you want to have a 22 Panels book club, I'll be your accountability partner.
7:20
Tad Eggleston: Set up a regular time.
7:23
meredithmcclaren: That's too much commitment, but I appreciate it.
7:27
Tad Eggleston: like a monthly, it could be a quarterly. One book every three months, isn't that…
7:34
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, it's… but there is…
7:36
Tad Eggleston: We won't tell the public what the schedule is, either.
7:39
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
7:40
Tad Eggleston: If you wind up going, hey, I need 2 more weeks.
7:42
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. No, I'm just looking at my, my two-read pile now that I've set up, and it's just like, it just goes on and on.
7:52
Tad Eggleston: even…
7:53
Tad Eggleston: Like, I… there was a time where I had, like, numbers on my to-read pile. This was years and years ago, and I stopped, because once you get into four digits, it's more depressing than
8:09
Tad Eggleston: then…
8:10
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
8:12
Tad Eggleston: play in the…
8:12
meredithmcclaren: in the two digits, I do give myself a little grace, though, in that it's like.
8:19
meredithmcclaren: the goal is each week that I at least start something, and if… and I also just…
8:26
meredithmcclaren: give myself the grace of, if I don't like it, I don't have to finish it, it still counts towards, you know, I made the.
8:32
Tad Eggleston: Well, and…
8:34
Tad Eggleston: And I'm so proud of you to be able to do that, because I… I have a lot of trouble with that whole…
8:39
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, not finished.
8:40
Tad Eggleston: shame.
8:41
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. Right. Somebody, I want to say it was Guillermo del Toro, and he's like, why would you give yourself homework? Like, if you don't like it, stop.
8:49
Tad Eggleston: Well, you know, I mean, I just… I like… I think of the amount of time that somebody put into it.
8:56
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
8:56
Tad Eggleston: Think of other people who…
8:58
Tad Eggleston: I know that have liked it or whatnot, and I'm like, I must be missing something. I must.
9:04
meredithmcclaren: But sometimes it's just not for you!
9:06
Tad Eggleston: I get that!
9:09
Tad Eggleston: Get that!
9:11
Tad Eggleston: like…
9:15
Tad Eggleston: Theoretically. I get that?
9:18
meredithmcclaren: No, no, it's hard.
9:19
Tad Eggleston: I very rarely get that when it's in my hands.
9:24
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
9:24
Tad Eggleston: Fuck you.
9:25
meredithmcclaren: there… I think there was one comic where that did happen for me, where I, like…
9:31
meredithmcclaren: I sort of went, I must not be understand… I have to finish this. This will all make sense at the end, and I won't say which one it was, at least on recording, but it was, like, by the end of it, I'm like.
9:42
meredithmcclaren: I've missed something. Like, this, this was.
9:45
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm.
9:46
meredithmcclaren: Or, you know, this is vibes-based.
9:49
Tad Eggleston: I'll put it out in the ether, you know, just because, like, maybe it'll be what convinces him to finally come on, he can explain it to me. I mean, I haven't, like, asked him or anything, because I don't know how to get ahold of him, but, like.
10:02
Tad Eggleston: I want to like Chris Ware so much more than I like Chris Ware.
10:06
meredithmcclaren: Hmm…
10:08
Tad Eggleston: And I keep going back to it.
10:10
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
10:10
Tad Eggleston: So many people love Chris Ware, and I feel like I'm right on the edge of it unlocking.
10:16
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, yeah.
10:18
meredithmcclaren: But just turn the Rubik's Cube this way.
10:21
Tad Eggleston: Right! Right!
10:22
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I'd get it. No, I've had… I… I had a lot of properties, where I'm like.
10:29
meredithmcclaren: people seem to really like this, and I don't understand. I think… I tend to look at that, though, as, like, an advantage rather than a disadvantage, because it's like… it means that I… when I re… when I do like something, I get totally sucked into it, and, like, it'll just eat months' worth of brain space, and so I'm like.
10:48
Tad Eggleston: That's.
10:49
meredithmcclaren: This is probably, like, a defense.
10:51
Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
10:51
meredithmcclaren: Or it's like…
10:53
Tad Eggleston: get that, too.
10:54
Tad Eggleston: I get that, too. If I really like something before long, I'll have, like, you sold me on, on your, your creative own at your table.
11:03
Tad Eggleston: Oh, God, why… why can't I remember the name of…
11:08
Tad Eggleston: So many books of yours that I've read now, Meredith.
11:11
meredithmcclaren: there's hinges.
11:12
Tad Eggleston: Hinges.
11:13
meredithmcclaren: Okay, yeah.
11:13
Tad Eggleston: You sold me the first book of hinges at your table.
11:15
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
11:17
Tad Eggleston: Way back when we first met. Yeah. And, like, I think I read it that night and bought the second one from you the next day.
11:24
meredithmcclaren: Yes, yes, I.
11:25
Tad Eggleston: And then you were either out of the third, or I forget, but, like…
11:31
Tad Eggleston: I think by the end of the week, I, like, and I already knew I liked your work, but by the end of the week, I'd, like, track down everything that you'd ever put out into the ether.
11:41
meredithmcclaren: Yes, excellent.
11:43
meredithmcclaren: Yay!
11:44
Tad Eggleston: gone through your entire, like, Substack back catalog? Yes. Or not Substack, Patreon.
11:51
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
11:54
Tad Eggleston: So, I… I get that. I get that. Yeah. I can fall into that.
11:58
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
11:58
Tad Eggleston: Let's talk meat-eaters, though, because we… Sure, of course. When we…
12:03
Tad Eggleston: When we talked last, you teased meat eaters. I think I'd seen.
12:07
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I think it is.
12:08
Tad Eggleston: I've already fallen in love.
12:09
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I think it was, like, a month away from coming out or something.
12:12
Tad Eggleston: Something like that. And we had, we had a couple other things to talk about, so… so… so, like…
12:17
Tad Eggleston: But, but I remember, I remember, and I, like, every time, I re-read it this morning, and every time, I just, like, this first page, if only because it's the type of thing
12:26
Tad Eggleston: That I just never see in comics, where they changed… where you change the focus.
12:31
meredithmcclaren: Focus, yeah.
12:33
meredithmcclaren: I know, I love it when other.
12:34
Tad Eggleston: From right there, it's like, oh my god, this is… This is cool and amazing.
12:41
Tad Eggleston: Yay!
12:44
Tad Eggleston: And then it only gets better. First, give the front counter pitch, and then I'm gonna ask all sorts of questions, because…
12:51
Tad Eggleston: I understand more and less every time I read it.
12:55
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, okay, so the elevator pitch is, Ashley died, and that sucks. Unfortunately, she had to get up the next day.
13:07
Tad Eggleston: But does it suck? She seems to… it doesn't seem to have made her life worse.
13:14
meredithmcclaren: Oh, that is a good question, nobody's posed that one before. It certainly raises a new bar of complications for her, being.
13:24
Tad Eggleston: That is true. That is true.
13:26
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
13:27
Tad Eggleston: But seeing as her biggest complication previously was, I want to get out of this small town, and I don't know how I'll do it. And now she essentially has superpowers, so once she's ready to walk away, she can.
13:39
meredithmcclaren: I don't think… yeah, I think for her personally, in her, frame of mind, it doesn't feel like superpowers, it just feels like more work to do, you know?
13:49
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that's… that's now. Now, it feels like more work.
13:54
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
13:54
Tad Eggleston: But it's also, like, specific work. I mean, I see her, like.
13:59
Tad Eggleston: And admittedly, we don't get to know her before she's dead.
14:03
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
14:04
Tad Eggleston: quiet.
14:04
Tad Eggleston: But I see… I see, like, this… this near-burnout teen that has, like, just a little bit of a plan, because she's bored as shit in her teeny-tiny hometown, so much so that I don't even want to be friends with people, because they might keep me here.
14:22
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
14:23
Tad Eggleston: Suddenly go, oh, wait, there's a reason to…
14:29
Tad Eggleston: Live is a weird word to use when she's dead, but…
14:35
meredithmcclaren: It does, you know…
14:36
Tad Eggleston: There's a… there's a purpose to moving around. I was about to say a purpose to breathing, and then I remember that breathing's another thing that she doesn'.
14:43
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
14:45
meredithmcclaren: I think… I think it offers her just enough of a change that she's like, okay, I have to…
14:54
meredithmcclaren: renegotiate things.
14:56
meredithmcclaren: And then, that introduces her to… The new things that…
15:02
meredithmcclaren: Can put her on the path of figuring things out.
15:05
Tad Eggleston: I think also, she gets to choose some…
15:10
Tad Eggleston: responsibilities, whereas previously they've been foisted on her. She's been the latchkey kid with the mom. You don't get a ton of her life, but you can extrapolate a ton.
15:20
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
15:20
Tad Eggleston: You know, she talks about having been the latchkey kid since she was 10. She talks about, like, the older she gets, the more her mom's on the road. You don't even know what her mom does, but it doesn't sound like she's home.
15:31
meredithmcclaren: No.
15:31
Tad Eggleston: God.
15:32
meredithmcclaren: No.
15:33
Tad Eggleston: It doesn't sound like they're other parents or siblings, it's just…
15:36
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I,
15:38
Tad Eggleston: and Ashley, and… and more and more, it's just Ashley, but, like, that… that kind of having voiced…
15:45
Tad Eggleston: Responsibility on you, like… blows.
15:49
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. I mean, frankly, when that's the only kind of responsibility you have.
15:55
Tad Eggleston: even when you chose it, like, like, like, the first time you live away from home and have to figure out things like, oh, I don't get to eat unless I…
16:05
Tad Eggleston: Buy food.
16:06
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
16:07
Tad Eggleston: And or cook food.
16:08
Tad Eggleston: And or prepare food in some other way.
16:11
meredithmcclaren: If you… approach it with the right mindset, yeah, suddenly you're like, okay, I have… Agency now.
16:21
Tad Eggleston: Right, but for the most part, it's like…
16:24
Tad Eggleston: wow, being responsible for myself sucks. Why don't we have… why don't we have self-washing clothes yet?
16:31
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
16:32
Tad Eggleston: This sucks, you'd think some inventor would have come up with self-washing clothes a long, long time ago.
16:38
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and I think that is part of a lot of Ashley's struggle, is just, like, the minutiae of life and keeping yourself going is…
16:48
meredithmcclaren: endless. And it's like… and that's one of the big problems, is this terrible thing happened to Ashley, and she has to still go through the minutiae of life. She still has to do laundry.
17:00
Tad Eggleston: But then she gets a couple of werewolf children.
17:03
meredithmcclaren: I feel like those are also frosted on her.
17:07
Tad Eggleston: Well, they are, kind of, but, like.
17:09
meredithmcclaren: Kind of.
17:09
Tad Eggleston: she…
17:11
meredithmcclaren: She's,
17:13
Tad Eggleston: She could have walked away much easier from the werewolf children.
17:16
meredithmcclaren: she could have… I… I think something that I… that I bring to Ashley that I recognize in myself is this mindset of…
17:26
meredithmcclaren: as I… as I've described it to other people, and it's, you know, this mindset of.
17:31
meredithmcclaren: Someone has to do something.
17:33
meredithmcclaren: I'm someone.
17:35
meredithmcclaren: I have to do something.
17:39
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
17:40
Tad Eggleston: I, I, I get that, I get that one.
17:42
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
17:44
Tad Eggleston: I just haven't… I just haven't managed to apply it to myself. It's like, like…
17:49
Tad Eggleston: When it's taking care of yourself, it doesn't have to be, I have to do something. It's like, someone has to do something. Oh, wait, do they? I'm the only one who suffers consequences if they don't.
18:01
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
18:02
Tad Eggleston: Nobody has to do…
18:06
meredithmcclaren: That's not where Ashley's head is.
18:08
Tad Eggleston: No, that's not where… but where her head also is, that I relate to a lot, is, like, somebody else needs something? Well, I'm somebody.
18:18
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
18:19
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
18:22
Tad Eggleston: Because, I mean, it's not… her head's not there in terms of, like, taking care of her basic needs, but she doesn't take care of her social needs at all.
18:30
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
18:31
Tad Eggleston: it, I mean, even for the academic… even for the idea that she'll get out, like.
18:43
Tad Eggleston: Doesn't seem like she's thrown herself into academics in a way that's likely to get her that full ride that she has in her head.
18:52
Tad Eggleston: But we don't see enough of it.
18:54
meredithmcclaren: Right.
18:55
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I can't say that exclusively, but it doesn't feel like…
18:59
Tad Eggleston: Oh, my God. In my head.
19:00
meredithmcclaren: She's an excellent student.
19:04
Tad Eggleston: You know, in my head.
19:08
Tad Eggleston: I guess she's a good student, you know, I have no doubt that she's an A student, but… but, like…
19:16
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I've spent enough time working in high schools right now, at this point, to, to, to, like…
19:24
meredithmcclaren: Yes, you were privy to different information.
19:27
Tad Eggleston: Right.
19:27
Tad Eggleston: Right, getting the full ride out of junior college isn't… impossible.
19:34
Tad Eggleston: getting the full ride out of junior college isn't even impossible if you weren't gonna get it out of high school. But it's at least as easy, and possibly more so, to get the full ride out of high school as it is out of junior college. And it's where, like, almost all of the forces at her high school would likely be pushing her.
19:54
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
19:55
Tad Eggleston: You know, oh, you're a great student, you need to be applying to these schools, see what money they'll give you. If you have to fall back on the junior college, that's fine, but, like, go to the state school, go to…
20:06
Tad Eggleston: What?
20:07
Tad Eggleston: But also, she seems like totally… she seems like the… the very quietly straight-A student. Yeah. With no expectations of herself.
20:20
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
20:21
Tad Eggleston: And it's like, the straight A's come because they're just not gonna not come.
20:26
Tad Eggleston: But not because she's like, okay, I must be the best at this.
20:31
Tad Eggleston: It's… I must get an A, because that's what we get, and then I'll move on.
20:37
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
20:38
Tad Eggleston: I'm not gonna… I'm not gonna start the club around it.
20:42
Tad Eggleston: I'm not gonna join the club around it.
20:45
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
20:47
Tad Eggleston: I'm not gonna…
20:49
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I think I probably skirted away from a lot of the…
20:54
meredithmcclaren: the schooling discussion, just because it's been so long since I have been in that environment.
21:00
Tad Eggleston: Well, and that's… that's totally fair, too.
21:02
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
21:03
Tad Eggleston: But also, that's not where the story starts. I mean, the story starts kinda… After that,
21:11
Tad Eggleston: And, like, I'm still trying to formulate the question that, like, is only 3 quarters answered, and I don't know how… how spoilery it is to answer. I mean, she…
21:25
Tad Eggleston: What reframes everything is when you also realize that she's recently experienced… Extreme trauma.
21:36
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
21:37
Tad Eggleston: And not just, I died trauma.
21:39
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, yeah.
21:40
Tad Eggleston: The I-died trauma is the way to set up for the whole thing. Oh, but, like…
21:47
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
21:47
Tad Eggleston: And when it starts to become more clear, it's like, oh, oh, so we weren't actually really even seeing Ashley at the beginning.
21:54
Tad Eggleston: Because we were seeing In Shock, Ashley, and not in shock because she's 70 degrees, Ashley, because, like, if you really couldn't remember at all, and there was nothing other than you dying…
22:06
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
22:09
Tad Eggleston: That doesn't cause shock the same way.
22:11
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I, and it's…
22:17
meredithmcclaren: I think it's fine to talk about it in terms of ambiguousness, because I did try to leave it open-ended enough that the reader could bring to it what they needed to, as far as…
22:29
Tad Eggleston: Right.
22:30
meredithmcclaren: what they've also gone through, it's like, it's… it's directly whatever kind of…
22:40
meredithmcclaren: You know, trauma that… that you… you yourself have dealt with, and…
22:45
meredithmcclaren: that you can use, Ashley, as a way of navigating it, you know, as a… as a… as a self-insert.
22:53
Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, what is explicit is, like, her.
22:57
Tad Eggleston: Two high school or junior college-aged boys, and it looked like a shotgun?
23:02
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
23:02
Tad Eggleston: So, so, like…
23:06
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
23:07
Tad Eggleston: Mine's gonna go to a handful of specific places.
23:10
meredithmcclaren: It is. It's gonna go to a handful of specific places, and it was intentional to sort of leave it
23:22
meredithmcclaren: To the audience how far that went.
23:25
Tad Eggleston: Right. And that… that actually is… is the question that… because it's… it's part of the genius of this book, but also part of the… the part… part… part of this book that, like.
23:40
Tad Eggleston: I'm pretty good at, like, drawing dots together.
23:43
Tad Eggleston: Including, like, okay, The creator was thinking this, this, or this, and like… I am…
23:55
Tad Eggleston: In awe, impressed, and can't quite figure out how the decision was made to…
24:01
Tad Eggleston: step back and make it that ambiguous. To write this story
24:07
Tad Eggleston: that is such a universal response, but, like, so few people are able to think of it as a universal response, particularly if they've either lived it or known anybody that's lived it. It becomes really tied to
24:21
Tad Eggleston: specific things. I mean, one of the things that you'll sometimes see in the trauma community, particularly among people who haven't, like, gotten far, is almost like the yardstick of, well, my trauma was this, and it's like, no, it's all trauma.
24:35
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, yeah, it all hurts.
24:38
Tad Eggleston: So, so, like, it's a brilliant decision, but not an easy decision to make, and I guess I'm curious as to how you came to that, and where in the process that was. Was that, like, from the get-go, you knew
24:51
Tad Eggleston: we're starting after the trauma, we're never going to be clear on the trauma. Was there a time where it started earlier? Like…
24:57
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
24:58
meredithmcclaren: I think… I think I always knew that it needed to have a degree of open-endedness, because it's a wall that Ashley keeps running into, and various different fronts, is that there's… there's just not a wealth of information, there's no set answers for a lot of the questions she's asking.
25:15
meredithmcclaren: Because that's just how life is a lot, where it's.
25:19
Tad Eggleston: Right?
25:20
meredithmcclaren: It's like, sometimes there is an answer, but there's, like, a set of circumstances that have to be fulfilled for that to be the correct answer, or, you know, you can get something that works, but nobody quite knows why it works, and, you know.
25:33
Tad Eggleston: Right.
25:34
meredithmcclaren: You know, there's so many different outlets in life where it's like.
25:40
meredithmcclaren: You only get so much, like, clarity, and then the rest of it is just you trying to navigate the best you can with what you got.
25:50
meredithmcclaren: And…
25:51
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
25:51
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and…
25:54
meredithmcclaren: you know, it's like, when Ashley is asking Bess, you know, can't I just go to the internet for this? Like, why isn't it there? And Bess is like, listen, nothing is right on the internet. Have you been to WebMD? It's like…
26:07
Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
26:10
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, I love that, but again, like… and I'm finding more of it, and or I, like, am attracted to it so much that I seek it out, or remember it more when I see it. Like…
26:24
Tad Eggleston: what I love about Meat Eaters so much, is that… every read…
26:33
Tad Eggleston: Inspires more questions than it answers.
26:38
Tad Eggleston: Not just about the story, but about the world.
26:40
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
26:41
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I do…
26:44
meredithmcclaren: it's, it's something that came up in Hinges, too, where it's like, I'm very interested in creating sandboxes for people, and in order for that to work, you have to give them, like.
26:54
meredithmcclaren: you have to give them little details for them to then extrapolate on. Like, an audience is gonna do that anyway for a book that they… or a series, or any kind of narrative they really like, but I do like sort of seeding stories with things that it's like, you can take this and run with it as far as you go, you know?
27:13
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
27:14
Tad Eggleston: Well, I just, I, like…
27:16
Tad Eggleston: The older I get, the more I realize that pat answers are generally bad answers.
27:23
Tad Eggleston: Like, the more simplified the answer gets, the less likely it is to actually, like, be good.
27:32
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
27:33
Tad Eggleston: Which is… which is why I like things that… that are okay being complicated and messy.
27:39
Tad Eggleston: I like things that are okay, like…
27:48
Tad Eggleston: Ashley's a savior, and Ashley's a killer.
27:51
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
27:53
Tad Eggleston: in a…
27:53
meredithmcclaren: And Ashley doesn't think of herself in either of those terms.
27:57
Tad Eggleston: Either of those, and she's uncomfortable with either.
28:01
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
28:01
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
28:03
meredithmcclaren: There's a… somebody… somebody coined the term, I think on Tumblr, of, what is it, introvert… virtuous, which is, you know, I'm very much the guy who is here, you know?
28:16
meredithmcclaren: Or it's like.
28:16
Tad Eggleston: Well, and.
28:17
meredithmcclaren: I'm here to fix it, but I would rather not be.
28:21
Tad Eggleston: Right.
28:22
Tad Eggleston: Well, and also, like…
28:29
Tad Eggleston: I was having the, there's a book coming out this week.
28:34
Tad Eggleston: Called… Nightingales by, by Email Wilson.
28:38
Tad Eggleston: It's a… Okay. I was talking to him last week, and, you know, just in a nutshell, it's like a…
28:47
Tad Eggleston: Semi-memoir, but he made it from his sister's point of view, and, like…
28:52
Tad Eggleston: In the early 80s, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, his father had had a co-worker who was dying of AIDS.
29:00
Tad Eggleston: Allowed him to move into their house.
29:03
Tad Eggleston: And they kind of took care of him. And, like…
29:08
Tad Eggleston: It had caused all sorts of issues in the family through the years. Yeah. Enough so that, like, late in his dad's life, he asked him, you know, why did you do that? And Dad just immediately turned to him and said, why wouldn't I do that?
29:22
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
29:24
Tad Eggleston: And, like, he's like, well, because your wife went, we didn't know, blah. And Dad's like, yeah.
29:33
Tad Eggleston: But he needed help.
29:35
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
29:37
Tad Eggleston: And there's a certain mindset that that…
29:40
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and…
29:44
Tad Eggleston: But I feel like…
29:45
meredithmcclaren: Absolutely.
29:45
Tad Eggleston: Got some of.
29:46
meredithmcclaren: Yes, it's like what we were talking about earlier, where it's like, you know, someone needs to do something, I'm someone, I have to do something, like, that's the thought process.
29:57
meredithmcclaren: And… and the large part of this conversation, we've been… it's been…
30:03
meredithmcclaren: framed, I suppose not necessarily as something…
30:09
meredithmcclaren: Advantageous or helpful, but just something that's, like.
30:12
meredithmcclaren: it netted some good, but it is very interesting to take it to the other place, where it's like, no, you… you made this decision, and there were real… like, you have to be… you have to be very careful navigating this conversation, because it's like, sometimes that's not the best choice, like, sometimes.
30:29
Tad Eggleston: Right.
30:30
meredithmcclaren: That will really, screw you up, and… and make things terrible for everyone, and you have to… you know, it's forgetting… it's forgetting your own oxygen mask, you know?
30:42
Tad Eggleston: Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
30:44
meredithmcclaren: there's a horror story, and I forget… I know Nick Cage did a movie, loosely based off of… I want to say it's Jessica or something.
30:55
meredithmcclaren: And it's something where it's like, he stumbles upon this guy trying to… he's in the woods, gonna kill this girl.
31:01
meredithmcclaren: And,
31:03
meredithmcclaren: And the main character intervenes, and takes her home, and takes care of her, and she's, like, mute, and
31:10
meredithmcclaren: unrespons… like, otherwise…
31:13
meredithmcclaren: some… something's off, but he's taking care of her, because it's the right thing to do, and it just completely destroys his life. I think… and then I…
31:23
meredithmcclaren: I won't spoil it, but yeah.
31:25
meredithmcclaren: I don't watch a lot of.
31:27
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, horror movies, so you're allowed to.
31:29
meredithmcclaren: Well, I think by the end of it, he ends up in exactly the same position as the other guy when they started. He's about to kill this girl, and someone's about to intervene and kill him, and
31:44
meredithmcclaren: And, you know, I think a really strong underlying theme of it was, you know, even making the right choice
31:52
meredithmcclaren: Bears out… can bear out terrible consequences and cost you everything.
31:58
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I think… I think that's the… without seeing the movie, the other thing that makes me… may think of that I think is always an interesting study is, like.
32:10
Tad Eggleston: Most choices…
32:13
Tad Eggleston: don't preclude other choices, so it's like, oh, I chose to save this girl. Oh, this girl's a hot mess.
32:22
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, yeah.
32:23
Tad Eggleston: Let's… let's see how we change things now.
32:27
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, exactly.
32:29
Tad Eggleston: Though that's hard, because, like, you have to confront, well, did I make the wrong decision? And what's even harder than saying I made the wrong decision is that, no, I didn't make the wrong decision, but facts in hand have changed, and it's time to do something else.
32:46
Tad Eggleston: you know, as human beings, I think we get…
32:50
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
32:51
Tad Eggleston: Oh!
32:52
Tad Eggleston: I decided this, and this was what was gonna happen. This isn't happening, but that's just because I haven't done it well enough yet.
33:01
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. Yeah, no, there's so many different, interesting ways to take that kind of prompt, that narrative prompt, where it's like.
33:09
meredithmcclaren: You know.
33:11
meredithmcclaren: You have to accept the consequences, but also… being responsible means taking what you know now and, you know, deciding how you'll go forward from there. And some people do that and some people don't, and then you'll have a whole new batch of consequences.
33:28
Tad Eggleston: Right.
33:29
meredithmcclaren: consequences.
33:30
Tad Eggleston: It is! Everything is decisions, like, like… Yeah. I mean, the thing, the thing that is fascinating about ideas of multiverses is like, okay, but seriously, which decisions matter? Does it… does it wind up mattering what I ordered for coffee in the morning, or does it not?
33:47
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
33:49
meredithmcclaren: I… yeah, I… That is very interesting. I think I have a lot of multiverse fatigue at the moment.
33:57
Tad Eggleston: Oh, I didn't… I didn't say I spent a… that's the sort of reason why I don't, like…
34:05
Tad Eggleston: I long ago had a multiverse fatigue, because it's like…
34:09
Tad Eggleston: Essentially, what you're saying is you want to decide the one point that would have changed this thing, but you don't really want to think too hard about what other things it might have changed, because somehow.
34:27
Tad Eggleston: That one thing changed 50 years ago was gonna have a straight through line to… This… this thing now?
34:37
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
34:38
Tad Eggleston: I mean, for me to like a time travel story, it's gotta be messy as fuck.
34:43
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I mean, I always think about, you know, every once in a while, you know, they have that thing where it's like, if you were reborn 10 years, you know, 10 years in the past, what would you do differently? And, you know, every once in a while, that pops into my head, where it's like, if I'm not really satisfied where I am presently, I'm like.
34:59
meredithmcclaren: well, if I had been back in time, I would have done this differently, and I always think about…
35:05
meredithmcclaren: What I always come back to is my cat, Little Lady, because it's like, if, Little Lady just showed up in my backyard one day, like, totally randomly, and didn't leave.
35:18
meredithmcclaren: And, I always come back to…
35:23
meredithmcclaren: you know, if I had done things differently 10 years ago, the chances of my cat not ending up in my backyard.
35:29
Tad Eggleston: Exactly.
35:29
meredithmcclaren: This one little thing that is not important to anything else going on, but is a tiny thing important to me, and it's like.
35:40
meredithmcclaren: do I really want to change everything else, the trajectory of my life, and miss this one, like, small point of joy?
35:48
Tad Eggleston: Exactly. I mean, particularly because, like.
35:53
Tad Eggleston: What's known is what you have.
35:55
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
35:56
Tad Eggleston: Any change involves, well, maybe this would have happened.
36:00
Tad Eggleston: And maybe it wouldn't have.
36:03
Tad Eggleston: So if I lose, what good things, like.
36:06
Tad Eggleston: How many good things would have to happen for it to be worth losing the good things
36:14
Tad Eggleston: I already have.
36:16
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and they're often very tiny good things, you know? It's, like, truly not the thing. Like, it's not where you work, or where you live, or anything like that. It's like, no, I have this plant, and I have a perfect, perfect sunbeam for this plant.
36:34
meredithmcclaren: Right.
36:37
Tad Eggleston: But, but yeah, no. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do, I do love a…
36:41
Tad Eggleston: A good time travel story, but only, like… The messy ones.
36:47
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
36:47
Tad Eggleston: And every once in a while, I look like a good multiverse story, but again, only the messy ones.
36:54
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, it seems like a lot of them are answering the same question over and over again. It's like…
37:00
meredithmcclaren: The one I keep thinking of right now is,
37:05
meredithmcclaren: what if nothing changes? Like, what if… what if no matter what you do, you still end up in this one place? It's like, well, what do you choose then? Which one of these?
37:14
Tad Eggleston: Right. No, like, like, like…
37:21
Tad Eggleston: I feel like the stories I like along those categories are the ones that a certain other type of person is gonna argue about all the semantics. Go, well, that's not how time travel works, or it wouldn't work like this. I'm like, okay.
37:35
Tad Eggleston: This is fiction, so we don't know how it would work.
37:39
meredithmcclaren: Yes, I know.
37:40
Tad Eggleston: So the second you say, it wouldn't work like this, you're all but telling me that it's one that I like more.
37:48
meredithmcclaren: I… I think… I forget which friend it is, somebody… somebody went to my friend, and they had this, like, historically set comic book.
37:56
meredithmcclaren: And they're like, well, this would never have happened. I think, you know, I think it was, like, a diversity issue. It was like, these kinds of people would never be there in this setting. And the person just had to respond to them going, sir, my comic is about werewolves.
38:11
Tad Eggleston: Right, right.
38:12
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
38:14
meredithmcclaren: I mean.
38:15
Tad Eggleston: And that drives me up the wall because of the number of times that they're wrong. I mean, that's been the big thing with.
38:20
meredithmcclaren: Oh, yeah.
38:22
Tad Eggleston: with the Odyssey lately, and I'm sorry, are we aware of where Greece is on a map?
38:28
meredithmcclaren: I know, the, the, what is it, the, you know…
38:31
meredithmcclaren: I forget, I haven't seen it, so… but I forget who was cast, and they're like, well, Black people wouldn't have been in ancient Greece, and I'm like, are you… are you… what?
38:40
Tad Eggleston: over.
38:40
meredithmcclaren: Right, right.
38:41
Tad Eggleston: Right. I'm like, okay, let's look at contemporary art.
38:46
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
38:47
Tad Eggleston: Okay, first of all, the colors, are such that It's pretty clear that, like, they may…
38:56
Tad Eggleston: women white and men black in their paintings. So, so, like, for painting…
39:02
Tad Eggleston: You can't… you can't pay attention to colors, because it… it didn't mean what color they were, it had a different.
39:07
meredithmcclaren: Oh, oh yeah, no, where was it? I was in Greece, and I was looking at a mosaic about,
39:13
meredithmcclaren: There… it was a mosaic about a sport,
39:16
Tad Eggleston: You made such a great graphic novel about being in Greece, too.
39:19
meredithmcclaren: Yes, yeah, and it's in there. It's about bull jumping, which was a big sport they used to do.
39:24
Tad Eggleston: Right.
39:25
meredithmcclaren: And there's three figures in the painting of the bull jumping, and two of them are darker than the other one, and they're like, this doesn't denote the skin tone, it probably means that these two guys were male and this was female.
39:36
Tad Eggleston: Right.
39:36
meredithmcclaren: Which means that it was a… it was a co-ed sport. Right. And I was like.
39:41
Tad Eggleston: Right. Yeah. Women can bowl jump.
39:43
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, but apparently…
39:45
Tad Eggleston: Apparently, they're not supposed to play baseball.
39:48
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
39:51
meredithmcclaren: No, that one got me, and then the other one, I think Tom Holland answered a really funny, criticism, where they're like, you call, you call, Odysseus… is it Odysseus? No, it's,
40:02
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, Odysseus.
40:03
meredithmcclaren: It is, okay. You call Odysseus dad, and he's like, well, I'm not gonna call him whatever he is in Greek. It's, you know, it's an English-speaking… none of us are speaking Greek.
40:13
Tad Eggleston: Right, we're not speaking Greek. but the other thing is, like, look at… Sculpture from that era.
40:23
Tad Eggleston: And you see a lot of African hair.
40:26
meredithmcclaren: Oh, yeah, yeah.
40:29
meredithmcclaren: It's… it's wild. It is very.
40:31
Tad Eggleston: What's more, what's more, is I guarantee you.
40:35
Tad Eggleston: that the people who were complaining about Helen of Troy being Black.
40:39
Tad Eggleston: If she was a queen of Turkey.
40:42
Tad Eggleston: would not be complaining. Turkey and Greece, by the way, share a border!
40:49
meredithmcclaren: Oh, I know, there's… and yeah, they hate each other.
40:52
meredithmcclaren: Even now.
40:55
Tad Eggleston: So, like…
40:55
meredithmcclaren: Even now, you talk to a Greek about the Ottomans, they're like, oh, fuck them.
41:01
Tad Eggleston: Right, but it's, like, so, so, so, like,
41:05
meredithmcclaren: Oh, I know, I know.
41:06
Tad Eggleston: just, like…
41:08
meredithmcclaren: Explaining to people that, you know, Vikings had trade routes into, like, Northern Africa and stuff.
41:13
Tad Eggleston: Right, right. I mean, it's so… it's so mind-boggling to me that not… not only are they so certain on diversity things in… in fucking fantasy.
41:25
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
41:27
Tad Eggleston: But they… they're very rarely even historically accurate.
41:33
meredithmcclaren: Well, and yeah, it's like, who's… also, too, it's like…
41:38
meredithmcclaren: It's like dinosaurs. I mean, I lived through, in elementary school, where all of my dinosaur books had a T-Rex standing straight up, and then by high school, he was standing more horizontal. It's like, we're getting new information all the time about things that happened a long time ago.
41:55
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I…
41:55
meredithmcclaren: Not in set in stone, as you think.
41:57
Tad Eggleston: I… I lived through the brontosaurus becoming the Apatosaurus.
42:02
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, yeah.
42:02
Tad Eggleston: We discovered, oh, wait, we put the wrong head.
42:05
meredithmcclaren: Or what was it with the… more recently, the Triceratops, they're like, oh, we think the Triceratops and this other dinosaur are the same dinosaur, it's just that one is a juvenile of the Triceratops. Right, right.
42:18
Tad Eggleston: Well, and I think I saw a thing recently that is like, oh, we're starting to find fossils in Africa, and we think they had different dinosaurs. Like, completely different dinosaurs.
42:28
meredithmcclaren: Oh, very cool!
42:35
Tad Eggleston: Wasn't the same dinosaurs everywhere!
42:38
meredithmcclaren: a… Oh.
42:43
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, there's just… It's just wild. It's, like, stuff that I…
42:48
Tad Eggleston: It is. Like, like, apparently, the only person ever… Generationally born.
42:58
Tad Eggleston: on the Sea of Galilee, who was pure white.
43:03
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Is Jesus.
43:04
meredithmcclaren: Oh, I know.
43:07
meredithmcclaren: That one, that one's great.
43:08
Tad Eggleston: Well, also, also apparently Adam and Eve. Wasn't there that big thing?
43:14
meredithmcclaren: Was there?
43:16
meredithmcclaren: Oh, thank you to the…
43:17
Tad Eggleston: I, I think, I think it was, I think it was,
43:21
Tad Eggleston: The first season of, of,
43:26
Tad Eggleston: what was the book written by Terry Pratchett and that guy we don't talk about anymore that got made.
43:33
meredithmcclaren: Oh, good omens. Good omens, yeah.
43:35
Tad Eggleston: First season of Good Omens had a black Adam and Eve, and the internet just…
43:40
meredithmcclaren: No! But…
43:41
Tad Eggleston: But it's like… Once again.
43:45
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and so.
43:46
Tad Eggleston: Where?
43:46
meredithmcclaren: Listen, we all know, like, science tells us right now that the cradle of humanity is in Africa.
43:51
Tad Eggleston: Now, now, I suppose… There's a decent argument for the idea that, like, the… the… the Persian Greek…
44:03
Tad Eggleston: Turkish, Egyptian brown is the, like, starting point, and you get darker going some directions, and lighter going other directions, that's possible, though we don't know that. But what we do know is that if nobody there now…
44:21
Tad Eggleston: Is that white? It's highly unlikely that they started that white.
44:28
meredithmcclaren: Well, and I don't know, I think it's very interesting to me, especially living in the times that we are, is like.
44:36
meredithmcclaren: It should be abundantly clear at this point how easy it is to change history, to change.
44:44
Tad Eggleston: There it is.
44:45
meredithmcclaren: of history. Like, we're.
44:47
Tad Eggleston: That's true.
44:47
meredithmcclaren: it.
44:48
meredithmcclaren: And it's like, it's just, you know, it's both horrifying and fascinating at the same time, where it's like… It is!
44:55
Tad Eggleston: It is fascinating, like, like, I mean, with, with history and science, the people who… who want to, like, as a teacher, this sort of thing wind… oh, they're always… it's not supposed to change, and like…
45:07
Tad Eggleston: Nobody said science doesn't change.
45:09
meredithmcclaren: Oh, yeah.
45:11
Tad Eggleston: People said that science needs to be proven.
45:15
Tad Eggleston: Now, now, when you have new facts, Conclusions will change.
45:20
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, you gotta adjust.
45:22
Tad Eggleston: Right. Nobody said history's not supposed to be changed. History's supposed to be based on
45:29
Tad Eggleston: records and anthropology and the best guesses we can make, and it's gonna change less the more records there are, except that now we're gonna discern… I mean…
45:41
Tad Eggleston: Say… say we went dark right now for a thousand years, and a thousand years from now, somebody managed to get just, like, the entire unexpurgated
45:52
Tad Eggleston: Internet to decide what life was like now.
45:57
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
46:00
Tad Eggleston: But with no ability to know what reliable sources were, because they didn't have any history in between.
46:07
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
46:09
Tad Eggleston: just had… Yeah, this is…
46:12
meredithmcclaren: That's what we have to go off of, yeah. It's like, you have to scrutinize the source material.
46:18
Tad Eggleston: I mean, first of all, they think we're having a hell of a lot more sex than we actually are.
46:23
meredithmcclaren: Oh, yeah.
46:27
meredithmcclaren: I know, it's… it is… So, it is fun to me, because…
46:35
meredithmcclaren: there is a point I think a lot of people come to, if they're… they're history-minded, or they're, you know, reading about history and stuff like that, where,
46:44
meredithmcclaren: They sort of go, oh…
46:47
meredithmcclaren: we were always this way. We were always this weird, and we always… we all had our little neuroses, and, you know, sometimes we did things just to see if we could do it, we didn't have any grander plan, you know, even… Right. Yeah.
47:03
Tad Eggleston: Right.
47:04
meredithmcclaren: I mean.
47:04
Tad Eggleston: That's actually the single biggest thing that annoys me about…
47:08
Tad Eggleston: People talking about history, people talking about current events, whatever, is, like, the inability to go.
47:16
Tad Eggleston: Is that how I'd respond?
47:18
Tad Eggleston: Do I know anybody who'd respond like that?
47:21
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
47:21
Tad Eggleston: Maybe this isn't right.
47:24
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, there's a point where you have to look at all the great… you know, you look at…
47:28
meredithmcclaren: Figures who were hoisted up in history, and you're like.
47:31
meredithmcclaren: I have to remember that this is just a dude. This isn't just a dude. He might have been afraid of cockroaches. He might have been really weird at a party.
47:42
Tad Eggleston: I just rewatched Dr. Strangelove, and, like, the way they talk about communists is so similar to the way we love to talk about Iranians, and Iraqis before that, and Afghans before that, and I'm sitting there going, really? Really? You think everybody in communist countries just…
48:01
Tad Eggleston: Doesn't care about their families.
48:04
meredithmcclaren: Well…
48:05
Tad Eggleston: Will automatically be afraid, and therefore cower and not retaliate if you attack them
48:12
Tad Eggleston: Because we'd definitely be like that, right?
48:15
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, the… who is it? The, you know, God rest your soul, Marjorie Strappi, you know, the quote.
48:23
Tad Eggleston: Buh.
48:23
meredithmcclaren: people dug up when… after she passed is, you know, I have more… I believe that people have more in common with each other than their governments do.
48:33
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah!
48:33
meredithmcclaren: I'm paraphrasing, and I'm butchering it terribly, but that was.
48:36
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
48:37
meredithmcclaren: Gist of it.
48:38
Tad Eggleston: We re-read Persepolis for 22 Panels after she passed, you know.
48:43
meredithmcclaren: I, I would really… yeah.
48:46
Tad Eggleston: I would really like that.
48:47
meredithmcclaren: to see your movie now, because I do too.
48:49
Tad Eggleston: I want to see many of… she's got a number of movies.
48:52
meredithmcclaren: Does she? I only knew of the… Chicken and…
48:55
Tad Eggleston: Chicken and Plums is actually another graphic novel of hers that she adapted.
49:01
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
49:03
Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I need to watch a number of her movies, too. I remember looking it up at the time and going, oh, wow, she really…
49:12
Tad Eggleston: really started making movies rather than making comics.
49:17
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, she pivoted a little bit.
49:19
Tad Eggleston: I mean, she… she… But…
49:22
meredithmcclaren: Visually, everything I saw was beautiful, yeah.
49:25
Tad Eggleston: The one that I want to see, just because it seems so, so…
49:32
Tad Eggleston: Really? That was… that was a Marjane satrapi?
49:37
Tad Eggleston: movie is there's one called The Voices. Okay. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick, and Jackie Weaver, and it's a likable guy who pursues his office crush with help from his evil talking pets, but the.
49:54
meredithmcclaren: Thanks.
49:54
Tad Eggleston: It turns sinister when she stands him up for a date.
49:57
meredithmcclaren: Oh no, I actually have to pause for one second, I'm so sorry.
50:01
Tad Eggleston: No problem.
50:06
meredithmcclaren: I'd like to see that one.
50:09
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, just, it seems so not Marjane… It's a trappy, it's like…
50:16
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because I will add that to my running list.
50:20
Tad Eggleston: It's listed as dark comedy, psychological horror, psychological…
50:25
Tad Eggleston: thriller, serial killer, slasher horror, tragedy, as it's… as it's things on IMDb.
50:31
Tad Eggleston: Which, when you think about…
50:33
meredithmcclaren: Mountain!
50:34
Tad Eggleston: 2014.
50:36
meredithmcclaren: Oh, okay.
50:38
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
50:38
meredithmcclaren: Okay!
50:42
Tad Eggleston: It was her third-to-last movie. But yeah, I need to see Chicken and Plums. I actually have the graphic novel, but haven't read it. I need to read Chicken and Plums as well.
50:51
Tad Eggleston: Looks like she also directed something called Radioactive, that's a docudrama. Oh, so it's about Marie Curie.
50:59
meredithmcclaren: Okay.
51:01
Tad Eggleston: Wow.
51:02
meredithmcclaren: Interesting.
51:02
Tad Eggleston: And mind you, both of these she didn't write, she just directed.
51:06
meredithmcclaren: Okay.
51:07
Tad Eggleston: So, so… and then, Dear… Dear Parish.
51:12
Tad Eggleston: In a series of interconnected stories, several Paris residents find their lives turned upside down when death knocks on their door. That one she did co-write and direct, and that was her last film.
51:24
Tad Eggleston: from 20… 2024, and it looks like it was actually in French.
51:28
meredithmcclaren: Okay, I will have to look up all of these now.
51:30
Tad Eggleston: So, so yeah.
51:33
Tad Eggleston: I, I, I, I, you know, if you wind up watching them before I wind up saying, hey, I finally watched this, and you should really watch it, let me know, because I'll put it higher on my list of… It's always easier to manage to make myself watch or read things if I know I'll have people to talk or write about with them.
51:47
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I wouldn't count on that, because I am so very slow, but.
51:51
Tad Eggleston: I understand.
51:52
meredithmcclaren: You know.
51:53
Tad Eggleston: I often am too, but that's why I said, like.
51:57
Tad Eggleston: We can be long-term accountability partners for each other. Two years from now, when we bump into each other at C2E2, it'll be like, have you watched Chicken and Plums yet? No, I have not. We need to find a DVD player.
52:11
meredithmcclaren: I know, I know.
52:13
meredithmcclaren: It will exactly be like that.
52:15
Tad Eggleston: Let's go watch Chicken and Plums together!
52:19
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
52:21
meredithmcclaren: Now, you mentioned, what is it, Dr. Strangelove. Have you seen the trailer for Digger?
52:27
Tad Eggleston: haven't.
52:28
Tad Eggleston: I don't… I don't know.
52:30
Tad Eggleston: Take care.
52:31
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, it's the new… it's, Tom Cruise and…
52:35
Tad Eggleston: Which is generally not a thing that goes.
52:38
meredithmcclaren: It doesn't look like Tom Cruise, he's got a lot of makeup on. Okay. Yeah, I can see… John Goodman, yeah.
52:44
Tad Eggleston: John Goodman I do like.
52:46
meredithmcclaren: I watched the trailer, and it's… the trailer.
52:48
Tad Eggleston: There is Ahmed I like. Most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he's humanity's savior before the disaster he's unleashed destroys everything.
52:58
meredithmcclaren: Yes. I would… they don't give a lot away in the trailer, but the… I was watching the trailer, and the whole time I was, I was like, this feels like a spiritual successor to Doctor Strangelove. Like, truly.
53:11
Tad Eggleston: Guns.
53:15
Tad Eggleston: And actually…
53:16
meredithmcclaren: When you were mentioning Voices, the other movie that came up was Stuffed, which I just found out about.
53:22
meredithmcclaren: Which is also not out yet, which is about, like, a taxidermist who wants to… they want
53:29
meredithmcclaren: They want to stuff a human, but they're, like, completely thrown off balance when somebody volunteers.
53:37
meredithmcclaren: It's supposed to be a horror-comedy romance.
53:42
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that, that, that sounds fun, too.
53:48
Tad Eggleston: I finally, I finally have started to get back into movies, partially because
53:54
Tad Eggleston: my family does a weekly movie club where we pick a movie, and we watch it during the week, and we talk about it on Wednesdays. But a lot, because I've found enough people in the comics communities that have a much quirkier sense
54:11
Tad Eggleston: of what they like in movies than I was used to being around, so I've gotten better at finding the movies that nobody's ever heard of, that I like a lot.
54:20
Tad Eggleston: Even though… lots of people I know are like, what? Yeah, I've never…
54:27
meredithmcclaren: heard of this before? Yes.
54:29
Tad Eggleston: Or even after they watch it, they're like, what?
54:32
meredithmcclaren: Oh yeah, I'm like, what has happened here?
54:35
Tad Eggleston: I mean, sometimes they're not, and that's even cooler. Yeah.
54:39
Tad Eggleston: I mean, one of my favorite recent movies, it was,
54:45
Tad Eggleston: Too many Davids in comics, which is the one that does superfan promotion.
54:54
Tad Eggleston: David Hyde.
54:56
Tad Eggleston: recommended to me a movie called Aphis, because we're both big baseball fans. And Aphis is essentially
55:08
Tad Eggleston: And, like, everything I tell you, you have to kind of piece together throughout the entire movie, because the entire movie…
55:15
Tad Eggleston: it feels like it could be unscripted, even though I'm pretty certain that it is, and is, like, just set across…
55:22
Tad Eggleston: a long afternoon.
55:24
Tad Eggleston: But essentially, you have a beloved town baseball field where, like, there's been a beer league between, like, the hardware store and the factory and whatnot for many years.
55:38
Tad Eggleston: Is about to be the home of the new middle school, which will mean that people don't have to drive 30 miles to go to school in the morning.
55:48
Tad Eggleston: But it'll also mean that there's not a place in town to play baseball.
55:52
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
55:53
Tad Eggleston: You're losing the…
55:54
meredithmcclaren: Third space.
55:55
Tad Eggleston: Right, so you've got this… this group of middle-aged men
56:00
Tad Eggleston: Middle-aged to old men, playing a game of baseball.
56:05
Tad Eggleston: Well into the night, you know, like, it gets to the point where they pull their cars onto the field to light it.
56:13
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. Aw, that sounds really good.
56:15
Tad Eggleston: And, like, there's not a strong plot.
56:18
Tad Eggleston: You know, you don't get to know any of the characters in a deep, deep way, but you get to know them just enough to, like, extrapolate tons of things, and also realize that none of these guys are necessarily friends.
56:33
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
56:34
Tad Eggleston: Except when they play ball every Sunday.
56:36
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, no, it sounds like sometimes a movie…
56:39
Tad Eggleston: Loss and nostalgia and everything all rolled into one.
56:43
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, sometimes a movie is… is not so much
56:47
meredithmcclaren: Trying to say a lot, it's just trying to put you in a moment, you know?
56:51
Tad Eggleston: Right.
56:51
meredithmcclaren: That is familiar to you.
56:54
Tad Eggleston: Right.
56:55
meredithmcclaren: But it's very difficult to describe.
56:58
Tad Eggleston: Right.
56:59
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
57:00
Tad Eggleston: And that's kind of what the movie does. It's just… Yeah, I think…
57:05
meredithmcclaren: because movies was also, in addition to books, I'm like, I need to also watch a lot of movies, because I… again, I had also fallen off, I think.
57:12
Tad Eggleston: Right.
57:12
meredithmcclaren: of the.
57:13
Tad Eggleston: So are you somebody who doesn't… what do you…
57:18
Tad Eggleston: Do you work in silence? Do you…
57:21
meredithmcclaren: No, I work to noise, but because, I only have the one monitor.
57:27
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
57:27
meredithmcclaren: So it's like, I don't have something where it's like, I can look up and see what's happening. So everything that I'm listening to most of the time is documentaries.
57:36
meredithmcclaren: Gotcha.
57:37
Tad Eggleston: Gotcha.
57:37
meredithmcclaren: Or commentary, or something like that, news stories.
57:40
Tad Eggleston: Right. No, I just had to ask, because… because.
57:43
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
57:43
Tad Eggleston: a lot of the artists I know who manage to stay up on movies, that's how, you know.
57:47
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, no, I…
57:48
Tad Eggleston: The movie or the TV show running while they're drawing.
57:51
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I need to have something where it's, like.
57:55
meredithmcclaren: Surface-level engagement from me, where it's like, no, just tell me a thing.
58:01
Tad Eggleston: Just tell me that.
58:03
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
58:03
Tad Eggleston: I get that. That's fair.
58:04
meredithmcclaren: -Oh.
58:05
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm always fascinated that everybody has, like.
58:09
Tad Eggleston: different… like, I've come across very few comic people who need total silence.
58:15
Tad Eggleston: Except possibly for first draft writing.
58:18
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, when you're writing, yeah, I need silence, or at the very least, I need to just have, like, classical music, or… not classical, but, like, instrumental music, no lyrics. Right, right.
58:31
meredithmcclaren: No, but I had a friend earlier this year point out that, they were talking to a YouTuber, and they were kind of like.
58:39
meredithmcclaren: the YouTuber was like, I kind of feel bad about my video essays being multiple hours long, and my friend is like, no, no, you don't understand. The entire comic industry survives on four-hour video essays.
58:57
meredithmcclaren: Oh.
58:57
Tad Eggleston: So that's why my podcast seems more popular among the comics industry than anywhere else.
59:03
meredithmcclaren: Yes!
59:04
meredithmcclaren: No, I'm just…
59:06
Tad Eggleston: Because an hour is a short episode.
59:10
meredithmcclaren: Now, looking at the movies that I had this, this year.
59:15
meredithmcclaren: I think probably the one that's gonna stay with me the longest out of everything is… I finally… I was on a plane, because I went to… I was traveling abroad earlier this year, and…
59:27
Tad Eggleston: Is this one of the trips that you wrote a book about, or is this a.
59:30
meredithmcclaren: I will be. I'm doing the one right before it now. Right now, I'm doing my South Africa travelogue.
59:38
meredithmcclaren: Okay.
59:39
Tad Eggleston: Is the Vietnam one out? Do I have the VIN?
59:41
meredithmcclaren: No, it's not out.
59:44
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
59:44
meredithmcclaren: It will be soon. It's coming out… Okay. I'm gonna make it available on World Tourism Day, which is end of September.
59:51
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
59:52
Tad Eggleston: I just knew that I'd been watching for it, so, like, if it was out there somewhere, I would be sad that I had missed it.
59:58
meredithmcclaren: No, you have not missed it. It's… it's still…
1:00:01
meredithmcclaren: It's still getting put together. No, so…
1:00:05
meredithmcclaren: So, I'm working on South Africa now. The one…
1:00:09
Tad Eggleston: That had to have been an interesting trip.
1:00:11
meredithmcclaren: It was really interesting. I had a wonderful time. You know, a lot of these times when I go into these places, it's like, I have no expectation. You know, I have no idea what I'm walking into, which is great for me.
1:00:23
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:00:24
meredithmcclaren: But, I was actually gonna take time between… because I went from… I went straight from my Vietnam…
1:00:34
meredithmcclaren: with my self-published stuff, I was gonna go for my Vietnam, which is, you know, slice-of-life journal comic, and then go into a fiction book, and then go back and forth between the two.
1:00:44
meredithmcclaren: genres, and… but then… but then somebody somewhere immediately started to say how South Africa was awful, and I thought, that is not my lived experience. I need to let people know that I had a wonderful time there.
1:01:01
Tad Eggleston: Are you saying it's not filled with white genocide?
1:01:07
Tad Eggleston: Truly… You… you didn't have to, like, hide yourself to not get beaten to death? Yeah. I'm shocked. I'm shocked!
1:01:18
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:01:19
meredithmcclaren: It… It was one of those, like, truly…
1:01:23
Tad Eggleston: listeners out there, that was incredibly sarcastic.
1:01:26
meredithmcclaren: Like, no, and I, I just, I've just gone, because it's in progress, so I had just finished the part where I, like.
1:01:33
meredithmcclaren: telling… I'm doing, you know, the… the necessary,
1:01:39
meredithmcclaren: listen, you're a tourist in a foreign country, don't be stupid, like, be aware of what the problems are, because there's always problems, there's problems here.
1:01:46
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
1:01:47
meredithmcclaren: problems there. Like, be aware what the problems are, and also.
1:01:50
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I've heard Iceland has a minimal amount of problems, but…
1:01:55
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, we can probably find some.
1:01:57
meredithmcclaren: But,
1:02:00
meredithmcclaren: And yeah, South Africa does top on a lot of, like, high crime lists, but most of it is theft, and not, like, violent crime.
1:02:09
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:02:10
meredithmcclaren: But, you know, I do bring that up to people in the book, and I'm like, listen, just, you know, know what you're going for, and I went as a part of a tour group, so it's like, my vulnerability was managed.
1:02:23
meredithmcclaren: But also, you know, the first day I was there, because it's a bike trip, you know, there are always bike trips, that's how I get to go along on these trips. It's… that's a compromise. It's dad's bringing me along, dad likes to bike, so I must also bike.
1:02:41
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I wish I did more biking. My gut wishes I did more biking, so I kind of envy you that.
1:02:50
meredithmcclaren: So…
1:02:53
meredithmcclaren: But the very first day, the first ride, I was walking… we were riding around the coast of Cape Town, and I was like, this might be the most beautiful place on Earth, like, this is gorgeous.
1:03:03
meredithmcclaren: And they have such a great,
1:03:06
meredithmcclaren: because they, they bus us around to various, areas. We have so many different,
1:03:13
meredithmcclaren: We have so many different… Sorry.
1:03:17
Tad Eggleston: It's okay.
1:03:19
meredithmcclaren: Okay. We have so many different… environment.
1:03:25
Tad Eggleston: Basically.
1:03:25
meredithmcclaren: deal with.
1:03:26
Tad Eggleston: environments.
1:03:27
meredithmcclaren: Yes. And so many environments, like, in Cape Town, it's very lush, it's very green, but then you can go a little deeper into the country, and it's almost like being in the deserts of Australia, where it's, like, it's, like, orange sand and plateau mountain… table mountains and stuff like that.
1:03:45
Tad Eggleston: Have you done Australia, too?
1:03:47
meredithmcclaren: So, that's where it was getting.
1:03:51
meredithmcclaren: The trip that I was on recently, the most recent one, was actually New Zealand, but we stopped in Australia. But we stopped in metropolitan Australia. I didn't get into the deserts of it. I'm just aware of what the… I'm just aware that most of Australia is a desert.
1:04:09
meredithmcclaren: So we were in Sydney. We were in Sydney, and… Okay. But it was a stopover before we went to our actual trip, which is New Zealand, and New Zealand is also…
1:04:21
meredithmcclaren: Very pretty. It's… it's very… it's very lush, it's gorgeous. They have two different… they have pretty much two different biomes in New Zealand, or at least in the southern island. I didn't go to the Northern Island, which is where Hobbiton and all that stuff is, so unfortunately I missed all that. But in the Southern Island, they pretty much have two biomes, which is…
1:04:41
meredithmcclaren: divided by the, New Zealand…
1:04:45
meredithmcclaren: Andy, I think they call them the New Zealand Andes.
1:04:48
meredithmcclaren: And on one side, it's rainforests, and on the other side, it's very much like… California farmland area.
1:04:58
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:04:59
meredithmcclaren: But yeah, so anytime I'm on one of these trips.
1:05:06
meredithmcclaren: I am…
1:05:09
meredithmcclaren: going, okay, I'm on a plane for many hours, I… this is when I can finally, like, clear some of the movie inventory. And because it's international flight, I always get, you know, exposed to movies I wouldn't have known about otherwise, like…
1:05:24
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:05:25
meredithmcclaren: I think it… I think it was an international flight where I watched one of my favorite movies ever, which is called Departures.
1:05:31
meredithmcclaren: Which is a Japanese movie.
1:05:34
meredithmcclaren: Actually, two, if I was…
1:05:36
meredithmcclaren: I watch a lot of great movies on international flights. Departures was one of my favorites that still sits in my mind today, and it's about a man who, he starts apprenticing for,
1:05:50
meredithmcclaren: there's a practice after a body has died in Japan.
1:05:55
meredithmcclaren: Where you ritually wash them before they go into cremation.
1:06:00
meredithmcclaren: And it is… it is a ritual.
1:06:03
meredithmcclaren: It's very important to them that this is done, but because you were handling a dead body, there's a lot of stigma attached to the job, and so it's like this one thing, it's in this paradox where it's like,
1:06:17
meredithmcclaren: This is a necessary service.
1:06:21
meredithmcclaren: But if you were the one doing it, like, you could get ostracized from society.
1:06:27
Tad Eggleston: Is the… Not always the way.
1:06:29
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and so that's a very good one, and then the other one I really also liked is called Laugh, Laugh, Laugh.
1:06:36
meredithmcclaren: And it's about a group of people who…
1:06:42
meredithmcclaren: there's an anime about it now called,
1:06:46
meredithmcclaren: Oh, God, Akane Bonsai. It's the thing… it's a… it's a type of entertainment in Japan where
1:06:54
meredithmcclaren: it's a storyteller, and they're telling you a funny story, and it's just the storyteller, there's no props, like, I think the only thing you get is, you know, they're nearly in front of you on a pillow, and they have a fan. I think that's as much as they get, and it is all about how they relate the story to you to make you laugh.
1:07:12
meredithmcclaren: And it's a 100 years old prac- a thousands of year old practice, and the movie is about a bunch of people who come together to… to learn it, because
1:07:22
meredithmcclaren: various… one of the kids… one of them's a kid, and he just wants to make, you know, like, this kid that's… this other kid that's bothering him at school laugh, so he'll, like, ease up on him. Another one is a woman who's told she's too cold. Another one is a ex-baseball player who is now a commentator, and they're telling him he's too stiff.
1:07:41
meredithmcclaren: And so they're all trying to learn how to emote better through this storytelling art.
1:07:47
Tad Eggleston: Sounds fantastic.
1:07:48
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, okay, but, so I was on the plane, and the…
1:07:53
meredithmcclaren: the movie I ended up watching this year was, Look Back, which is the animated…
1:07:59
meredithmcclaren: film by the Chainsaw Man guy?
1:08:03
Tad Eggleston: Okay, yeah. I've read the… I've read the manga.
1:08:07
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and so I was on my list forever, and I was on the plane, and I saw it, and it was one of those things where it's like, okay, I do really want to watch this. Do I want to cry on the plane?
1:08:22
meredithmcclaren: And, you know, I can't recommend it enough. It's a really beautiful story, especially if you're in any kind of creative endeavor or something where it's like, you are constantly doing something that you both love and also consumes you.
1:08:36
meredithmcclaren: Like, it's a perfect love letter to that, but I do feel a little bit tricked, because I forgot, you know, at some point in this movie, which is a very slice-of-life movie, I forgot that it is the chainsaw Man guy, and he always does something weird somewhere.
1:08:54
meredithmcclaren: And so I got to the ending, and I'm like, I wasn't prepared for that,
1:08:59
meredithmcclaren: that's the right way to do this story, I think. I think he made a great choice, but also…
1:09:05
meredithmcclaren: I wasn't expecting that.
1:09:08
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:09:10
meredithmcclaren: So, yeah.
1:09:11
meredithmcclaren: So I think that's the movie that stands out for me right now.
1:09:17
Tad Eggleston: I need to see that movie. I'm having trouble finding Laugh, Laugh, Laugh, because it's telling me University of Laughs, but that doesn't feel.
1:09:24
meredithmcclaren: Maybe I'm getting the movie wrong. It was years ago that I saw it. Let me… I will do some digging later this.
1:09:32
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:09:32
meredithmcclaren: and see if I can find it.
1:09:34
meredithmcclaren: I might be conflating the title with something else, because there's another Japanese movie that I love called Linda Linda, Linda.
1:09:44
meredithmcclaren: I will find it.
1:09:45
Tad Eggleston: I should find… you know, I know Mike Kurosawa, and not enough Japanese movies after that.
1:09:51
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:09:52
meredithmcclaren: I also recommend Linda, Linda, Linda.
1:09:56
Tad Eggleston: Linda, Linda, Linda now. See, you're giving me just a list of… a list of… of, like… here you are, saying that you don't read or watch enough, and…
1:10:06
meredithmcclaren: Well, this is years, this is decades in the making, this is all…
1:10:09
Tad Eggleston: I know, but, but still.
1:10:12
Tad Eggleston: Still…
1:10:13
meredithmcclaren: I like to think that the stuff that I do consume is, like.
1:10:17
meredithmcclaren: the best of the best, given that I don't have a lot of time to take in everything.
1:10:23
meredithmcclaren: But that does sort of feel, like, annoying, because it's like, sometimes you just gotta watch a bad movie.
1:10:30
Tad Eggleston: I mean, kinda like…
1:10:36
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I like to avoid bad anything when possible.
1:10:42
Tad Eggleston: But… Average to middling certainly… makes the great stand out more.
1:10:54
Tad Eggleston: And, and sometimes can be… more comfortable.
1:11:00
Tad Eggleston: Listen.
1:11:00
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. Oh, yeah, no, sometimes…
1:11:03
Tad Eggleston: A lot of the movies that I watch over and over and over again aren't exactly good, and they're certainly.
1:11:10
meredithmcclaren: No, no.
1:11:11
Tad Eggleston: Great. One of…
1:11:12
meredithmcclaren: One of my favorite movies ever is, is, this, this…
1:11:17
meredithmcclaren: wonderful, awful, like, B-movie horror comedy called Spaced Invaders, which…
1:11:25
Tad Eggleston: Like, I remember that.
1:11:26
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, which is the… about a group of Martians who hear the annual playing of War of the Worlds, and mistakenly assume that Mars is attacking Earth, and they just didn't get their marching orders, and so they go to go attack Earth.
1:11:45
meredithmcclaren: And it is… I can't, by any stretch of the imagination, say that this is a great movie, but it is.
1:11:51
Tad Eggleston: Oh, I do, I do remember this.
1:11:54
meredithmcclaren: And it's.
1:11:54
Tad Eggleston: Is this… It came out when I was 10. Yeah.
1:11:59
meredithmcclaren: This is… and it's given me a line that I've used so often, which is, they're not evil, they're just stupid.
1:12:08
Tad Eggleston: Yes.
1:12:09
Tad Eggleston: Yes!
1:12:11
Tad Eggleston: Oh, I remember this movie so well!
1:12:14
meredithmcclaren: Oh, I love it.
1:12:14
Tad Eggleston: Not well enough, I'm gonna have to go watch it again.
1:12:19
Tad Eggleston: You're gonna… ugh.
1:12:21
Tad Eggleston: I'm so gonna have to go watch this movie again.
1:12:23
meredithmcclaren: Yes, it's so good. It's wonderful and awful. But yeah, no, it's like, sometimes you just need dominoes, right? You don't eat a great pizza, sometimes you just need dominoes.
1:12:32
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think there's very few times where anybody needs Domino's. I mean, I guess you live in the Southwest, so there might be less good pizza available. I live in Chicago.
1:12:43
meredithmcclaren: Actually, okay, listen. So apparently, Arizona is one of the best places to grow the flour that is… that is used most popularly with pizza. Dough. Okay. So, we do have a couple really good pizza places, but…
1:13:02
meredithmcclaren: Sometimes I just want dominoes.
1:13:05
Tad Eggleston: No, I get it. I mean, every once… I mean, I get… I guess, at least in our house.
1:13:10
Tad Eggleston: Papa John's gets the slight nod over Domino's when we just went…
1:13:14
meredithmcclaren: Sauce! The bag?
1:13:15
Tad Eggleston: Right, right. Though we also have, like.
1:13:20
Tad Eggleston: One of the grocery stores near here has, I shit you not, like, 4 long aisles of just frozen pizzas.
1:13:31
Tad Eggleston: Excellent.
1:13:32
meredithmcclaren: delightful?
1:13:33
Tad Eggleston: Our options for Cook at Home are…
1:13:37
Tad Eggleston: pretty superb. Yeah. And… and, like, therefore, like.
1:13:43
Tad Eggleston: both Domino's and Papa John's, and the even less likely Little Caesars, only happen if like…
1:13:55
Tad Eggleston: We're either too broke, or… want delivery
1:14:03
Tad Eggleston: And therefore, don't go to any of the
1:14:06
Tad Eggleston: Many, many infinitely better pizza places nearby.
1:14:11
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:14:12
Tad Eggleston: In fact, my best pizza nearby,
1:14:16
Tad Eggleston: Like, we have to pay attention, because it's a food truck.
1:14:19
meredithmcclaren: Oh, yeah.
1:14:20
Tad Eggleston: He can only get it when he's.
1:14:21
meredithmcclaren: But isn't the hunt part of it…
1:14:23
Tad Eggleston: It is, it is. And one day, I'll have him on the podcast, because I met him when he was in the parking lot at the comic shop that I do work for, for Free Comic Book Day. But he's been busy.
1:14:37
Tad Eggleston: But yeah, he manages… like, imagine all of the different things that you love about all different kinds of pizza.
1:14:43
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:14:45
Tad Eggleston: Blake.
1:14:46
Tad Eggleston: there's just enough crisp to the bottom of his pie to be, like, reminiscent of a good New York. But it's a Chicago-style deep dish. It's got…
1:14:55
Tad Eggleston: that heft.
1:14:57
Tad Eggleston: Only, somehow not too heavy.
1:15:00
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
1:15:01
meredithmcclaren: They have found the golden ratio.
1:15:05
Tad Eggleston: To make lots of room, for the proper amount of mozzarella, which is a TON, and then…
1:15:15
Tad Eggleston: Sauce that's not… Too sweet? And has just the right amount of tang?
1:15:22
Tad Eggleston: And the pepperoni is exquisite.
1:15:25
Tad Eggleston: And he's got hot honey to put on top… to drizzle on top to boot.
1:15:31
Tad Eggleston: Killer pizza. Killer pizza.
1:15:34
Tad Eggleston: Eddie says hello.
1:15:37
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
1:15:38
Tad Eggleston: Actually, he said, let me come steal your microphone, but…
1:15:41
meredithmcclaren: Yes, you're paying attention to the…
1:15:43
Tad Eggleston: trans… I translate that as hello.
1:15:46
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, if I were at home right now, like, my cats would have made an appearance by now. They always know when the camera's on.
1:15:54
Tad Eggleston: Right. Yeah. I mean, what's funny is Eddie only comes on camera if there's not another cat on camera.
1:16:01
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. And none of the other cats want to be on my camera.
1:16:05
Tad Eggleston: Got 4 cats in the house. Eddie's the only one that ever winds up on the podcast, and never to say hi to another cat. Like, if he's here, and another cat pops up on screen, he'll decide that it's time to go away.
1:16:18
meredithmcclaren: He's got rules.
1:16:19
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:16:22
Tad Eggleston: We should get towards wrapping up, just.
1:16:24
meredithmcclaren: We should, yeah.
1:16:25
Tad Eggleston: Because… Because we could talk forever if we don't. We can.
1:16:30
meredithmcclaren: We can just exchange recommendations the whole time.
1:16:33
Tad Eggleston: I need to do this more often, whether it's on-air or off-air, just because I miss talking to my friend Meredith. Yes. But we will get into closing questions now. First, the new one, one that I don't think you've had to answer before. This is, like, my fifth year of
1:16:52
Tad Eggleston: doing this podcast, and I feel like I've fallen into the Twilight Zone.
1:16:56
meredithmcclaren: Muhammad.
1:16:56
Tad Eggleston: My life is unrecognizable in all sorts of awesome ways.
1:17:02
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I get to just throw musical or movie recommendations back and forth with Meredith McClaren. I…
1:17:11
meredithmcclaren: I think that might be putting me in a position of stature that I don't deserve, but…
1:17:18
Tad Eggleston: Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
1:17:20
meredithmcclaren: Oh, thank you.
1:17:21
Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean, like, because that's kind of the point, like, the number of people that used to be
1:17:28
Tad Eggleston: Names on pages of some of my favorite objects.
1:17:32
Tad Eggleston: are now friends.
1:17:33
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:17:33
Tad Eggleston: Are people… are people that I might text with, or…
1:17:36
meredithmcclaren: Or hang out with.
1:17:38
Tad Eggleston: Or…
1:17:38
meredithmcclaren: Remarkably easier than some people think.
1:17:41
Tad Eggleston: Right, you know, but if you told me even 6 years ago, oh, this is the life that you're gonna live in.
1:17:48
Tad Eggleston: We're, we're, we're, like…
1:17:50
Tad Eggleston: You want to know about something, and you call so-and-so. You're watching a baseball game, and you text so-and-so because your team's beating up on his team.
1:18:01
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
1:18:03
Tad Eggleston: You know, whatever. Like, I'd be like, yeah, fuck you, man, what world is this? I don't even… what world are you…
1:18:13
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:18:14
Tad Eggleston: And that's never mind, like, the just cool experiences, you know, being… being at a con, and getting to hang out with somebody, or have a great conversation with somebody, or… or having somebody who recognizes me, and, like, I was telling you, Emile Wilson was on… about his new book. I found out as… right before we started recording that, like, he had told his publicist
1:18:36
Tad Eggleston: I want to be on 22 Panels. This is my first graphic novel.
1:18:41
Tad Eggleston: I've.
1:18:41
meredithmcclaren: That's so nice!
1:18:42
Tad Eggleston: The way he talks, like, it will be a different kind of conversation to other publicity we do. I think it's the right kind of… Yes. And it's like…
1:18:53
meredithmcclaren: I know, right?
1:18:55
Tad Eggleston: That's a good.
1:18:56
meredithmcclaren: feeling. Good fuzzy feeling.
1:18:57
Tad Eggleston: Wow!
1:18:59
meredithmcclaren: Yay!
1:19:00
Tad Eggleston: You know who I am?
1:19:02
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. I'm just gonna be floating 5 inches off the ground for the rest of the day.
1:19:07
Tad Eggleston: For the rest of the year, life, something like that. But I find everybody in comics, everybody in the arts, really, but…
1:19:16
Tad Eggleston: Definitely everybody in comics has similar surreal experiences, similar things where they, like, pinch themselves and go, was that really me?
1:19:26
Tad Eggleston: That got to do that, see that, hear that.
1:19:30
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:19:31
Tad Eggleston: So I've started collecting those experiences. Tell me a surreal Meredith McClaren experience.
1:19:37
meredithmcclaren: A surreal Meredith McClaren experience.
1:19:40
meredithmcclaren: Does it have to be specifically comic-related?
1:19:45
Tad Eggleston: I mean, ideally, one that you don't think would have happened if you weren't involved in comics, but I didn't… I didn't say that early enough, so it can… I'll… I'll accept it.
1:19:59
meredithmcclaren: Okay.
1:20:00
meredithmcclaren: I think…
1:20:04
meredithmcclaren: There are two answers for this that I can… that come to mind.
1:20:09
Tad Eggleston: And you can use them both.
1:20:10
meredithmcclaren: Okay, so… first one, I think it probably wouldn't have happened if I wasn't in the comic industry, just because of the flexibility it provides. I spent…
1:20:19
meredithmcclaren: I spent the longest you could be in the UK without a visa.
1:20:27
meredithmcclaren: In the UK, and it's like, I looked it up, and I'm like, this is how long you can be here without getting a visa, and…
1:20:35
Tad Eggleston: Yep.
1:20:35
meredithmcclaren: So…
1:20:37
meredithmcclaren: So I went, because I'm like, I can work from anywhere, so I'll do this. And I want to be somewhere else for a while.
1:20:43
meredithmcclaren: And…
1:20:44
Tad Eggleston: Scotland now has artist…
1:20:47
meredithmcclaren: I saw that.
1:20:48
Tad Eggleston: wanna…
1:20:49
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:20:50
Tad Eggleston: I know a couple of friends of mine are emigrating.
1:20:53
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I know.
1:20:54
Tad Eggleston: A friend of mine.
1:20:54
meredithmcclaren: who is looking very intensely at that. I need to pick their brain up.
1:20:59
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I could probably actually use their names, because they've been very publicly emigrating on Instagram.
1:21:05
meredithmcclaren: Oh, I know.
1:21:06
Tad Eggleston: Soma and Mike Avon Oming. Yeah. Headed to Scotland.
1:21:11
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. No, so… this was years ago, this was…
1:21:16
Tad Eggleston: Correct.
1:21:17
meredithmcclaren: This was several years ago. So I was there.
1:21:22
meredithmcclaren: And… I made it a point that I had to, like, go out and do stuff, because I'm like, when am I going to be back? You know, I have to do something… so many things in the week I have to do.
1:21:32
meredithmcclaren: And I ended up attending a…
1:21:37
meredithmcclaren: a, like, a small Q&A in the basement of a bar with Mac, with,
1:21:48
meredithmcclaren: I think it's Matt Gatness?
1:21:51
meredithmcclaren: the… he was Mycroft in the Sherlock Show, he also co-wrote it, he's… you've seen him before.
1:22:01
meredithmcclaren: I know I'm getting the last name right, I just can't remember if I'm getting the first name right.
1:22:07
meredithmcclaren: Oh.
1:22:08
Tad Eggleston: We're gonna look it up by going to Sherlock, because as soon as I put Matt in G, it wants to take me to a terrible, horrible forum politician.
1:22:16
Tad Eggleston: God never got to be the… the Attorney General. Not that we've had better ones.
1:22:22
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:22:23
meredithmcclaren: No, I understand.
1:22:27
meredithmcclaren: I think it's Mark, it's Mark Gatness, that's.
1:22:30
Tad Eggleston: Dark.
1:22:31
meredithmcclaren: Yes.
1:22:32
Tad Eggleston: That sounds right.
1:22:33
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, so I got to see a Q&A with him, and because it was this small environment, I got to sort of corner him and go, listen.
1:22:40
meredithmcclaren: you know… there was a period of my life where I was going through it.
1:22:45
Tad Eggleston: status.
1:22:46
meredithmcclaren: Gaddis. Yes.
1:22:48
meredithmcclaren: there was a period of my life where I was going through it, and I was just watching Sherlock Seasons 1 and 2 on repeat for, like, 3 months.
1:22:58
meredithmcclaren: Because it was just, it was the only thing I could tolerate.
1:23:01
meredithmcclaren: making noise around me for a while, and I just wanted to say this was a… you know, I'm really appreciative that you put that out into the world.
1:23:10
meredithmcclaren: And then… and then I had to scurry away immediately because I was about to cry, so…
1:23:17
meredithmcclaren: So there was that, and then the other one was, as far as comics.
1:23:24
meredithmcclaren: It's kind of a weird one. So the very first year that I premiered with… or that I signed with comics, nothing of mine had been out, and it wouldn't be out for another 2 years. But the very first book that I got a contract on was Helpless Savages.
1:23:40
meredithmcclaren: And that was the… Great book. Yeah. And that was the very last year that publishers, were in charge of getting artists and creators to… to San Diego Comic-Con.
1:23:54
meredithmcclaren: Every year since then, it's like, get yourself to San Diego.
1:23:59
meredithmcclaren: Boy, but that was the last year.
1:24:01
Tad Eggleston: It's why there are so many art dealers now, because…
1:24:04
Tad Eggleston: Because then… then you can sign on with them and have them figure out your con stuff. Yeah.
1:24:10
meredithmcclaren: So I… so I went…
1:24:12
meredithmcclaren: On… on Oney's invitation, and it was the same year that Scott Pilgrim was premiering.
1:24:22
meredithmcclaren: And so there was a big, you know, Scott Pilgrim premiere party.
1:24:27
Tad Eggleston: The movie or the book?
1:24:28
meredithmcclaren: The movie.
1:24:29
Tad Eggleston: Okay, so, so, big, big party, rather than just big party.
1:24:33
meredithmcclaren: Yes, but I didn't know enough, because it was my first year, and I think it was, like, the first Comic Con that I had also been to. It was, like, talk about.
1:24:42
Tad Eggleston: Oh, wow.
1:24:42
meredithmcclaren: thrown into the deep end. Right.
1:24:45
meredithmcclaren: Or the first time I had attended as somebody who, like, a professional. I think I had been to San Diego in high school previous to that.
1:24:53
meredithmcclaren: but just as a fan, and only for a couple hours.
1:24:58
meredithmcclaren: So I was at this party…
1:25:01
Tad Eggleston: Which means that you were there probably roughly the time that I was there, where it was still cheap enough and whatnot, that only going for a couple of hours felt like a viable thing.
1:25:15
meredithmcclaren: So… I… Yeah, so I was at this party, and…
1:25:21
meredithmcclaren: I'm still kicking myself about it years later, because if I had stayed even a half an hour longer, because it was the Scott Pilgrim party, I would have met Chris Evans, Brie Larson, and Brandon Ruth.
1:25:34
meredithmcclaren: Because they all showed up.
1:25:35
Tad Eggleston: I mean, to be fair, though, I mean…
1:25:40
Tad Eggleston: we got to have our longest conversation not on the air because of Chris Evans.
1:25:46
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:25:47
Tad Eggleston: Because nobody could get to your booth, because you sliding up by it.
1:25:52
meredithmcclaren: Oh, that's right, I forgot about Oh, Lord.
1:25:57
meredithmcclaren: Yes, yes, he, he…
1:25:59
Tad Eggleston: The moment…
1:26:00
meredithmcclaren: place in my life.
1:26:02
Tad Eggleston: The moment where being on the aisle wasn't as cool as it could have been.
1:26:08
meredithmcclaren: But yeah, so… so that was one of those things where it's like, I can't believe I'm here, and also, years later, I'm like, I can't believe I missed that, because I'm so antisocial, and I needed to leave.
1:26:20
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I get the antisocial, I do.
1:26:23
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I'm like, I've been at this party long enough, you know, I got my two free drinks, it's dark and weirdly lit and loud, and I need to go now.
1:26:32
Tad Eggleston: I mean, if I'd been able to find a corner, and I'd had, like.
1:26:38
Tad Eggleston: Bluetooth earbuds, I might have been able to stay.
1:26:42
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:26:44
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. But it's like, it's one of those things, again, you can't go back, you know? It's just…
1:26:48
meredithmcclaren: Things worked out.
1:26:50
Tad Eggleston: It is. It is. And they were probably no fun anyway.
1:26:54
meredithmcclaren: Just saying that.
1:26:56
meredithmcclaren: You're saying that to make me better. Unfortunately, I have… I have…
1:26:59
Tad Eggleston: Unfortunately, you have people that stay.
1:27:02
meredithmcclaren: That stayed, and they were like, oh no, they were delightful, and I'm like, goddammit.
1:27:06
meredithmcclaren: Tell me anything else.
1:27:12
Tad Eggleston: So, yeah.
1:27:13
Tad Eggleston: Alright, final.
1:27:15
meredithmcclaren: Alright.
1:27:15
Tad Eggleston: final question. Okay.
1:27:18
Tad Eggleston: And, like, we almost diverted to this for a while, so you're gonna have to come up with something else. Okay. Because anything that's been mentioned already on the show doesn't count.
1:27:28
Tad Eggleston: Tell me something you love.
1:27:31
Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't have rules. Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules. But something that you love.
1:27:39
Tad Eggleston: And not enough people around you have experienced it, and you'd really, really like them to, So that…
1:27:47
Tad Eggleston: You had more people to talk about it.
1:27:50
meredithmcclaren: Okay, give me a second here, I've got a list.
1:27:52
Tad Eggleston: You've got a list!
1:27:54
meredithmcclaren: Me too. Okay, something I love that…
1:27:57
Tad Eggleston: Feel free to copy and paste the list and send it to me.
1:28:01
meredithmcclaren: Okay,
1:28:09
meredithmcclaren: You know, okay.
1:28:13
meredithmcclaren: it's a subset of something that a lot of people love, but it is something they did that I don't think a lot of people talked about. So Netflix has the special One Piece fan letter short.
1:28:25
meredithmcclaren: It's a half an hour.
1:28:28
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:28:28
meredithmcclaren: It's… it's… Such a great love letter to the fans.
1:28:37
meredithmcclaren: Because it's about a bunch of people who are affected by the Star Hat crew, just because they take something
1:28:46
meredithmcclaren: Away from their stories.
1:28:50
meredithmcclaren: And…
1:28:53
meredithmcclaren: it's just a really lovely thing to say, you know, that, you know, these other… these people's stories have affected my story for the better.
1:29:03
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:29:03
meredithmcclaren: And it's also beautifully animated. The animation team that they have on One Piece.
1:29:10
meredithmcclaren: I… unfortunately, I'm not caught up with…
1:29:13
meredithmcclaren: the most recent season, but everything I was seeing out of the Wino arc, as far as fight scenes, is just so… beautifully done, and it was clear that it's the same people.
1:29:26
Tad Eggleston: So, so I haven't started actually watching… the anime.
1:29:32
meredithmcclaren: I mean, you can start with the new one, they're gonna reboot the whole.
1:29:36
Tad Eggleston: No, I know that too. No, because I've been reading the manga.
1:29:41
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:29:41
Tad Eggleston: I'm… I'm 700-some-odd chapters into the manga.
1:29:46
meredithmcclaren: I'm mad at myself, because it started when I was in high school. I was working at a comic book shop. I knew it was coming out. I could see then that it was going to be a great manga. I started reading it.
1:29:57
meredithmcclaren: And then I fell off at one point.
1:30:00
meredithmcclaren: And it's like, I'm sort of like, why didn't you just keep reading it throughout the entire duration, because then you'd be caught up by now.
1:30:07
Tad Eggleston: Right, right. I mean, I will say…
1:30:09
meredithmcclaren: If only I could have known that it would have gone 700.
1:30:12
meredithmcclaren: issues.
1:30:13
Tad Eggleston: The shoujo jump… well, no, it's in, like, the 1200s now. I'm only a little more than halfway.
1:30:21
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, and I… it's on my reading list now, it's like, I have.
1:30:24
Tad Eggleston: But the Shojo Jump is, like, $3 a month for the app, so, I mean, and it gives you all of that and more, so… so, like…
1:30:34
Tad Eggleston: I'll be your One Piece partner, too, because I was Tyler's One Piece partner until he opened a comic shop and fell off of reading One Piece.
1:30:44
meredithmcclaren: That happens too, yeah. But, no, the fan letter short is so, so beautiful to watch, and I really do like.
1:30:51
Tad Eggleston: I will have to…
1:30:52
meredithmcclaren: direction on it. I think it's the same art team, too. I just watched, they released, One Piece Heroines.
1:30:59
meredithmcclaren: Which is also, like, a 20-minute short. I thought there was gonna be more, maybe I'm wrong.
1:31:04
meredithmcclaren: And it's different character designs, and it focuses on the female's character of One Piece, so the first… the episode that they have on Netflix is Nami-focused.
1:31:15
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:31:16
meredithmcclaren: But, even with the different character designs, it's clearly the same. Again, the same animation team. So it's like… I just like the fluidity of their movements.
1:31:26
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:31:27
meredithmcclaren: Yeah. Was there a second part of that question?
1:31:31
Tad Eggleston: No, that was the question. Tell me something you love.
1:31:35
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, I do, I really love.
1:31:36
Tad Eggleston: Experience it.
1:31:37
meredithmcclaren: Fan letter.
1:31:38
meredithmcclaren: It's gorgeous.
1:31:39
Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna have to watch it. So, anything we should be on the watch out for you that's been announced yet, or am I catching you in between books?
1:31:49
meredithmcclaren: Like I said, the… the Vietnam travelogues coming out, World Tourism Day, which I think is…
1:31:55
meredithmcclaren: September 27th, it's not… it's self-published, so you'll just find it on my shop, which is meredithmcclaren.storemv.com.
1:32:05
Tad Eggleston: It is, in fact, September 27th. It's a Sunday this year.
1:32:08
meredithmcclaren: Okay, and then,
1:32:13
meredithmcclaren: I am working on a book. It's been announced, it's called The Rift, but it… nobody should expect anything until 2029, so…
1:32:22
Tad Eggleston: That's… that's the way it sometimes works. Who… who is that with?
1:32:26
meredithmcclaren: That one is with, Little Brown Young Readers.
1:32:29
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:32:29
meredithmcclaren: And then, anything else that I'm trying… you know, there are several other balls in the air, I just don't have any confirmations for them. I'm always trying to…
1:32:38
Tad Eggleston: I think 3 other things.
1:32:39
meredithmcclaren: happen.
1:32:40
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, all sorts of fun things on your Patreon.
1:32:44
Tad Eggleston: I enjoy… I don't interact as much as I probably should, but that's mostly because I don't feel like interacting with any of the other lurkers. So, like, if I have something, it's like, I'll shoot you an email.
1:32:57
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:32:57
Tad Eggleston: Rather than put a.
1:32:58
meredithmcclaren: It's alright, don't worry about it.
1:33:01
Tad Eggleston: Like, because you've got at least that… do you still… I mean, I haven't paid attention in a while. The last time we talked, you had one guy that had, like, liked every single post.
1:33:10
meredithmcclaren: That's not unusual.
1:33:11
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Okay.
1:33:12
meredithmcclaren: It's not unusual. You do get people sometimes where you're like, suddenly there's a lot of activity, and then you realize it's someone who's liked every single thing you did. It's like, oh, I'm glad you found me, since you clearly like my stuff.
1:33:25
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I get that, because, like, every once in a while, I'll get the email that we… I mean, I think I get a weekly email on, like, downloads and whatnot, and I barely pay attention to it, because it's pretty much the same every week, and then some week it'll be, like, 1,300, and it's like, wow, and then I'll go look, it's like, oh, somebody discovered…
1:33:46
meredithmcclaren: Yeah.
1:33:46
Tad Eggleston: the catalog, and I've got, like, 900 episodes, so rather than the 400 that it would normally be, it was 400 plus some guy in South America discovering us and downloading everything!
1:33:59
meredithmcclaren: Yes, exactly.
1:34:01
Tad Eggleston: Hopefully some guy, not some AI bot.
1:34:04
meredithmcclaren: Oh, I know, I know. My dad…
1:34:07
meredithmcclaren: My dad also does a travel blog, and he's sort of disgruntled, because, you know.
1:34:13
meredithmcclaren: he writes a very, you know, he's very thoughtful about it, and he puts these pictures up that are really lovely. But he's like, I've noticed an increase in… in tracking… in interaction, and in tracking it, I've figured out that a lot of them are just AIs scraping my blog.
1:34:28
meredithmcclaren: And it's… Frustrates him a lot.
1:34:31
Tad Eggleston: I am… for the most part, I've managed to assume that that's not the case, just because more times than not, I can go, oh, I just had a guest on from that area, or…
1:34:45
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. We were just talking, like, I'm like, oh, there's a reason why I was discovered there, so I'm deciding that I was discovered there by a person, not by an AI, that just enjoyed it. Yeah.
1:34:59
Tad Eggleston: I don't know if that's.
1:35:00
meredithmcclaren: It's true.
1:35:01
Tad Eggleston: It's the story I tell myself.
1:35:03
meredithmcclaren: Yeah, it doesn't feel good to have to second-guess that, but what we're navigating.
1:35:08
Tad Eggleston: Well, and every once in a while, I wind up actually
1:35:12
Tad Eggleston: Like, a couple of times, it's wound up being, like, some creator.
1:35:17
Tad Eggleston: And it's like, oh!
1:35:19
Tad Eggleston: You're the one that downloads me in this small town in Brazil. Yeah.
1:35:26
meredithmcclaren: Listen, you're the video SES that's making all of their work possible right now.
1:35:32
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I don't do the video essay, because that would… that would require, like.
1:35:37
Tad Eggleston: video work. But I'm the one that they can have in their earphones. Yeah, exactly.
1:35:44
Tad Eggleston: So… Meredith, as always, an absolute pleasure, and
1:35:51
Tad Eggleston: For 22 Panels, this has been Meredith McClaren, and we will see you After the next page.