Achewood

0009 - Return of Achewood, pt 7

In this penultimate installment of the Return to Achewood arc, we take a brief moment to show appreciation for the genius of Max Fleischer. If you were, like our special guest, born in the 1920s, there may have been no contemporary art more unsettling to you than his "jazz cigarette" approach to character design and kinetics....

0008 - Return of Achewood, pt 6

Our beloved guest from the public domain was naïve to assume that the modern world's hijinks began and ended with CornHub. It used to be that you just slapped this fellow's face on a book about sharing or the importance of finishing your toast, and the world turned once again on its oiled axis; today's consumer needs are qui...

Roast Beef's Reunion Interview With Todd (pdf)

Roast Beef hadn't seen Todd since before Covid, so he went down to an alley where Todd was often found, to check on the guy. What follows is a delightful recounting of their conversation, which ranges from the recent history of Todd's van, to whether Beef has five dollars. This latter subject is revisited multiple times.

0007 - Out-Of-Character-Comix!

I was talking with this subscriber, M.B., and he said that the "Out-Of-Character-Comix!" one-offs were among his favorite strips. It got me to thinking about the challenge of writing brief, single-gag pieces. For me, they are more difficult than long strips, as their brevity requires elegance. Alright, that was kind of an ass...

The New Yorker "Sandwich Duel" (see full PDF below)

I wrote and illustrated the following twelve pieces (see PDF below) for a series that The New Yorker’s Zach Kanin (SNL, I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson) and I co-wrote in 2008. The series chronicles the ongoing war between our respective sandwich shops. Though his shop was in Manhattan ...

0006 - Return of Achewood, pt 5

Lyle briefly interrupts our narrative-in-progress to pose a question that many have struggled with—particularly those who indulge too heavily in stews made with cured meats. The nature of the modern world begins to dawn upon our guest, who has already begun to grow wearied by its pastimes. 

Zine 8 - Gettin' Financial

Much to everyone's relief, Beef decided to cancel his planned "bitcoin" issue after creating just one page of it. He was doing some research but then was just like "fuck this," you know, like how you feel when you realize you are doing something you do not want to do, to no one's benefit. So, don't worry! The only person he k...

Rainy Naked Coffee Dream of Darkness

Dream journal for Monday, May 15, 2023

Written upon waking

Nonfiction

Chris Onstad

-

I’m on a family vacation to Hawaii, to the island we usually visit (Kauai), but the only person I’m really seeing is my father. He’s generally in good spirits. It is sodden and gloomy, not...

Achewood in Japanese

My business partner BP grew up in Japan, so we had us some good ol'-fashion fun translating Achewood strips into Japanese. Instead of "achewood" as the masthead, it now says, "ai-ku-boku," with the kanji letters translating as “sadness-hardship-tree,” which I particularly like. (エイクウッド, or Eikuudo, is...

Dispensary Daze

In the attached piece, Roast Beef describes the time that he, with Ray's encouragement, practiced selling marijuana to a man who was probably already going to say yes. (The man we are talking about is Téodor). This piece offers well-delineated insight to just what it is that Golden Tabloid does to make Beef feel like the uni...

0005 - Return of Achewood, pt 4

Though they may plausibly have emerged from the same craftsman's workshop those many years ago, Cornelius and our mystery guest could not be more different. Ray Smuckles, however, assumes that they have an identical intellectual velocity. We lose valuable time as Ray attempts to explain the vicissitudes of the present day to ...

Happy Personal News Dept: I'm Engaged!

I'm engaged!

But Chris, to whom, we ask. And can you please announce this as a comic involving Philippe and not you.

Two years ago Saturday I had my first date with Lauren, and on the second anniversary of that occasion, I proposed. It did not happen in a Frank Sinatra restaurant, on bended knee, as a tux...

Assetbar Archive: Stephen Fry, Roomba Dead Man, Route 66

They said to mete content out carefully, deliberately. But there is so much archival material to share that I decided to recklessly launch with three Assetbar classics today, and just get this ball rock-and-rolling. Based on the poll I ran not too long ago, you said you would not get mad if I sent out a lot of stuff,...

0004 - Return of Achewood, pt 3

As Ray Smuckles slowly uses the toilet (standing), he muses upon and then quickly confronts the very nature of death ("No."). Our mystery visitor arrives and provides him with first-hand perspective on the experience. We begin to learn things about a certain congenitally miserable animal which some had likely suspect...

0003a - "A Diversion!" (Rough Draft)

This is what the rough draft of an Achewood comic looks like, before I spend weeks workshopping the dialogue and eyebrow movements with the technicians and fellow artists at the Zinkmann Cartoonist's Center in Vail, Colorado. (Although, truthfully, it's mostly on Zoom these days.) This draft is crude, and I strongly caution y...

0003 - A Diversion!

In this momentary departure from the story arc already in place, Lyle and Téodor come to strong words over the nature of psychopharmacological distraction. Professional readers will note that Lyle still wears his "Registered Asshole" glasses (title legally assigned August 27, 2007). Next week we return to the story already i...

Should I post "lost" / rare old stuff in with all the new material?

Achewood has had many archives and appearances outside of the main site: WebComicsNation, Assetbar/Fanflow, and various incarnations of the Honor Club, to name but a few. Our Discord users have suggested it would be nice to see these things on the Patreon. I'm considering adding them, but only in addition to the origi...