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Blunderbuss Comix No. 1 Thursday, July 24, 2008 • read strip Viewing 401 comments:

Tough break for young Charley.

A comment left by roguecheddar was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by randyleepublic, kenthegod, blarghamagarky)

Yeah. He a real dick. I read those blogs. Speaking of which, where did the blogs go?

Exactly. I was suspecting a huge update of the blogs, all about the wedding and reception, from all those individual perspectives.

But I guess the wedding is not quite over yet (in comic time), so there is still hope.

The updates probably are going to the Premium Updates service.

Void America's feelings on this monetization scheme are: Con.

Meh. I'm not payin, but I get it. Onstad has a kid. He provides the comic for free. That'll do.

I got married six years ago and still haven't gotten around to blogging about it. I have a half-written account of my first born's birth, never even bothered with the second.

I took like hundreds of baby pictures of my son, then there's a gap until he graduated from college.

A comment left by randyleepublic was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by chagment, NeoNaoNeo, gilganixon)

O, the anonymous anonymous internet.

The Death of Japan Man.

"Sir! Your journey from this mortal coil shall be hastened by the hand of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll !"

A comment left by chrissketch was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by johnnybaverage, andyfaewatford, decagon, blacksheepboy, lamelliform, mortshire, MrFlunchy, Boyd, gilganixon)

Wales may Brit-tish, but it IS not Eng-lish, boy bach!

The bit where they renamed the village to give it the longest name in the UK is rather English, however.

A comment left by joestork was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by Tinhand, Deusoma, lamelliform, lateadopter, charchar)

say whaaa that shit is WELSH, not English. Get your colonies straight.

Colonies? What the fuck are you talking about? Get your Cojones straight. We're talking Wales, not New South Wales.

Welsh, man, that shit is insane. It's all Cchyyngg Chnngg Wyyngg Wwnngg.

Normally, I don't like references to that any more, but my god was that funny.

It was also a near-repeat, but nicely morphed.

CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED

If the title is to be believed, he will be going by way of blunderbuss. It is not a good death, as usually it just stuns you, so you gotsta get shot all over and bleed.

I know where your avatar is from, and could probably even guess the episode, but each and every damn time I see it I imagine she's losing her anal virginity.

Possibly money shot also in the immediate future. I'm not saying I condone the way porn is today, or that enjoy thinking this or anything, it's just what comes up in my head. That having been said, I'm not saying I don't enjoy it, either. It just is what it is.

That was a very fair and balanced assessment of today's pornography.

I pity the fool that has them images in his head. They will pollute your marriage bed. -- Mister T

Panel 10, first appearance of Chuckles since freakin' ever. Jesus, I miss that dude. HE'S SUCH A DISH.

Chuckles showed up at the pre-wedding party. Of course, he's always there. I've always considered the viewpoint of the reader as being that of a hidden Chucklebot keeping track of proceedings.

I missed out panel four when I was counting, and thought you meant Chuckling Smuckles

hehe chuckles

honestly right now I'm just having fun watching my vote change the overall rating by .3 at a time

Sorry for being a bit dense, but who is that in panels one to eight?

It's good ole' pete fool (isn't it?)

Yea, wow, I didn't realize that either. A lot of the characters have been hard to recognize after they got all decked out for the wedding.

Ohh. I had no idea. I was guessing it was the Fiesta Times waiter. I guess some men are defined by their usual hair-dos!

I assumed it was the local mob boss. Read his dialogue as if he were an obsessive compulsive Brando and you are smackdab in the playing field.

Actually I believe his dialogue is intended to be a direct reference to Luca Brasi's rehersal of his speech to the Don at the beginning of The Godfather.

Durn it, I just realised this on a later reading and leapt to make an insightful comment, only to find that any number of more insightful folk got there first.

Chubby-kudos.

the dude who's going to get accidentally shot?

Iorwerth! Mind you don' be cot' with wheeled boot underfoot!

I honestly thought Pa would be the kind to do it with his own hands.. like the fish. He would not look away.

Mollys dad IS Brunel.

Dang. I wish I could shout sweet piano music too

Personally I imagine the noise to be similar to when the Giant Michael Jackson robot at the end of 'Moonwalker' screams.

I assumed it was anger yodeling.

I like to think it sounded eerily similar to "Because" by the Beatles...or "Wolf at the Door" by Radiohead.

'Not Now John' by Pink Floyd?

Or the climax of "The Great Gig in the Sky", only slightly more masculine.

"Kill 'em All" by Metallica?

I, for some reason, immediately imagined the piercing, "AHHHHHHHH" from "Wheels of Fire" by Manowar

A comment left by nicepet was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by riotdejaneiro, bengreens, MrFlunchy)

Fire on the mountain, run, boy, run!

The devil's in the house of the risin' sun!

Chicken at the Outback, cost a lotta dough...

No corn to make the bread, 'cause you reap what you sow.

(Am I doing it right?)

Uhh... Jesus.

Or, you know, any of their other songs that contain a piercing "AHHHHHH", which is to say most of their catalogue.

Good call. I think the Nice Pete/Manowar connection was firmly established in the Mister Band arc.

Or maybe the multi-octave "AAAAAAHHHHHHH" that he holds for like two minutes at the end of "Black Wind, Fire, and Steel".

Maybe it's more "AAAAAAA-AH" as per 'The Immigrant Song'

I hear Tom Ararya's scream at the start of 'Angel of Death'.

Not in this strip particularly, just, y'know, generally.

"Infamous.
Butcher!
Peeeeterrrr Croooooooopes!"

Spirit in the Sky?

Oh, you mean 'Not Now John', a piece of The Final Cut: A Requiem for the Post-War Dream Written by Roger Waters performed by Pink Floyd?
Man was that guy being a dick. Not Now John is easily the best cut on the record, and the refrain summarizes my feelings toward the album in general.

Yeah, it's not a great album. "Not Now John" is the best track, which is pretty sad, because "Not Now John" is hardly an all-time classic. The video was kind of neat though.

Agreed. I hate how "The Post War Dream" starts to sound good, but 30 seconds later it suddenly grinds to a halt and segues into what is mostly crap until "Not Now John". It would be a good album if you cut out all the filler, but then it'd only be about 10 minutes long.

That would be the one. Tell me that isn't a 'Fuck all that' face.

BINGO.
( biiinnnnnn-goooooooooooo! )

it is completely the screeching done in "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" by Pink Floyd.

done and done.

try what i did. only $10k up front.

I had imagined it as one of those loud train hollers that happen when the conductor just lets loose , and then that would fade into fast and loose country rhythm guitar with maybe a simple tambourine trim.

Why...does that have to be piano music? In fact, I would like to assume it's not, since it's not on a grand staff.

I recently compiled a collection of songs for what I hope will soon become an EP. All that's left is the title.


I was thinking "The Tacodor EP." How does that sound? Any suggestions will be read probably.

How about "P.E. E.P." with a picture of a gym class full of birds on the cover. N, wait, don't use that. I'm using that. I'm brilliant.

TAKING FLIGHT THIS FALL...

Also available in Vinyl, with bonus suet-bag!

...Suet bag?

basically the artifice of that dangling pineapple

come on don't spend time doing things

I like the tiny rabbit bird

A throwback to the prostitute discussion. (My first post)

...missed that little guy/girl/rabbit/bird/blob...

Do not bring that shit up again. I will not be able to make love for a week.

I sincerely like to make love, but not if it is to be like this.

So beautiful. I hope all gym teachers will distribute it to their students at Easter time.

OH SHIT

I would buy The Tacodor EP. It does not matter what type of music it is or if I would ever listen to it; I would buy it on sheer principle.

Paul! You don't know Beef well enough to rock that kind of chuckle!

Okay, who is Paul?

Doc Andretti.

This arc is really separating the men from the boys in the who-knows-Achewood-supporting-characters-the-best category, isn't it? And surely enough, I find myself as being one of the boys in most cases! Which, as a woman, leaves me both confused and concerned.

Then there's that other expression, separating the sheep from the goats, but I don't know what that means, either.

It's from a biblical passage, I think having something to do with sheep following and goats being stubborn and independent. Assetbar, don't fail me now.
Goats go to Hell

You can also see this played out in Waiting For Godot...and a Cake song.

I was mostly looking for an excuse to post links to www.thebricktestament.com, but I guess no excuse is needed for something this awesome. Here are a few awesome passages
Samson ruins lion's shit
Samson gets busy with a whore

Pretty much the whole damn thing is awesome, but if you don't want to go through the whole thing, the sections on Samson and the sections on the 10 plagues of Egypt are the best.

The Brick Testament guy impressed me with his frank and accurate portrayal of the Bible. The comedy was in the absurdity of the idea, and as such, it was classy to not go into parody of such things as the crucifixion, treating everything with respect, and one's own beliefs can view the passages as self-parody if you are in that way inclined. Well done, that dude.

Gosh, I sure hope the Brick guy did it for kids. Otherwise he is going to hell.

This is exactly what persuaded me to take a (fourth) stroll through the entire archives. Reading The Math made me all nostalgic and I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything (I wasn't). Sometime in the middle of that stroll I decided to finally join Assetbar, as well. A man has to vote, afterall.

Why did this get lamed?

'cause a man has to vote

I bet someone didn't enjoy the content of it, and then lamed it

The dude who takes care of your piss shivers.

Is this the first time we've heard Little Nephew's name?

Well, no. It was on the suicide watch news camera and it's also the name shown on his blog ( https://charleysmuckles.blogspot.com/ ).

I swear this wasn't here when I replied. I'm sorry for appearing redundant, assetbar.

Ah, well...I don't read the blogs. :d&r:

No Charley has been his name forever. His blog is charleysmuckles.blogspot.com

Pete's bellow is one and the same with the music of the Tenmen.

IN A MIGHTY EARTHEN CROCK
A LORD WAS BOILED WITH HIS BEEF!
HIS BLOTED EYES POPPED FROM HIS HEAD
AND WERE STOLEN BY A THIEF!

Bloted, eh. Maybe more like bloated, when boiled with beef.

I read it as blotted which works just as well.

I opted to read it as BOLTED, which means the thief had to free the eyes with a pair of boltcutters.

all hackin' at the sclera and the optic nerve.

Meh, the Tenmen's music is way more awesome. I just wish I could still find it.

There are links to MP3s of it somewhere in the previous strip's comments.

I like to imagine their music as Devo meets Batman, just judging from their aesthetics. Of course I'm not quite sure what such music would sound like.

The Tenmen are Hasidic brothers from an alternate universe in which Devo is not necessary.

In my mind, the music they play is dark rockabilly infused surf rock. Like Reverend Horton Heat trying to describe the plight of a beached whale using only guitars.

When I got to see their boots in the preceding strip, I sort of figured the Tenmen were a band that was so mod that they had somehow come out on the far side of being mod, into some sort of shadow world.

in what sort of crazy, mixed-up universe are Devo not neccesary? I'm scared..

You think that, but when you find out how rocking the Tenmen are, you cease to think it completely.

Presumably Kent State never happened, Nixon was just a paranoid also-ran and the Kennedys died of angina in the 90s.

It took a pretty nasty world to produce Devo. You might think we got the long end of the stick, but they've got the Tenmen.

I have "Sidewalk Song" and "80." E-mail me (the address is in my info) and I'll send them to you.

Props to jordstar for hooking me up in the first place.

You can download them here .

Thank you thank you THANK YOU!
I have been clicking at the old dead links longingly for such a long time...

basically 'perfect weapon' is one of my favorite songs and i can't believe it's available there.

(if you are reading this you should listen to aforementioned song.)

I'm about to listen to this song and judge you terribly via your Opinions. It's the only way.

...aaaaand it's kinda new-wave 80's synth-pop. You crazy kids.

so, uh...i'm a crazy kid, eh?

It's super popular in Sydney's 18-25s at the moment. It's not really my thing. But then I'm hopelessly waiting for early to mid 90's Rock to come back. Autolux, you are my only saviour.

Oh man, that is a good song. Thank you, dude with too many consonants in his name.

As for woodenteeth, this is interesting: I grew up in the 90's, yet detested the music predominant at the time and developed 80's tastes, whereas you seem to be the reverse.

Yah. I was a slut for Rock. Mainly local Australian acts and a few internationals similarly themeed. I like the groove but I could never get into 80's production. So many great tunes were ruined by snare hits that would echo so hard you'd hear it into the next song.

I spent five years of my life trying to invent a way to describe The Eighties Snare. Failing to do so is my greatest regret.

We will slowly make our way through the entire drum kit.

And I promise we'll be gentle about the rimshot.

Quote:
So many great tunes were ruined by snare hits that would echo so hard you'd hear it into the next song.


Don't forget those wet, wet drums.

Indeed Phil Collins has much to answer for...

I think I just developed a crush on woodenteeth. Is this the sort of music you make when you make your sweet sweet sounds?

Unfortunately not my 'bot. We're a bit more "up to date". Meaning there's a bit of a scene over here of proggy-metal-flavoured-rock (e.g. Cog, Karnivool, Oceansize, etc.) At the moment, that's where we're at, things are a-changin' though.

Man, gig last night was crazy and the headliners and third support were so beautifully rock.

once upon a time, my favorite cousin left a silver tape onto which was recorded a Chicago station (Q101) and they played really good alternative. this was back in the latter half of the '90s and one summer he took it back to Chicago with him and i was really bummed and then made it my mission to recreate it with all the songs i could remember off of it.

this is the final form of that list, flowed for much jamming:

1. Dave Matthews Band - Satellite (4:53)
2. Colective Soul - Shine (5:07)
3. Everything but the Girl - Missing (4:58)
4. Republica - Ready to Go (US Mix) (5:01)
5. The Refreshments - Banditos (4:17)
6. The Cranberries - Dreams (4:32)
7. Pearl Jam - Daughter (3:55)
8. Tonic - Open Up Your Eyes (3:41)
9. Face To Face - I Won't Lie Down (3:22)
10. No Doubt - Don't Speak (4:23)
11. Dave Matthews Band - So Much To Say (4:07)
12. Geggy Tah - Driving In My Car (4:33)

adjective verb proper noun, that playlist makes me want to take 4 shits and die. That's like a 12 point indictment on how bad mid-late 90's "alternative" radio was. There should be a trial at the Hague.

But I gave you a chubby for actually reminding me that there was a band called Geggy Tah, and that I didn't totally hate that song.

Speaking of which, this particular archive doesn't have Sid Luscious and the Pants... fortunately their songs are still on their site https://www.sidluscious.com/

God damn "The Sidewalk Song" is good! If this is what Beef hears when he's walking around thinking sad thoughts, why isn't he rocking out all the time?

The Tenmen have one hell of a guitar-synth pedal.

Is Nice Pete yelling a song in that panel? Or singing an obscenity?

A comment left by woodenteeth was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by mortshire, rascaldom, BillyLK, excusemesenator)

I get the weird feeling it might be Beef's Dad...

or someone entirely obvious that I'm forgetting in the whole.

ROAST BEEF'S DAD IS DEAD. DEEEEEAAAAADDDD!

So is Molly... and all her family.

And Beef, for that matter.

Beef's dad probably went to Hell and never figured out the Friendly's menu.

If he was a Kazenzakis he wouldn't say "Mr. and Mrs. Kazenzakis."

I'm pretty sure this is Nice Pete. He was worried he would not be invited because he is of Low ways.

It's Nice Pete. Chris said so yesterday to the people who pay money for this sort of thing.

Nice Pete looks like he's gone to seed, if he were ever in flower.

Oh... well. I was wrong. Again.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn it.

I pay good money to know that is Nice Pete.

Could someone explain to me how this paying money thing even works? It says something about the amount of comments there are, but how can you comment on stuff that is being sent to your mobile?

Well. You can get updates sent to your mobile, but they're not as appealing as they sound. There's a whole separate place from here with strip previews, descriptions of events in real time, yadda yadda. Whenever it gets updated over there, you can get a text message with a brief description of what the update entails. But in order to do all of that, you have to pay some money. Which I did. But I probably won't do again.

Does that make any sense?

I have reason to believe that it is indeed Nice Pete. He has affected a more formal hairstyle for the wedding gift presentation.

it's nick cave i thought

Nick Pete?

Too much hair on top to be Nick these days.

Dr. Andretti will Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Dr. Andretti will be played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

I'd say ASSETBAR! but this was all clearly my fault.

You told me I would be played by Philip Seymour Hoffman!

Wait, Woodenteeth... do you have some sort of PSH complex?

There's plenty of Philip Seymour Hoffman to go around.

Oh god please help me with this addiction

woodenteeth's initial happiness transformed subtly, but quickly, into an inability to further enjoy cinema. Or to go outside. Or to think.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman first began replacing every actor woodenteeth saw -- but now he replaced
everything . woodenteeth spent a few days hoping to adjust to this new world, but a mere hour after buying groceries from Phillip Seymour Hoffman and hearing "Turn, Turn, Turn" (re-recorded by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) played over the grocery-store speaker system, woodenteeth fled home, ignoring his Phillip Seymour Hoffman neighbors, and locked himself away.

Now woodenteeth lives alone, in his attic, hoping that one day the voices in his head won't all sound as obsequious as Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Big Lebowski
. It is unlikely.

Okay, true story. I was so convinced that Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character in The Big Lebowski was actually played by Matt Damon in a fat suit that I bet money on it, and promptly lost it when the credits rolled. I don't thin it was [i]such[i/] a daft suggestion, considering I had no idea who this Seymour Hoffman chap was at the time, but still it is perhaps slightly unwise to bet five quid on a character being played by Matt Damon in a fat suit when noone in the room had ever heard that Matt Damon was even in the film...

Were you, perchance, intoxicated at the time? That would explain alot.

Oh good God yes.

you wouldn't believe what I saw in the mirror this morning...

I have an antique pistol like that. unfortunately I have no black powder or suitable lead objects to melt into bullets

If you ever feel the need to make homemade gunpowder, let me know!

I'm a one-stop source for all kinds of information polite people don't know!

WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH MOLLY'S NECK?

No other characters in Achewood have visible necks. Molly, heretofore, has not had a visible neck. Now in her wedding she has a neck that is so visible that it is gross.

I'M SCARED AND CONFUSED.

She has become a ballet dancer.

Molly is a reverse-furry. Not satisfied just with being any garden variety anthropomorphic feline, she was put on a waiting list for neck transplants when she came to Earth. She was bumped up said list in the event of her wedding. Her donor's name was Anthony James Reede, a 21 year old man who died in a backyard wrestling accident .

Fuck me. Despite the fact that I have no evidence that either of those two kids actually died (as referenced by the lack of mentioning of such in video, and a quick Google search of the name), I have just seen a bitter glimpse of my alternate reality. I'm glad I stopped wrestling when I did.

it's there to make her look elegant on her wedding day. it took me a long a time to realize that i have a thing for long necks on girls. i always knew i liked short hair or pony-tails, i just never knew why.

anyway, i think molly looks pretty, and now you made me admit it on the internet. thanks.

I have a series of progressively longer necks I could mail to you for a small sum

Working some rough hedonism these days, Hedonismbot.

She shaved her neck, so now she looks like Mr. Bigglesworth.

I usually save my Spumante for now, which usually means that I'll be drinking it later*.


I will not be drinking Spumante later*.

Brilliantly, universality condoned in the transcribing of musical and moreover human expression. Namaste Onstad.

Apollo, why doth thou burn this candle at both ends?

Slumber party indeed. The eternal to which young Charles is now subscribed.

What counfounds me is the nature of the pistol with which Iorwerth intends to forcibly shuffle young Charles off the mortal coil with. Does this imply that all ghosts can claim our souls at any moment?

You (or a legal guardian) got to commission that they perform the murder act on you.

Plus your pistol must be a flintlock or better, it's just too hard to keep the match burning for anything else.

Iorweth is probably losing points for slowness - he's already far below par, after all.

yeah yeah yeah

a man was never this much of another man's dogg awwwwwwww!

Why's he killing LN now? What? Did I miss something?

Yes, you did. LN and Taffy have become friends, at least... sort of. Iorwerth was pleased by the affect of this on Taffy, and decided he would like to take LN back to the afterlife with the rest of his family.

He might be trying to get LN to whittle him a chain

I think it is more that the presence of Little Nephew irritates Taffy into being a bit more than a twitching rubber-brained thing. Little Nephew, on the other hand, appears to be jealous of Taffy's prowess with the videoed games. This relationship can only begin in tears and end in blood.

The long story short is that because they are sixteenth-century half-wits who believe it is possible to change a baby's sex with murder, they've got unrealistic expectations out of their retarded son and no concept of the value of human life.

I-dogg had better not pull this one off or it'll make us all look cheap.

actually, it appears that their relationship will begin with blood.

I really love the title of this one.

Which is "Blunderbuss Comix No. 1" for those who don't want to scroll up or don't have the IE line in blue above their browser window. And for those who don't know their pirate weaponry, a blunderbuss is a type of gun that you load with black powder and is shaped kind of like a trombone.

Peoples decisions to lame things often confounds me.

It's those trombone haters.

You know what else is shaped like a trombone?

A trumpet.

(cue faint, starting Eye of the Tiger )

Your mom's labia?

No, his mom's are all droopy. Kinda accordion-like really.

Man, you can get such a great sound out of that woman.

Chucklebot always seems to be in the background at these kind of events, no doubt working some rough chuckles...

https://www.cakefarts.com

Fuck me old boots, that's amazing.

holy shit dude! that's NSFW by the way, but i don't even care!

Shoot, I can't watch this at work!

I have no earthly idea if this is the same guy, as I'm not going to watch that video, like, _ever_, but there was a rather persistent spammer on Usenet who had an obsession with attractive young women farting on cakes, for some...._baffling_ reason known only to him.

And he came close to being a spammer in how often he posted his stuff.

So, Moolah, can you put my mind at ease that you're not the same guy? 'Cause otherwise, it's like, spam.

I would pay a sum of fifty dollars American to see the singular sight of a beautiful woman farting on a plate of seared spam.

I can assure you I'm a first time cake farts advertiser. Saw it posted on another site and felt the need to share it here.

God dammit, she's actually hot. And the cake looks really good. That's two good things you just ruined for me.

Is it a shame? [x]Yes

I thought I would be spared the horror if I turned the sound off. I didn't expect to see the... vocalizations... quite so clearly. It's like lip-reading.

OK I watched it with the sound on and now I'm laughing uncontrollably. What the hell is wrong with me.

I laughed too. Really, really hard.

I had to chubby you for the disgusting mental image. Also for convincing me not to view this website.

After you've seen swap.avi, something like this is child's play.

Holy Shit! That was so weird. The first time she lifted up and did that , I smelled something. Come on, it must have been the dog. Wait a minute, I don't have a dog. Oh Shiiiiiiit!

The Web site is called cakefarts, and that is exactly what I see here

I see Roast Beef in this strip.

I see a gun in this strip.

I see Roast Beef and a gun in this strip.

OOOOHHHHH SHIIIIIIITTT!!!!

no Nightlife yet = Beef is safe.

But no roller skate, except for the reference in Welsh by Hamscout above.

Nor have there been any folding-chairings for deadbeats.

I thought the same thing. When a shooting is about to take place, Beef has a nasty habit of getting in the way.

The darkness returns.

I love how Iorwerth is basically saying: "You don't care about anything on this green Earth, do you, Ray?"

And Ray's response, while it could be taken as a question, is instead punctuated with an exclamation point, meaning he either is just exhaling in a "WOW, what a thing to say! How do I respond?" or, he's lost in his own world, barely listening to Iorweth, just making noise to fill a gap in the conversation, like a crappy new rap-indie-rockabilly crossover band trying to tell Ray about their ideas for a world tour, while Ray is mulling how he can make enough in merchandising to cover the cash he dropped on signing them...
Classic Ray.

Ray Smuckles: He Gets Things Done.

(Nobody said they had to be good things. In the average day it is just a lady sitting on a cake and a morally neutral thing - but today... wow.)

Nice Pete is having difficulty finding the right words to present with his wine. If only he could give them a murder instead.

Cropes is having difficulty with the fact that presenting a wedding gift requires acknowledging the presence of a woman.

Thanks for the ID-- the distinguished greying of the temples threw me off.

Or maybe that's just a wicked macassar?

I thought he was affecting a Paulie Walnuts look.

It goes with his Luca Brasi-esque practice speech.

totally got the Luca Brasi type speech from that.

Sure this beats Beef's Bachelor Party. but does it beat Philippe's Bachelor Party ?

"Going back to Wales" is code for dying then.

Is Wales really that bad?

man yeah, Wales is terrifying.

... if you're a sheep.

you've clearly never been in Swansea

I think they're actually from Wales, as well as from Heaven.

Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter's wedding...

...on the wedding day of your daughter's wedding ...

...and I hope that their first child is a masculine child.


I wonder if Nice Pete has a bullet proof vest?

Dang, dang, dang--you beat me to it, octafish. Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I have An Accomplishment. Sigh....

YES YES YES this was my thought as well like IMMEDIATELY as I read it

Same here.

I believe that was the intent, yes.

ps: It's an Assetbarian message. It means Nice Pete sleeps with the Octafishes.

Molly is completely blissed out, and that is a good thing. It's a shame that the Tenmen do not have the same effect on Pete.

God, just when your wedding is going great the father of the bride hauls off and murders the best man's nephew. Isn't that always the way? Back me up, people.

Man I am glad I'm not the only one that's happened to.

Panel 12 is quite possibly the funniest ray/beef conversation panel of all time.

Your four-minute head start will cause me an eternity of shame.

You have my axe.

:(

I would suggest that you take another look at "The Dick Molecule" and "Ray and Roast Beef Chat."

I'm disappointed with you, Assetbar. Some of the best Beef dialogue in weeks and no-one says anything.

"Oh crouching Jesus in the shadows" is a term I am going to try my darnedest to integrate into my day-to-day speech.

Also, this strip is even more hilarious if you imagine that Pete has simply become so incensed that he has burst into a perfect mezzo-soprano.

I'm picturing him sounding like King Diamond right there.

Stop being so awesome.

oh my god will you two just make out already and get it over with geeeeez

Seriously Techie, if you want a day pass to go out and celebrate WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE FUCK ELBOX FRIDAY, I'll totally let you out. You just have to let me brand you and wear this ankle-tracker. And film it. And do that thing I showed you

Sweet, I can bring that Clitter you allowed me to purchase. You're so good to me, Hedonismbot.

California is very far, and I am terrible at making out. Just ask hedonismbot's mom.

You forget, I live in Hedonismbot's basement now, which is not in California.
I don't know where I am. I was blindfolded.

Oh hey that means you're in Oklahoma, and presumably not very far from where I live.


Hedonismbot, I have some money.

Well, I've got a pretty fair stash of ducats as is, but I'm told you have a drawer's hand. If you can perform a drawing of the acts you engage in afterwards, I will frame it and consider that fair payment

Oh, consider it done. It is really no problem; I create a drawing of all of my sexual acts after the fact.

Fantastic. I've been thinking of getting a new avatar lately. People seem to think this isn't the right picture for my screen name

Hey, wait a minute...
(Did I just get sold? Rented?)

I like to think of it as leased, with an option to buy. You beat the market rate on this one, so you should be proud. Make sure wear lots of makeup when you go, I think the boys these days are into that sort of thing

I'm sorry, I can't help it, really.
(Don't tell me you didn't think King Diamond, too. Or perhaps Cam Pipes.)

Like I said above, I've associated Nice Pete with Manowar since the Mister Band arc.

Yeah, Manowar works too, but in my head I'm hearing more of a falsetto.

Some of us are suffering from soap opera fatigue, I guess. Shoot me, or shoot someone, but get this maudlin crap over with already!

It just doesn't normally work out this well in the end does it you little ray of sunshine.

Oh I'm still hoping for a Disneyland ending in my life, but in Achewood, I want irony, disaster, non sequiters, and humor, not hearts and flowers.

Pogo is at that special AAAAAGE

True, but what I meant was a Disney ending for one of my marriages, a happily-ever-after thing, you know. As for my life, I hope to fall face down on a plate of linguine with clam sauce at 99.

I usually hate people who just quote the Roastbeefian dialogue

but

whittling a chain out of a two-by-four at gunpoint

On par with the bowling alley funeral.

fuck THAT guy!

...phy hates me now.

*THIS

oh god damn you are right.

That Speaking of Beef stayed with me today, and I wondered more than once if it would be possible to whittle a linked, flexible chain from a single piece of wood.

It is, of course. I just discovered that such is a Recognised Whimsy and was just one way folks entertained themselves before all these screens started being everywhere, just glowing and staring.
https://www.tramp-art.com/whimseys.htm

Well, you merely happened to beat me to it.

It's even better if you imagine him opening his mouth and the sound of a musical instrument coming out. Not even one of the Tenmen's - a series of high, fine tones played on an oboe.

I mean, Satan gave Ray a piano and all he inflicted on the world was Heartbeatz the Rapping Dog who Loves. You do as much for the Dark Lord as Pete has and the Dark Lord takes care of you when you are so damn mad your voice has to be a woodwind.

Nice Pete is roaring with impotent rage at his inability to form a proper speech-type presentation of the esteemed wine... but his roar is overpowered by the stylings of the Tenmen as they start to play at a much greater volume, drowning him out. The notes match - so in the panel with the Tenmen playing, Nice Pete is screaming in the background at the time that they're playing those notes, but no one hears him. The wedding continues blissfully unaware.

I fuckin' called it.

They're gonna kill mah little nephew. :(

Considering that just about every major character has died, gone to heaven or hell, then returned, I don't think Little Nephew's death would make too much of an impact.

I am so sorry that they fixed the resize issue - now I can barely see the eagle cry.


I know, I hate it. It's all I can do to let the poor boy cry his little eagle heart out.

Also I JUST realized that the cat in the first panels is Nice Pete.

whoa, you're right, this is blowing my mind

Except, I also JUST realized that it CAN'T be Nice Pete cause he uses punctuation.

Nice Pete has been using punctuation for some time now. Check back to the arc in which he writes Ray's biography.

But that's only when he writes, it's not the same thing. He's never spoken with punctuation consistently. Who is this mystery cat?

I didn't realise at first either. His mouth should have made it obvious, but the hair distracted me.

Oh, also, can someone back me up? I'm relatively sure a muzzle-loading gun like the one in the last panel wouldn't make any sort of noise like "Ch-Chk". Onstad probably knows that. It's probably a joke.

Probably

If you wanna be a cock about it, yeah a flintlock doesn't have a slide mechanism, so it'd sound more like when a sherriff in a Western subtly cocks his revolver in a significant, intimidating way. But you tell me how to spell *that*

COCK

C-CLIT

k-lick?

It depends, really. I've actually built a replica of an old flintlock, and a lot them have a "half-cock" and a "full-cock" stage. Rolling all the way through from hammer down to full-cock would give two clicks, and "ch-chk" is as easy a way as any to represent that onomatopoetically.

Finbarr Saunders would have an anuerysm if he read the foregoing..



Onstad is really tickling himself pink with Ray's new floppy-arm walk. (Panel 13)

Jesus Christ, boy.

...What makes it new?

Molly is lost in her own world- eyes closed, arms stretched wide out in a near swoon. What the hell? Tenmen don't seem to be hippie expression-dance music.

It's her wedding day, it wouldn't matter if the band is the Tenmen or the Massed Pipes and Drums of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo she'll dance how she wants to dance.

I would kill for a wedding where the band was the Massed Pipes and Drums of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. What better sendoff for the Great Indoor Fight?

and she's doin' it no one's w a t c h i n g . . .

She can dance if she wants to, she can leave her friends behind, because her friends don't dance and if they don't dance then they're no friends of hers...

Put your damn hat back on and get the hell out of town!

I KNOW HOW TO SPELL SAFETY, GOD DAMN IT

this is some seriously twisted, bass-laden space rock. Notice the upside down speakers? Tweeter horns on the bottom. Tenmen have no comparison in the modern lexicon of music.

Animal knows what's up.

Animal knows what's up.

Fuck in a handbasket, do I love Animal.

Meanwhile, you know Beef isn't enjoying his shingles talk in the preceeding frame cause his arms are pretty ripped. Also; is that a pi on the back of his shirt?

Many men's shirts (I guess similar women's, too) have a pleat in the center of the back. Do you own an oxford cloth shirt with buttons and a collar? If so, have a look at the back.

But take the shirt off first, or you will chase youreself around in circles.

I got my copy of GQ in the mail a couple days ago and this morning I flipped through it and found the Achewood strip. Then I read the strip. It was mildly amusing. It is a flowchart.

Yeah, given that Onstad's designed it to be accessible to the uninitiated, "mainstream" audience, it's pretty good. My favourite bit is the "rock that chuckle" line I quoted above, and T's dudely fist-pump.

I stopped by the Barnes & Noble to try to flip through the GQ to find the strip, and found it impossible to do so. GQ is a giant, floppy magazine, full of inserts that fall out and articles that I find utterly uninteresting.

It is on page 125.

Now get back out there and make something of yourself!

chub for advice in treating the bookstore like a lending library

To be fair, I would have bought the magazine if I had found the comic.

Asti Spumante: The wine best served with beer.

Asti is a wonderful gateway wine. People who have no idea what wine is will drink it, get curious, drink real wine, then someday realize that Asti is piss, and shall shovel it off on some chump who doesn't know wine. The circle continues on forever.

From wikipedia:

"Asti or Asti Spumante is a DOCG white sparkling wine produced in an area to the south of the town of Asti in Piedmont, Italy."

I initially read that as DOGG and for a brief second thought that Onstad had specifically encoded this hidden message in his choice of wine.

Also, I never quite understood this notion that anything that tastes sweet and light is "amateur" and "piss" and somehow being a connoisseur requires liking things that are bitter and dry. I mean how much of this is just elitism in the sense of "hey look at us, we're enjoying things that no normal person would enjoy"?

There's a touch of elitism in it. Mostly, semi-snobs like me enjoy wine with some complexity. Asti (at least the two brands I've tried) is simple, and has a nasty bitter finish on it. Sweet isn't always bad, and probably the most impressive wine I've ever had was a sweet one (Y'quiem). Real snobs of course don't let anything under a hundo touch their tongues. I mostly stick around $20-$30, which I consider the sweet spot for cost/taste. Though again, your statement that a certain degree of elitism exists is well founded. Wine has always existed so that some people could look down at other people for totally pointless reasons

Yea I mean I've never tried Asti, but I've had other Moscato wines and found them pleasing, though I can't remember which. And a good Riesling is pretty much heaven as far as I'm concerned. But again, I am in no position to make claims. I went on a wine tour in Bordeaux last summer and I couldn't help but feeling like it was mostly wasted on me, since I generally don't like reds and the only one that really made an impression on me was the Sauternes.

I'm going to have to yield to the wisdom of John Cleese in these matters (I can't remember the name of the program, but he hosted a show about wines). Don't let anyone else tell you what wine you should like. If you like riesling and asti, drink riesling and asti, there is no right or wrong when it comes to wine selection, just personal preference.

I remember that show! "John Cleese's Wine for the Clueless" I think is what it was called. I agree with his advice there.

I'm deeming you "wine-cool" on a probationary license. A good dry-ish Riesling is a wonderful thing. I know at least one old man on these boards who would agree. And a great Sauternes is one of my favorite things. That super-high-end thing I mentioned above is the finest of Sauternes, and the best drink I've ever had

Oh man, we were talking about the same wine? Maybe you an' me is amigos!

Agreed, indeed. Reisling is the grape of my gods.

Right on, Reisling fan! And they often cost like $4.99.

I thought it was because the grapes went bad, but the water was worse.

amateur.

I think there's something to be said for sweet, light wines. I don't drink them much but they have their place. I REALLY enjoyed a Fairy Tale Cuvee at a sparkling wine tasting recently. Does that make me less of a man? Oh wait, I think it does.

no, it;s beacuse it does taste like a light, sweet urine sample. And not one of the good, Tour De France ones, that will be guaranteed to have mind-bending drugs involved. More like one from a Bible gactory worker..

"Why are you drinking Martini & Rossi?"
"...because it's Tuesday."

Why do I get the feeling that Ray wasn't Paying Attention?

To be fair I'd have to be paying quite alot of attention to work out that a judgemental Welsh ghost is politely asking if he can murder my nephew so that his youngest and least functional son has someone to hang out in the afterlife.

Or maybe Ray is paying perfect attention and has been looking for a way to "dispose" of Little Nephew for a while. Can't say I blame him.

I have wanted to shoot Little Nephew for a while, there may as well be a positive purpose behind it.

Who knew Nice Pete had so much forehead in him?

It is to make Nice Pete resemble an Italian. Specifically, Luca Brasi. Although he looks nothing like the guy who played Luca Brasi. Maybe he looks like Luca Brasi looked in Mario Puzo's head.
Anybody else not rate the guy who played Luca Brasi's acting? Like, at all? As in "not good enough for soap let alone one of the best films ever"?

There's a story to the Brasi character's famous "...on the day of your wedding" rehearsal. Apparently that scene was added to the script to reflect that actor's own comical anxiety at doing a scene with Marlon Brando and flubbing all of his lines.

I'm pretty sure that the man playing Luca Brasi was actually a genuine wiseguy who was cast in the role for authenticity (maybe even to mollify the real mob, who weren't entirely thrilled about the book being made into a film).


Hence his inability to act, and the fact that they included candidly shot footage of his (real) nervous rehearsal in the final cut as one of the few 'genuine' moments they got from him.

IMDB has Lenny Montana as a wrestler-turned-actor.

Wikipedia (and a BBC docu) say he was a mobster as well.

The same documentary stated that the rehearsal scene was written in later, but that the footage was of Montana sitting to one side of the wedding scene and practicing his lines, not acting as Brasi practicing his lines (for all the difference it makes).

"Crouching Jesus in the shadows" suggests another delicious level of 'Beef's psychosis in which he lives in constant fear of being jumped from the darkness by various key religious figures.

Sweet Dancing Moses in the Shower!

Holy Mother Mary on the can!

...Are you crappin'?


Brilliant, this is beautiful.

Am I dumb for mousing over this expecting alt-text? I do not care if I am dumb, so you can be honest

"SE7EN 2WO: FI8HT"

You're a wonderful, wonderful man, Edwell.

I... I think it's supposed to say "EI8GHT." Either way, Edwell is a genius.

Agreed. It reminds me of someone else's joke on an earlier strip: "Crazy Sunday II: This Time It's Monday"

Th...this is amazing. This is fukken amazing. This is changing my fukken life, man. Shit.

Sweet fancy Moses!


I have a strong feeling that preparing the blunderbuss to fire in the last panel would actually require something more along the lines of:
THWIP-TWISH-TWISH-SQUINK-FWOP-FWOP-FWOP-THWIP-CH-CHK

Sounds like intercourse to me.

Sounds like someone is losing a fight with a fish. Pretty much my standard Thursday afternoon intercourse, yeah


love it.

Uhh...remind me to stay away from the fish sitting in the fridge...
(We can feed it to Loneal later.

You mean the fish that I... boned ? I actually always feed loneal later. In her sleep. I'm convincing her that she is starving. I think it's good for her morale. Also it makes certain that she'll eat enough. Damn girl looks like she needs twenty sandwiches.

No, you do all that part earlier. Do that and put a brace of them in your sash. Then, when it's party time, with a flint lock all you have to cock it. CH-CHK. That's about perfect.

have to do is ...

derr.

I'm also quite fond of the short-sleeved button down shirt with a tie, on Nice Pete. For those days you want to look professional, yet not have to deal with silly cuff buttons.

Nice Pete knows the three rules of proper wedding guest etiquette:

1.) Give a gift that will be useful at all times with all things. Example: A wine that you could drink now or later, with chicken or steak or friends or beer.

2.) Prepare a heartfelt speech for gift delivery. If necessary, find a secluded corner in which to practice.

And, most importantly:

3. Do not outdress the groom. If the groom will wear short sleeves and a tie, do not show him up by involving sleeves in the matter.

Nice Pete has got Southern ways. He has the chess board out.

Looking up Chamonix, I was at first impressed that an entire town in France had Ray's credit card on file. Impressed, but not surprised.

Classic Ray .

Then, upon deeper observation, I discovered it was also the name of a resort in the aforementioned town.

I'm pretty sure I prefer the first interpretation.

Ray's floppy arm walk...

So wait wait WAIT WAIT *WAIT*. That's it? Ramses just exeunted and that's all?!

I TIRED TO CHUPPY MY OWN CEMMANT AN I TWOZ AL "U CUNT CHUPPY URSELF. AN I WA SLIKE "DEH HELL I CUNT, LOL"

"sum pepps, dey calls meh deh street fighter, lol culdn't resist, lol sum peeps has gude memri, sum dunt. sum peeps they onli member form dey tenager years lik maselp, sum peeps member form dey chilehoo, lik form 6-7. buh sum? sum it is said member fars back as dey birf." -- star scream

cnraes ang form deh selling, dongled der lik stolgmits in and abbadonned cav.
"herro?" i ssasy to gnome one
"herro!" exos back.
i traps eer cloisur 2 an inside of deh cav galzivatin at deh light wat shunin form and crack. it woz diz carck i mad ma way 2.

at deh cark i finger deh edgz, it iz soft der, i trace sivlar tims 2 det diametersuntil deh cav starts rumblin, deh cav is shakin' 2 peaces im sur. i panic, i stund up an luke abot deh cav, still onli carns on deh selling--i kukle cbak u2 deh crack an trear at it despratly lik and wilde amnalmil an reem deh hol ebigger an bigger untils i can get ma head in--but oh no ma head is stuck halfsway when deh cav starts 2 shake deh most ever, it shakes ma body an i flap abot wit ma head stil aflay in deh carck. i passes out an inter an dream? ands semed 2 pull at me form deh utter side o deh crack. i membur cin' bight lights, no carnes upin deh selling dis time, an i saw hemns der wit hazmat sutes an as i spiral down towar complete slubmner--in ma daze i had forgits 2 luke bak at da cav i woz traped in.

twaz ma mommas twat an dis was how iw as born.

oh wow... that is the most engrossing and frightening description of child birth I've read in weeks.

I thought it was his rendition of the Allegory of the Cave.

Made even more frightening when you consider that Starscream is a robot that can turn into a jet...

Well done. You get a gold star for this very good story, from me.

yeah so uh



it looks like the characters are becoming real people. Instead of just absurd abstract cartoon notions, they are becoming absurd real people. As real as a character can be... which can be pretty damn real.

what does the future portend... maybe at some point Onstad will be all like, screw it, lol, I's going to do mostly prose.. and it will become a book with mere illustrations here and there...

will he go to flash?

will he go to flash with all the laborious frame tweaking done in a sweatshop in Bangalore or a Detroit second world suburb?

Man if I was Onstad, at some point I'd take my Achewood world, and slap it on a visa app to France. Get out of this dump, you know.

I smell troll.

troll? What is troll about this comment, pray do tell.

On a different subject, why are you bald? And why do you know so many heroin junkies?

Did you smell it on the w i n d? Because that is all I see here

You can see the wind? Eerie.

RIP Japan Man

You know, sometimes, I get so mad that I spew out music too.

I love ham

OK, I've only been through most of the archive once (before I signed up for comments), but isn't Ray an only child? I know he has a paternal half brother, but did Sondra have any other children? Is there any evidence that LN isn't Ray's son other than the fact he is called Little Nephew?

octafish, you're silly! Everyone knows you can't have a baby until you get married! The mommy gets pregnant as soon as the ring is on her finger!

It's magic!

Isn't that right, Lie Bot?

Phillippe, Phillippe, Phillipe ... just go into Ray's bedroom and everything will become clear ...

Okay!



You forgot the ears in the first panel, so for a while I was wondering what Pat was doing boning a robot in Ray's bedroom.

Oh shiiiiiiiiit ...

Isn't it obvious? Pat was so incensed by Ray's decision to buy a MaiDroid, instead of giving the job to a deserving immigrant, that he went and raped that robot there and then.

In the eighth panel Nice Pete has become so frustrated he is screaming guitar music.

I imagine the Tenmen sounding kinda like the JAMC. Or loud snare and buzzsaw guitars.

Scroll up and check out the links. I win some kind of prize 'cause I was thinkin art-rock. As it turns out it's kinda synth-beat art-rock.

In short, it rules. As reception music it beats the fuck out of anything by ABBA or YMCA.

ugh...i tried to say "all loud snare" not "or loud snare" now my comment is useless and shall be fed to the mongrel hounds of Assetbar

ugh... dead dog in alley this morning. tire tread on burst stomach.

I have seen the city's true face, and it is afraid.

the Achewood afterlife is so interesting, I hope we make another trip there. Hell though. Definitely hell.

That just made me think that Charley going to Hell is entirely plausible. As is bringing him back to life later on. Hah... ahhhh.... possibilities = endless.

Is it suicide if you accidentally convince your friend's dad to kill you?

*dead friend's*

For some reason I keep confusing the personality of Dr. Andretti with Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock .

You can't spell "enlightenment" without tenmen.

Nice Pete in panel 8 is just about the funniest thing I've ever seen.

OH WHAT A FOOL I WILL BE
A FOOL IN HIS TUXEDO OF SHAME
STANDING AT THE CHURCH DOORS HOLDING HIS WEDDING REGISTRY GIFT OF MORTAL HUMILIATION

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH THE FRENCH..... CHAMPAGNE HAS ALWAYS BEEN RENOWNED FOR IT'S EXCELLENCE... THERE IS A CALIFORNIA CHAMPAGNE... BY PAUL MASONNNNN