Achewood

Never got picked up. I don't know who they shopped it to. The little pilot's only strengths were the dialogue and Toby Huss' voice acting (the woman who voiced Phillippe was fine but none of the lines they gave her were funny), and the bits they chose to animate were classic but not exactly good hooks. I think Beef is almost a funnier character than Ray but the only professional voices they had were Ray and Philiippe so it was heavy on them. Maybe Onstad didn't want to risk animating a Beef monologue because he didn't think he could voice it right.

Chronologically I'm not sure when the dissolution of his marriage happened exactly, but excluding the big breaks where he didn't make anything for years, the storyline where Teodor goes down on the old guy in Nice Pete's van had a really abrupt ending for me. I almost liked the arc where Teodor meets Penny but a lot of the dialogue in it was way over written and again, petered out with no satisfying resolution. The Ray in Rehab arc was easier to read but again, just stopped with no ending.

>The best webcomic there ever was and ever will be.

Doubt.

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I'm an uncultured brainlet and don't get the writing half the time, but it's amazing when it clicks

same
there's a lot of cuisine based jokes i don't get

Philippe is an immortal child

I can see why he got divorced if he can't tolerate the bead shop

Bitches love beads

Imma be honest, I'm not sure how anyone could think Ray Smuckles is cool. You might as well think that Kanye West is cool.

I mean, honestly, a 30-something man trying to one up a 15 year old? Lil' Nephew needs a better uncle.

Seems like a comic people praise online because they think they're supposed to, if they wanna be one of the cool nerds.

Every time I've given it a try, it's something like this and it always makes me think "Well, that's ALMOST a joke, and it only took him a longass pile of text to get there!" It's like a Life In Hell comic that got the joke watered down and then was stretched out to 10 times the length.

Typical amateur stuff, but I guess it was in the right place at the right time to get a following and some people still cling to that.

A lot of the bits they animated were either from REALLY early in the comic before it found its voice, or just Ray monologuing. It was not a good cross-section of the comic at its best.

Wow I remember reading this and Scary Go Round all time back in the earlyish 2000s, thanks for making me feel old.

I guess it's a YMMV thing, it isn't supposed to be a typical webcomic where you can easily tell what the setup and punchline are going to be. Part of the charm is reading just to hear characters say shit with their own quirks and nuances. Closest comparison I can think of is Homestuck's chat logs

Kek, my mom made jewelry when I was a kid so I had to spend so much time in the bead store. It was boring as fuck but I did find ways to entertain myself

I want to like it but I don't think I'm smart or pretentious enough to "get" it. Can you post a comic where it clicked for you? Maybe I will be enlightened too.

Yeah the characterization is what makes Achewood so amazing. You have to read a lot of it to get who they each are. Then it all starts to click when the characters say exactly what the character would say, except it something you could never predict. Chris Onstad's concept of who each character is is so tight and well defined in his head. It's what allowed him to write and draw 5 comics a week, while also writing weekly blogs from the perspective of 7 different characters. It was fucking insane that he was able to do that.

I am another person that loves achewood and maintains that it's the best webcomic ever written.

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not him but maybe this one

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>is is

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Huss felt like a horrible fit for Ray to me. I always read his dialogue like a deep voiced middle-aged black guy, and it really just didn't work for me.

Hell I always read Cornelius Bear in the voice of pic related and I know whoever they would have cast couldn't have lived up to that for me either.

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Onstad has such a way with words that manages to make even the dumbest phrase fucking hilarious to me.

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Best webcomic that ever was or ever will be.

Maybe you have to have had friends to understand it.

There are two jokes in the first four panels alone.

I guess it just takes a very high IQ to enjoy Achewood.

Onstad is one of the best writers of dialogue I have seen, regardless of medium, to say nothing of the subtlety he includes in the speech boxes.
I'm pretty sure RB's font is slightly smaller than Ray's most of the time.

Absolutely. The 5 words at the end have been ingrained in my mind since I read it.

This comic is dated 4/29/2002 jesus christ was I really reading Achewood that long ago. I was 13.

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Every time I reread the archives (once every year or two) I start talking like Roast Beef for a few days. Something about his speech pattern resonates with me so hard. Along with brilliant control of speech bubbles intentionally rarely giving RB punctuation makes everything he says read in a monotone, muted way.

There's an achewood animated pilot? How come I never heard of this before?

same

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This still makes me laugh

I feel like doing a reread now. I reread Girl Genius the other day too, maybe I'll do this at work this week.

Is the title supposed to be a reference to the 100 Acre Wood? I read this comic about 10 years ago and I am just now wondering this.

Hmmm, that's a good observation, it might actually might be true.

Stoned Lightning always obliterates my sides.
>Some ain't even gotta be stoned to have strange cares

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Rather than reading random strips, i think it's better to go through one of the early storylines to try and get a feel for the characters and comedy. Try Roast Beef on the Moon.

We've all been there

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Do you know how many goddamn times I've tried this?

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I use this as a reaction image occasionally

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from this strip

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Ray's inability to write erotica was one of my favorite running gags.

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If I remember right it was shopped to Adult Swim and FX and had a lot of support from animation houses wanting to do it but Onstad was really nervy about everything including voicing Roast Beef himself instead of casting someone else for the pilot. I'd imagine networks skipped when they saw that it would be a tug of war creatively.

Liebot, what's the saddest thing?

Philippe’s Journey Home was the best arc right

We've all been, we've all been

Achewood is really a 'boy's comic', I would not recommend it to a woman

I would be charmed if someone did this for me.

Well, if someone like Ray did this for me. I can think of a dozen ways this would be insulting if a self-important buffoon (in a way unlike Ray's self-importance) wrote it.

Just read "The Great Outdoor Fight" arc. If it doesn't click for you after that, then I guess it's just not your cup of tea.

I don't remember feeling annoyed at the end. I understand that no non-autistic artist can keep up a work forever and achewood wasn't really the kind of work that needs or warrants a satisying ending. In a way trailing off suites it well

I use Subway Wars as my go-to intro to Achewood. That shit had me screaming.

Git-r-done.

I've only read Great Outdoor Fight.
Where should I read more and where's a good place to start? Should I just read all of it or keep doing 'arcs' or is it even written like that.
It's kinda homely humorous for me, but there's bits from time to time that make me laugh my ass off

he's not trying to one up him, he's trying to show him how ridiculous being "goth" is. He finally scares him away from that shit by introducing the kids to an actual serial killer who gets nude and cuts himself at their party then when the police call the next day he just asks to talk to a friend on the force, gives him a spare Hummer he has lying around and gets the whole thing dismissed. The entire arc is maybe like 8 strips and the entire thing is absurd from the premise to the resolution.

>Where should I read more
achewood.com/
>where's a good place to start?
The beginning
>Should I just read all of it
Yes
>or keep doing 'arcs' or is it even written like that.
There are both arcs and stretches of one-off strips.

Because it was only sort of okay. It's only five minutes long youtube.com/watch?v=b_97q16TFxk

Not officially affiliated or endorsed by Onstad, but everyone's favorite flash animator Shmorky did a little Achewood animation test for his own amusement youtube.com/watch?v=yn5JS0oWbOA

I've never been able to get really jazzed about it but i feel like it would actually work better if it was animated? It feels too dry for a comic strip, but it gets such a positive reaction from people that i'm just going to assume that i'm retarded and don't get it.

I had my mom read a lot of the arcs and she loved it.

>Shmorky

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

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just gonna post ones that stuck with me for a while. Ones with some phrase that I frequently think about or whatever.

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the really early strips aren't very good so maybe just start on one of the first couple of storylines and go from there. Or just read all of it yeah, it's not like there's that much meh stuff before it gets going.

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Wow, the site is NOT suited for mobile viewing.

For his own self-aggrandizement. Teenagers are supposed to be ridiculous. He should have just taken a lot of pictures and threatened to show them to future girlfriends.

funny this thread should pop up, i just started reading through some old arcs the other day on a whim.
if your phone's browser can't view the alt text i'd suggest just reading it on a desktop/laptop, it's half the fun

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meant to quote

From the site itself:
“>Achewood,” like wormwood, was used by antebellum slaves in the production of “achewater,” a long-since outmoded and outlawed Southern beverage.
>Drinkers of achewater experienced hallucinations and euphoria, but the after-effects of the liquor produced a deep and lasting melancholy (hence its name).
>Modern science has confirmed that achewood oil, the active ingredient in achewater, is a powerful depressant which causes irreversible neurological damage.
>Achewater is generally thought to have inspired many Southern folk songs and fables, such as “The Story of Poor John Ritch,” “Sullivan’s Bear and Dried Bird” and “I’m Following a Little Round Lord.”

m8, this is how male friends talk to each other. Blackmailing a dude into blueballs would just give him resentment and a victim complex. Lil' Nephew would secretly carry that goth idealism well into adulthood, wondering 'what would it be like if I had pursued my passion for Victorian era/Memento Mori clothing?'.
Men keep the social norm by giving each other grief until they stop. No discrimination because it goes all around. It's our way of saying 'Man, I love you, but this has got to stop' without making a big deal out if it.

I'm was going to read Achewood at work on my phone (instead of working) but I think I'll just read it at home now.

You win again, capitalist boss-dog.

I'm doing my reread from the top, and damn if this isn't early installment weirdness.

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