[4] In 1996, Cannon described the essence of the strip as To make people laugh without whacking them over the head with a big stick, or having to address a political message.

[5]Red Meat features unrelated "slug lines" at the top of each comic, which Canon explains as "That's just my own form of personal poetry.

"[6] Red Meat features an extensive cast of characters with unusual characteristics and personalities, described by Spike Magazine as "small town America, [populated] entirely with grotesques.

In 1989, after extensive prompting by his friend Joe Forkan, Cannon began producing the strip on a Macintosh SE using Adobe Illustrator.

[6] In 2009, Max Cannon urged his readers to contact the editors of their local alternative weekly papers in an effort to save the comics printed within.

[26] Matt Groening of Life in Hell, praised the strip with "In a culture full of sick, twisted, perverted art, Red Meat is up there at the top—it's that good."

"[7] Writing in The New York Times, John Hodgman described the strip as "a bracing, bitter tonic — the antidote to comics-page malaise, albeit one that might kill before it cures" and said that it was typified by "the baroquely dark imaginings that make Cannon's work more than a tiresome anti-comic.

[28] Lambiek's Comiclopedia states that Cannon was born in England,[4] but the Tucson Weekly described him as a "native Tucsonan".

[30] Cannon is also creator of the eight-episode Comedy Central animated web show Shadow Rock,[23]which was based on the Red Meat strip.