Achewood
June 15, 2008
"Achewood" by Chris Onstad
One of the best webcomics around, Achewood is not so much a comic strip about talking animals as it is an entire world of comic ideas unfolding through different mediums. Depicting the lives and concerns of a group of animals living in and around strip-creator Chris Onstad's house, "Achewood" has built a stable of characters over the years that honestly rival anything else in comic fiction. There's Ray Smuckles, the preternaturally lucky cat who has amassed a large fortune and has creative ways of spending it (sending the folks who make Oreos a $10K check because he likes their product and wanted to give them "a little walkin' around money.") There is the fanatically cheerful five-year-old river otter, Phillippe. There is Cornelius Bear, who is described as being "so old school he drives a bus with Gothic arch windows." There is the usually pleasant serial killer Nice Pete ("Killin' is a special thing. It's a special thing you do when you want someone to die.") The strip travels between everyday concerns about relationships and pop culture, often slipping into surrealism and philosophical matters with little warning. It can touch subjects with a level of profundity that is rarely found in comics. Nothing shows this better than the character of Roast Beef, a clinically depressed cat from a trailer park background (his upcoming marriage to long-time girlfriend Molly is an ongoing story arch). The tales of how his depression affects his life are pitifully sad while simultaneously being hysterically funny in their execution. Onstad's sense of comic timing and his story-telling craft have made the strip something far for satisfying and brilliant than anyone has any right to expect. That its offbeat humor and tortured phraseology is consistently hilarious makes it a joy to read.
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