Achewood - History and Overview

History and Overview

The first Achewood strip ("Philippe is standing on it") was released on October 1, 2001. The strip sets the tone for future strips with its nonsensical humor and flat visual punchline. In this particular strip, Mr. Bear and Téodor are discussing Téodor's confusion over a drum machine. Mr. Bear informs Téodor that there is an instruction manual. However, Philippe is standing on it.

Throughout Achewood, there is no distinguishable underlying storyline—aside from, perhaps, the general passing of time and development of the comic's characters and their interrelationships. Onstad's preferred method of story-telling is to develop his characters through one-off strips and short story arcs. Strips are humorous, relying upon bizarre and chaotic humor as well as social stereotypes, obscure burlesque literary and historical references, and strong characterization of the comic's many quirky individuals.

The humor often depends on an in-depth knowledge of the characters and their interactions; a drop-down box on the lower right side of the home page links to the beginning of 46 story arcs from 2002 to 2010. Story arcs are often interrupted as the main action "cuts away" to the activity of other Achewood characters, which may or may not tie in with the main storyline.

Most strips include an alt text, a one-sentence aside written in Onstad's voice that appears when the reader hovers the cursor over the strip. The first alt-text was the word "snif" on Christmas, 2001. The first of the regular full-sentence alt-text appeared on January 2, 2002, apparently excusing a weak strip: "whatever. it was late and a friend was over." The most frequently used font in the strip is Blue Highway, which does not contain any italic characters.

Chris Onstad has self-published sixteen books: seven collections of Achewood comics, two books by character Nice Pete ("A Wonderful Tale" and "A Hilarious Comedy"), six 'zines by another named Roast Beef, and Recipes for a Lady or a Man: The Achewood Cookbook with recipes from several of the main characters. A second cookbook, titled "The Achewood Cookbook II" was announced and paid pre-orders were taken, but it never shipped.

In the fall of 2002 Achewood 's "Sunday Edition" became part of the online alternative comics anthology Serializer. In their review of serializer.net, The Comics Journal wrote: "It's a pleasure to see strips like Achewood's "Sunday" strip ... use the newspaper format for far more daring, entertainingly perverse work ... would be perfectly at home at a good alternative weekly or a great college paper." Achewood is sometimes featured in the Chaparral, Stanford University's humor publication, of which Onstad is an editor emeritus.

On April 30, 2003, Onstad introduced a new feature to the Achewood universe—an advice column written by the character Ray called Ray's Place. The column has developed characters, mainly as perceived by Ray. It also allows for an interaction between reader and character, a novelty in comic art.

July 2004 saw the introduction of several in-character blogs. The main characters all began writing (using Blogger) to speak to their audience. Onstad stated in an interview that he found the blogs easier to maintain than the strip, as they do not require as much refining. As of October 2010, the character blogs have not been updated in over a year, with no comment from Onstad on whether he plans to continue them.

In late 2004, it was announced that Checker Book Publishing Group was to release a collection of Achewood comics later that year. Checker had signed Chris Onstad to a three-book deal that was to begin in November 2004. However, the deal was canceled soon after due to creative differences.

On September 12, 2007, Achewood was named "Funniest Webcomic" by humor website Cracked.com.

Chris Onstad participated in Song Fight! by creating cover art and title for "What We Need More of is Science", "Red Skates", and "Livin' At The Corner Of Dude And Catastrophe". The first title originated as a Roast Beef expression on merchandise. One Song Fight entry was performed by Milwaukee Youth Center Choir, who also wrote and recorded a theme for Ray's Place, Ray's advice column. An entry by MC Frontalot won the latest Song Fight and is now the current theme song for the comic.

Time Magazine named Achewood its #1 Graphic Novel of 2007.

On September 10, 2008 Dark Horse Comics published a 104-page extended version of "The Great Outdoor Fight" story arc, with a deleted scene, background material on the Fight and other original content.

As the strip has developed, individual comics have become generally longer, moving from three to four panels on a single line per comic to large comics incorporating dozens of panels on 10 or more lines.

Dark Horse has subsequently published, in October 2009, the first several years of Achewood comics under the title of Achewood Volume Two: Worst Song, Played On Ugliest Guitar, including notes on each strip by Onstad. A third volume is expected to be published in April 2010.

The regular appearance of new comics slowed considerably in late 2010. On March 20, 2011, Chris Onstad posted on his blog that Achewood would be on indefinite hiatus. On November 23, 2011, the hiatus ended and Chris Onstad posted the first comic since March.