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Achewood Creator on NPR
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Sep 29, 2008 08:17 AM
from the stuff-to-listen-to dept.
from the stuff-to-listen-to dept.
On my drive in to the office today, I heard an interview with a comic creator. Since I started the car mid-interview, it took me just a few moments to figure out who it was: Chris Onstad from Achewood (NSFW some days. Possibly including today, depending on your W). He's plugging his book The Great Outdoor Fight. Since his comic is one of the favorites here, I thought you all might enjoy hearing the interview. Today's comic is especially amusing given that it will likely be read by a great number of those NPR types unfamiliar with the strip.
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Penny Arcade On NPR 128 comments
This morning on the NPR shuffle podcast, they included a segment about Penny Arcade. Seems only fair since NPR did Achewood a few months ago. If they just get XKCD on there, then the universe can rest.
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Furry warning (Score:3, Funny)
Do not RTFA, contains furries.
Re:Furry warning (Score:4, Funny)
You got me all excited for nothing dammit!
Parent
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Um, contains furries AND anal play?
Wow. (Score:3, Insightful)
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As for comics, what makes them funny, or exciting all depends. I've got a list of all sorts of comics [nystrom.nl].that I've been reading some time before.
A dozen or so of them I still read, some are more for reference, and some I found funny once, but then it changed in a way that it lost its appeal.
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There are dozens if not hundreds of better comics out there. How did this idiot get on NPR?
Then recommend some, rather than flinging more insults, eh? Show me something you think is funny, because otherwise your point of view is "I hate things" to me.
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Sinfest, Least I could Do, Penny Arcade, Player vs Player, Little Gamers, CtrlAltDelete, XKCD, Cyanide and Happiness. Those are just the 8 that I read regularly. I've stumbled across others that were good, but didn't make it into my regular reading list which I can't recall the names of at the moment.
Some of them you will find funny, some you will find retarded, but all of them are better put together than the Zippyesque drivel linked to in the article.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Funny)
In other words, you like Cyanide and Happiness and a bunch of comics where someone says something snide about video games every day.
Parent
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someone says something snide about video games every day.
(emphasis mine)
I wish.
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Some other non-gamer-related comics:
Dr. McNinja
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Dinosaur Comics
Least I Could Do
Transmission-X has a couple super-imaginative & well-done comics (less of a focus on humor) and a few clunkers.
White Ninja if you're in the mood for it.
Achewood never did much for me either. I've tried a few times.
Little Gamers suggested above... never heard of it, just looked now, and for today they have a storyline-only comic with "loose" instead of "lose". Not for me.
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Hey, whatever floats your boat, man. And I'm sure if I looked at ALL of them, I might find something funny. . .. But after looking through over 30 of them, I gave up.
It's definitely not for me.
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Why do we have to prove that there's "funnier" comics out there to say that this one is NOT funny?
I just read through about 30 of the ones in the archive and I didn't even crack a smile once.
It wasn't even a LITTLE funny.
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This comic does not work if you jump into the middle of it. You have to read it from the start to get a good feel for the characters, as it is extremely character-driven.
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Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I don't get it either. Can someone explain to me how today's strip is supposed to be funny?
When is NPR going to interview XKCD?
Parent
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Just below the Andromeda Galaxy, and a bit to the left of the Magellanic Clouds.
Well it did it for me.
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I never really found XKCD to be particularly good either. But, you can at least find SOME good stuff.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
When is NPR going to interview XKCD?
Not before XKCD develops such as huge following that Randall Munroe can quit his day job and publish a book of collected strips. Which is what prompted the Achewood interview.
I too find Achewood unfunny. (When I pulled up the NPR story, I was surprised to discover that the link to achewood.com was gray, indicating I'd browsed it recently. Must not have made an impression.) But I can see where it would appeal to people with a certain kind of evil sense of humor. Let's avoid the Slashdotter Fallacy ("What I like/need/approve of is what the world revolves around"), shall we?
Parent
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Today's strip is a continuation of a story arc that goes back a week or two
That's ok, but the strip should still stand on its own. Think of Calvin & Hobbes. There were story arcs in that strip that went on for weeks, but every single strip in those arcs was entertaining it its own right. And Watterson had just 4 panels to work with. This guy has an entire page to work with, and he can't even elicit a 'heh' without catching up on previous strips?
Maybe this is an off day? Do you have a better example?
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That's ok, but the strip should still stand on its own.
"Should"? Sure, it would be nice if it did, but who created this rule that this has to be the case?
As it stands, Achewood's reliance on extremely character-driven humor and themes developed over long times allows it to do jokes that are a lot funnier and more clever than what a comic of self-contained strips can manage. The downside is that it is harsher on a new reader, but if you make the effort to pick it up, it is far more rewarding than most any comic out there.
Ye Gods. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose I could write it off to being old and jaded, but I swear I've seen about a dozen strips on the internet with the same general theme and lack of humor.
Just not for me, thanks.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I suppose I could write it off to being old and jaded, but I swear I've seen about a dozen strips on the internet with the same general theme and lack of humor.
Just not for me, thanks.
I found a great one and ALL the papers and websites link to it.
It's called Congress.
Re:Ye Gods. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say that you're very wrong. You're dismissing Achewood as a funny animal comic that features the odd bit of drinking and obscenity. That's only what it looks like if you're reading a few of the daily strips.
If you start reading from the beginning, what you find is a very rewarding set of story arcs where the characters become more and more fully realized, particularly Roast Beef, who might very well be the comic strip archetype for a Slashdot reader.
The humor in Achewood is found in small turns of phrase, in facial expressions and in knowing the backstory for the characters. If you just pick up and read one or two strips, you pretty much aren't going to be able to understand why it is so highly acclaimed by critics and beloved by its fans.
Parent
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So what you're saying is that it's not a comic?
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Achewood uses "comics" as a medium more than the end goal. Where the author differs from more traditional comics is that he doesn't feel the need to have each separate comic have its own completeness, basically meaning that you can't take any individual comic and have it make much sense on its own. Achewood isn't the first comic to work that way, but it certainly has trended away from it very strongly at times, with story arcs that have lasted weeks.
The bigger story arcs are sort of like a comic book, but t
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If you just pick up and read one or two strips, you pretty much aren't going to be able to understand why it is so highly acclaimed by critics and beloved by its fans
I am sure I could find entertainment in soap operas if I started from the beginning and devoted myself to a season. In fact most tv shows recognize this, which is why the season premier usually tries to be a big blow out which also encapsulate the feel of the characters. It is not about alienating the viewer, which is what happened with today
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Onstad knew about the interview long before it took place, it would have been a trivial task to set up a small arc to invite and welcome new guests to the world he created.
Or, just as when NPR has interviewed other Webcomic creators (the example that stands out to me is Sluggy Freelance), Onstead decided to continue the story he had planned long before he was contacted by NPR and asked for an interview. Since NPR almost always directs listeners to its web site first, I'd say the burden of introducing the strip should rest with the person responsible for the write-up on the Morning Edition web page.
Read it from day 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to understand and really dig on Achewood is to read it from the beginning. Character development is a lot more important than gags here, and not every strip has a punch line, but it's generally rewarding in the end. Achewood is one of the few web comics I can stand. It's up there at the top with Space Moose [wikipedia.org] for me.
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And, in case there are those of you out there who just "don't get it", if you find Tim Buckley's works, especially his material the last year or so, to be funny, you won't get Achewood. Trust me on this one.
Re:Read it from day 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
"The only way to understand and really dig on Achewood is to read it from the beginning."
Then that's a bad comic strip in my opinion. If I have to read more then 2-3 strips back to figure out wtf is going on then the author really chose the wrong medium.
Parent
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You're one of those people who think comic books can only be about Super Heroes and comic strips should only have bickering spouses or funny animals, aren't you?
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No, I rather enjoy PBF and Cyanide & Happiness.
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That's too bad, because you're missing out on some very entertaining stories because of an arbitrary value that you've put on the act of drawing inside little boxes.
If you only think of comic strips as tiny segments that you read each day in a newspaper before you throw it away, then your opinion makes some sense. But you maybe have heard of this cool thing called the internet, which allows someone to easily store information and almost instantly distribute it on demand.
You don't go to achewood.com to read
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Fair enough, I'm not suggesting that everyone should love it, merely that they should try it. The post that I was responding to sounded like someone who was dismissing it without even giving it a shot, based purely on their preconceived idea about how a "comic" should work.
It took significant pestering from me to get my wife to spend a little bit of time reading through the Achewood archives, and when she finally did, she wasn't as amused by it as I am. And that's fine, but I'm glad she gave it a shot.
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Chris Onstad has been a real ground-breaker in terms of not only stretching the limits of the web comic medium (which itself stretches the limit of the daily comic medium), but also into coordinated work in many media. The Achewood characters have blogs. One had an advice column for a while. There are "non-fiction" writings about Achewood the town, about a century-old fighting event. There is a lengthy tribute to Hardy Boys classics, the Nate Small stories, themselves referenced in the comic. There is
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I'm fond of the cookbook, myself.
Yes (Score:2)
It is just like Homestar Runner. It is exactly like that. That is what Achewood is like.
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I can respect that the author was trying to build something with character. However, reading the initial strips indicates to me that he was going for a comic that was traditionally funny. Absurdist, yes, but one-off funny. It was ok, but not gut-bustingly funny (to me).
I call this Rolling Stones syndrome. Make enough comics for long enough, and you will have hits eventually. Is there a possibility that people are just mapping humor onto something, much like people map profundity onto modern art? "Oh, you're
I'm the Guy Who Sucks, Plus I Got Depression (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing about Achewood: it has a very large cast of characters with very distinct voices. COMPLETELY distinct. These characters have been developed in ways that comic strips running for decades have not managed.
It's not uncommon for me to read a whole archive of webcomics in a single sitting. I read all of "MacHall" on Saturday. By the time I went through all four years of strips, there were only two characters I could identify as having distinct personalities. Everyone else spoke with the same voice.
That's how most comics are. Someone says something stupid or controversial. Drinking or violence ensues.
Achewood is the opposite; the characters are so fully realized that they BLOG in their distinct voices. The interview touches on this with the two main characters, but it extends to literally all the characters in the strip.
Achewood's humor is wry and absurdist. It's not the humor of a newspaper comic strip and it's not the humor of a typical webcomic. It's off in a space of its own. It's a bit like watching the best bits of Seinfeld after a 24 hour marathon of Golden Girls. Some people say that Achewood isn't funny, but all I can say to them is that there's a 1982 Subaru Brat waiting for them when they get to hell [assetbar.com].
Pretty good. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been following the strip off an on for quite a few years now. I guess it's amusing enough that I generally remain interested. I agree that the characters are generally well-defined but I wouldn't necessarily say they have much depth. It isn't like there's much character development going on. But then, it is just a comic strip.
In general I find the humor a bit dry, but every so often there's a genuinely funny strip. One thing I sometimes find it difficult to get past is the odd dialog. I'm not quite sure what Onstad is going for. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be slang or an attempt at play on words. But for me it comes off as awkward at times.
Still, I have to give credit where it's due. I think Achewood is a step above the majority of other strips. There are too many poor comics out there with lame writing and crappy illustration. Chris Onstad has been at this for years and his writing is interesting enough that it more than makes up for the art. Actually, even the art has it's own character.
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I think the odd dialogue is coming from some particular Californian mid to late-80s subculture. Beef and Ray grew up together and they're the guys with the generally odd sentence structure.
I know there was a particular way that kids in the neighborhood I moved to when I was about 14 spoke, that I never really grasped. It's just how they grew up speaking to each other.
Medical Term? (Score:2)
I thought "Achewood" was slang for "priapism"...
[duck/cover]
I heard the interview (Score:2)
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A great strength of webcomics is diversity. No matter how strange your tastes [elgoonishshive.com], there's probably someone writing a comic for you. Why not show off some of the variety? There's so much range, from a comic where one of the protagonists is part of a hive mind [project-apollo.net] to comics with stick figures and nerdy jokes [xkcd.com]. Achewood al
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hehe I guess one of their five fans had some mod points.