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Darren's Lament Tuesday, June 22, 2010 • read strip Viewing 528 comments:

Ohh dang!

A comment left by granularsilica was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by johnnybaverage, Norsef, rotating-dog, tthug, HassanOLeary, gladi8orrex, koodge, sean1058, tibcoolbreeze, lowtrees, mashisoyo, cmjhogan, Fictions, sarsbar, LaVieNoir, farqussus, woodenteeth, coffeecoaster, TSRTS13, verplanck, ZedPower, newspaperdrone, coldfrog, Cremlae, wingspan, excusemesenator, DerSquirrel, hardelicious, colorlessness, peterjoel, Lohninck, Footbullet, Ghede, Archon_Divinus, nickb285)

A comment left by pumajones was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by taiiga, crawfomp, peterjoel, alchemicnirvana)

In that case, I will do you a favor.

What exactly IS the lame allotment? Is it a static number, or based on your chubbies, or comments, or what?

I feel like it should go up over time, on account of the number of comics and posts goes up. And therefore, the number of sucky things goes up as well as the good stuff.

the lame alloter more or less broke a few months ago. new accounts may get a few lames, I haven't checked, but for the most part, lames are pretty rare these days.

i just made mine (forgot info on old) and i haven't been allowed a single lame

so where are all these lames coming from? Just how many lurkers are there anyway?

I've got plenty. I don't spend them frivolously.

lamed you in a sort of agreement/demonstration

Same here but I don't comment all that much as a general rule

A comment left by dacapn was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by mrklaw, cpnglxynchos, peterjoel)

The man is trying to convey: lames ahoy.

More of us thank you think, ratacattt. More of us than you think...

I haven't been able to give any lames since before the great post blackout of ought-nine.

You say that like you weren't the person who broke it.

It is an unproven mathematical equation based on emotional reactions and kneejerk responses.
JERK!

Yeah, those Frist Pots have been a hot commodity. I doubt they'll have ANY in stock during all the big Christmas in July sales.

We need AIU to work his code-magic on an application that automatically checks Achewood for updates, and alerts you instantly when Onstadt posts his fresh work so you can get the FRIST quicker.

if only one person used such a program, it would take all the fun out of it. If everyone used such a program, it would be pretty much random who got the frist psot, and the second post would essentially become the frist psot.

It's like if you were invisible and you could therefore watch chicks getting naked as much as you wanted. It would get boring after a while.

I just follow Onstad's twitter. It's not instantaneous, but it's pretty close.

Quote:
If everyone used such a program, it would be pretty much random who got the frist psot,


[b]HA HA HA

YES

THIS IS AWESOME

DO IT[/spoiler]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

[/spoiler?] [/seriously?] There's typos and then there's... people who have a meat cleaver stuck in their brain and don't even realize it and they go and start making posts on assetbar. Dude. Get that checked out!

With regards to the first psot program... there's no point to that. just, there isn't. it would be cool for all of 5 seconds. frist psots are interesting because they're scarce, they're hard to come by. You make them easy to come by, and they're no longer interesting.

Dude, i'm drunk and high on assetbar. get the fuck off my case

when you are fucking up BB code that badly it's time for an intravention.

you're right

I have lost control of my life.

Nothing you say, Dog In Sunglasses, seems sincere.

deal w/ it

i pretend to be an epic troll on the internet but in reality i am hurting inside

assetbar do you think it is rad that I am depressed

sorry for not emptathizing I thouhgt you were being sarcastic not sincere

if you are depressed you should try to have sex with a pretty girl in a van it helps if you can talk her into letting you slathering pigs blood from the butcher shop all over the place then it isn't so depressing

Now that sounds sincere

I need 20 ccs of intraventious bbcode, stat!

leave plummet alone, finally got rid of the creepy indian girl pic!

I'd totally wreck her.
(when we played bumper cars)

Wreck her, I hardly......oh god.

do you mean like a long hard look in the mirror? An inward airing of personal grievances, or perhaps a time for soul searching and serious coming-to-terms-with this funny little muddle called "me"? Or did you just misspell 'Intervention' and you actually meant to say that some of his close friends and loved ones should all "intervene" and correct his present course of life's action?

Be specific, this is a REAL question...

Ever since I ignored him I've been confused several times about why everyone is pissed off at random times. But since I don't want to myself become pissed off I'll leave him ignored.

Eh.

oooooh that's a damned lie

you know how many chicks there are on this planet?

You were very persuasive, but lost me a bit on that last point.

I don't think it would...

either onstad belatedly realized that windowless 15-passenger vans have no need for a rearview mirror and had to make something useful out of it, or he had this entire story arc planned out from the beginning.

Do windowless vans really not have rearview mirrors?
I've never noticed one way or the other, and it makes sense, but it also makes sense that the front part of a car might be a prefab standard that just gets attached to whatever lack of doors that there may or may not be.

I mean, my dash doesn't have a CD player, but there're still buttons for it.

uh. the back doors clearly have windows, though.

The last windowless van I rode in didn't have one, but that's cause it came unglued from the windshield. It was actually in the ashtray.

The moving van I rented last summer didn't have one.

lets tally our personal experiences so we can have a pool of 4-9 individuals.

i was in a van such as that with rearview mirror window

Every windowless van I've ever owned had no fewer than THREE rearview mirrors, plus a George Foreman grill.

that is just plain ostentation.

I just asked my dad about his van, it has no windows and also no rearview mirror.

SCIENCE.

figuring out by asking someone is actually not science.

tell that to psychologists! burn

wat psychologists do wit questions is 2 suntines try to get 2 u for to realize wat is not really a question. they is nto wannan no so mush wat is deal wit ur fathers but for to perhaps by makin u says it enuff u will eventually see how fucking retarded you are.

it never works

faaaag

everyone should ignore this guy 'cause he's boring.

FINALLY GOT RID OF DooNESBURY HUH YA FAAAAG

I actually like psychologists better going on that description than I do from the bullshit one they give about "promoting subjective well-being"

dude, what man?

ow.

You hurt me on the Professions.

well you could always pioneer eco-dentures, woodenteeth

To Swat a Fly
by
N. Peter Cropes Esq.

When he was nearly 16 and still in high school, my friend Darren got his arm badly broken at the elbow in a little wrestling rough-housing.

I am going to lame anyone who uses science that way

A van with windows is useless. All you can do is haul shit around. Why would you buy a van if people can see what you are doing in there?

What if you're an exhibitionist?

Do it on the roof.

Or on stage at the Ludacris concert.

('Cuz you know it got sold out.)

That is probably the most public place you could do it without anyone stopping you or calling the cops.

except denny's after 1:53am

woah - you've definitely never posted here before.

We would have noticed.

That is correct that specially-equipped windowless vans for the blind have no rearview mirrors, shelbydavis.

I mean, I'll never have sex, but I've still got a dick

That's what Eisenhower said when asked about the peacekeeper program.

Nice Pete drives a 1961 Ford Econoline van (assuming alt-text is canon) in which case it would in fact have a rear-view mirror. See: [IMGS OFF]

Ugh, fail. See: https://assets.autopendium.com/photo_images/2686/1961_Ford_Econoline_Van_-_front_large.jpg

That one has windows though.

Teodor does not look properly excited to meet President Carter.

ALT ALT TEXT: OHHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIT

Why does Teodor look suprised?

Superficial answer: Teodor had a plan, it made sense, so he's surprised that it didn't work. Then again, he really shouldn't be: I can't think of a single plan Teodor has ever made that worked the way he intended. It's almost his defining trait.

More meta-answer: I don't think I really expected Nice Pete to kill Teodor until this strip--at least, intentionally. It's not that he's incapable of murder, it's just that a) this has been playing out much more along a "demented fun and games" line until now, and b) if Nice Pete were really to kill Teodor in cold blood, it'd be tough to figure out how he could still exist in the strip. You know the main cast wouldn't be hanging around anymore. But Nice Pete has *malice* in his heart, now, and that means that there's going to have to be a big change in cast dynamics. So it's surprising.

(And yeah, there was that time where he went after Ray and Teodor with the USB vegetable cutter. But first off, he explicitly denied responsibility for that ("millions of hands are on the blade", etc.), and second, Beef thought that after they saved his life, he would be protective instead of aggressive toward them.

Beef thought wrong.)

Chubby for the name Kilroy

Teodor.... dead?

It does not, it CAN not work this way!

It wouldn't be the first time.

Maybe he will be in a band in heaven (he won't).

OH MY GOD THEY WERE DEAD ALL ALONG

so you read overcompensating?

flut

I haven't seen stuffed animals subjected to this much torture, despair, and vaguely Holocaust-ish imagery since Toy Story 3.

Which was great, by the way.

Quote:
vaguely Holocaust-ish imagery . . . Which was great, by the way.


Are you sure you wanted to say this?

Pixar knows their stuff. The furnace of death was extremely well rendered.

Disney knows that kinda stuff.
Disney knows it.

"Are the Jews gone?"
"Uh, no."
"Put me back in."

Oh Family Guy, why do I have to be in your target market..

Didn't they have that in Robots too? Or is it now just a cliche rather than them ripping themselves off?

Was Robots by Pixar? I never saw it.
NO IT WAS NOT

You're right. It was Blue Sky.

So you're saying that all souls did burn?

This arc does, however, answer the long standing question: is it better to know Nice Pete or not to know him?

Oh, Teodor? You won't see him no more.

I didn't tell Mama anything. I was just about to come up and wake you so that I could tell you.

I believe the line you're looking for is,
"Ya thought wrong, dude."

It's always weird when something even semi-serious gets chubbies on assetbar

Wait, were those millions of hands all trying to violently stab Nice Pete? Or was it an equipment malfunction?

I never even considered this

he never got a driver written for the device so it was basically a software problem.

Peter Sutcliffe had, basically, a software problem.

maybe nice pete wasn't planning to kill Teodor until Teodor tried to scam his way out of the role playing, thereby sort of ruining the role playing for Nice Pete. Maybe if Teodor would have given it a good shot, tried to play along and have as much wacked out fun as Pete was having, Pete would have had a blast and they'd have gone to Taco Bell and gone back home as the sun was rising, etc etc

You know and I know that there was no way for Teodor to safely get out of this ordeal.

if Teodor is in the process of vigorously having sex with the [presumably] dead homosexual when Nice Pete opens the door, it might throw Pete off his game a little bit, no?

I would put forth it would be more effective if the presumably dead homosexual was vigorously having sex all over Teodor. Perhaps an 'auto-erotic' 'marionette' show is precisely what this 'situation' calls for.

It'd be tough to figure out how he could still exist in the strip?

Pat shot a man and escaped prison and such things are simply not discussed.

Again, folks -- it is Achewood. It is not a continuity-dependent production.

seriously, ray died, todd died, beef died a few times, molly was dead, and blisters died but hangs out as an angel

do we really need an angel teodor, shouting in all caps about u2 and coldplay

no

..........yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes.

Especially since we have seen that even when Teodor is a ghost, we still have to see his ass pretty often, and likely his moobs. Actually hes a bear, not a man, so i guess they're bear-boobs, but that would just shorten to boobs again, unless we go with bruin-boobs and shorten it to Broobs.

ursine boobs: urbs

Urbz: Sims in the City

Urbz: the new Sex and the City themed Bratz

Urbz: Taking herbology to the X-TREEM. With Rockin Sin-lantro, Orgy-regano, Hammer Tyme, and lemon bazil.

Lemon Bam, Hos-mary, I'm Cumin', Cinnamon Chicks, Makin' Mintz, Lemon-ass, Whorey-ander, Frank-Intense

Yeah, and by the way - this has always bugged me. They should've just let Nice Pete die during the USB incident. Ray suggested it, and Beef was all cranky and pointed out that Ray wasn't pro ice, right? And where would they hide the body, right? But that makes no sense. Obviously, they could have called the cops and reported the whole thing... after waiting an extra hour or five to make sure Pete was dead. You know? "Beef didn't find us at 2:00 pm, he found us at 7:00 pm. Got it everybody?"

Not that I didn't love Ray with the leg on his head. But it just seemed to me like either A) one of those weird moments when it becomes clear that one author is thinking for five characters or B) Onstad chose strangely to capture the whole crew in a moment of profound groupthink. Has this bugged anyone else?

The point is that they could've and should've totally iced Pete. Then Teodor wouldn't be locked in a windowless van about to get pro iced. I mean, like plummet said, Fuc.

It's not Nice Pete's fault. Teodor is just bound to wind up in these types of situations with or without Nice Pete. Nice Pete may have issues, but this current arc is so far much more about Teodor's approach to the world than it is about Nice Pete.

But-but-but ... Teodor was destined to die a 50 year old vigin in a freak cooking accident!

Not according to The Future.

If Nice Pete walked into a Friendly's I think he would be too blind with rage to blur his eyes at the menu. He would never escape hell. Kill Pete, bring back Nightlife.

This is going to end badly for Nice Pete.

Remember the salad-knife in the forehead?

No, no; he didn't try to kill them again right away, but time has passed and he feels the urge to try again. Sure, not as good a catch as both T and Ray were, but only one of the gang disappearing still leaves plenty of room for Pete to attempt another two-fer on the rest of them.

(watch as Nathan ends up being Ray's favorite shopping-cart attendant or some other ridiculous thing/title only Ray would make another person.)

It's not even April 28th, Teodor will not die. Maybe someone has been paying attention and will save him.

It's surprising because his name is Nice !

Did.. Did you make that your display picture JUST for this comment?

Now that's commitment to your art.

Oh, Darren.

Darren, Darren Darren

In my enthusiasm, I left out a comma. I was young, then.

this was one of the greatest things when it happened just then - and I am probably young in writing this, soon to be disappointed in myself as soon as I hit the post button and re-read it.

Larry, Daryl, Daryl .

It's pronounced "dah-RILL!"

Hot contender for most obscure pop-culture reference of the comment thread right here, folks.

But seriously, mad chubbies for a KITH reference. Do you think Nice Pete hears an oom-pah band in his head?

I thought it was a MadTv reference, although I realize you are right as well.

can i have it? can i? can i ha'yo'numba?

And that's a fact!

Alternatively:

THE BIG CHEESE!!

He's probably at least a terrible waiter.

30 Helens agree:

My feelings on this asset are: Pro.

Have you guys ever read the Wikipedia article describing KITH skits? They're priceless. To wit:

"Workers (this is stretching the term) who are paid to keep their arms in a vat of dead fish, are shocked and appalled to find a machine replacing them. Much of the sketch's humour comes from the fact that it is not indicated why exactly one would be able to make a business out of such a seemingly unnecessary task as keeping one's arms in a vat of fish."

It's kind of funny in and of itself. I mean, writing an encyclopedia article describing absurdist comedy sounds like an absurdist gag. Like it could be Kids In The Hall sketch. It's absurd on a lot of levels.

Wait, what? I'm just fucking baked. Never mind.

Dylan, Dylan, Dylan Dylan and Dylan.

And i had such hopes for the guy.

I guess Nice Pete grades pretty hard too.

more of a pass/fail type course though

More...more...MORE HORROR TYPE COURSE!

It's a death van, and the driver has a vocabulary of pain.

Suddenly, burning all the evidence seems like a good idea.

this entire story arc has been a dimly lit and unsettling rollercoaster. I truly bemoan the fate of Teodor and the elderly gay man.

two Subaru Brats?

Teodor isn't going to hell. He's going to a sort of shitty limbo for people who wasted their lives. They all hang around watching daytime tv and looking at youtube forever.

so... basically status quo except he's immortal?

sweet. if there's assetbar there, then sign me up!

assetbar is there, but so is 4chan

you win some, you lose some

'Whatever you want, whatever you like'

On a Honda Odyssey.

OOoooohhhh SSSSHIIIIITTTTT!!!

Neither of these words are on Mr. Bishop's very difficult vocabulary test, though they are bonus words for Mrs. Wilkinson's history test.

Panel 9: abject terror.

I very seriously misread this as a joke about a Plan 9 From Outer Space sequel or something. So many ironic tickets to that movie would be bought.

Thank you, sir, you have just told me how I am going to become rich.

wait a minute he's not talking about flies AT ALL!!!

What are you talking about? He's clearly OH MY GOD HE'S GOING TO KILL TEODOR! YOU GUYS, PUGUGLYPRESS IS ONTO SOMETHING!

I gave out too many chubbies sorry.

Dude, that was fast! You gave out that many chubbies in that length of time? How does one just give away chubbies like that?

On a totally unrelated note, I accidentally chubbied you instead of hitting "reply"

chuppied for ur mistake, bro

Chubbied for decisions.

all chubby centipede in da basement

all roger ebert refusing to give it a star rating

I find myself flipping through the archives, reading other, more light hearted strips, just to keep my mind off teodor's impending grisly demise.

But Teodore likes the Cure. The cure said:

Suddenly I Stop,
I know it's too late,
I'm lost in a forest,
all alone.

But Teodor, The Cure is silly! It is silly to like The Cure!

the cure wrote some pretty good songs

*pulls drawstring* "The cow says: 'MOOOOOOOOOO'"
*pulls again* "The duck says: 'QUACK QUACK'"
*pull* "The Cure said: 'I feel the steel butt jump/Smooth in my hand/Staring at the sea, staring at the sand/Staring at myself, reflected in the eyes/Of the dead man on the beach (the dead man on the beach)"

This needs to be a real toy.

bonus points if, once every ten thousand pulls:

*pull* I Will Kill Again

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wtGbJa0k7k]You'll be dead by morning![/u]

Meanwhile, my LINK will be dead on arrival.

right there is the shittiest palindrome.

...what?

You don't think that would be an actual song lyric, do you? So by process of elimination, it must be the shittiest palindrome. Speaking of process of eliminating, we are.

Your backtracking could use some work there brosef.

You don't actually know what a palindrome is, do you.

That's where you fight to the death with GOP VP candidates.

chub for me taking so long to get it...

I scrolled past this, got the joke when I was halfway down the rest of the page, and then scrolled back up to chubby it.

What are you, from Oklahoma?
you don't actually know what sarcasm is, do you.



meow hiss. its like readin' what 2 women would write. act like fucking men

Grunt.

Ooga.

heh heh "fucking men" can be taken a couple a different ways...

Not on the sofa, fellas.

I'M BRIAN BLESSED

HELLO

THAT WON'T GET THE PIGS IN.

I THINK I AM A BANANA TREE.

[b]LOOK MA, I KIN DO BOLD CAPS![/b}

Oh shiiiit!

BBcode is going full retard lately

A comment left by invidious was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by HassanOLeary, barfighting, charchar, excusemesenator)

Okay, yeah, that was pretty lame. What the fuck was I drinking?

Silly Juice!

It was super awful but you have the Trololololo guy so I can't stay mad.

...That is him, right? Cuz if not I'm even more enraged than before.

That's him. I highly recommend his death metal remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw7LEIDFCX4

My god, it even has a smiley face.

So that's why you're not supposed to drink furniture polish. Huh.

I just KNEW the lock in the back of Nice Pete's van was going to be the Chekhov's gun of this arc. Fuck.

I dunno, I'd say the mirror fits the bill more accurately. The lock was there because it is a murder van, and it's significance was already known. The mirror was an otherwise useless item, and now it's true purpose has been revealed.

And the rearview mirror. If a rearview mirror appears in a serial killer's windowless van, it must eventually be pulled to drop an impenetrable metal grate; otherwise, there is no need for the mirror.
Also, wouldn't be surprised if a gun did eventually show up in this arc though probably not wielded by Nice Pete. Thus, Onstad would complete the difficult literary technique of the Chekhovian Hat Trick.

But we're well past the "first act", where said gun would have to appear first. Maybe someone get's smothered with a Grand Slam?

posting in a tvtropes thread

The first act was shitting on the lawn...which is odd, because usually that comes after the Grand Slam.

The rear-view mirror served a purpose. It allowed Pete to see what was going on in the back of the van without turning around.

What doesn't make any sense is, this mirror's in front of him, on the windshield... So why, when he pulls it down, does it wind up attached to a metal shutter that's behind him?

it's not attached to the windshield, it's attached to the roof, as you can see. further, it's attached to a rope, which in turn is attached to the door. So, the mirror could be mounted to the roof approximately where the roof and windshield meet, thereby placing it in it's sort of normal place. The rope is concealed in the roof with some metal tape or something that breaks/tears away when the mirror is yanked from it's mooring and tugs on the rope.

Or it doesn't matter.

Chubbied for I was going to say that.

yeah, man. the physics of the thing are puzzling the shit out of me.

Checkhov had a blaster you silly fool.

this phaser's set to FUN!

CHEKHOV SHOT FIRST

I was pretty sure Nice Pete's van itself was Chekhov's gun. We don't need the lock or possible lack of windows to tell us that this is Pete's Magic Murder Van; we already have his word on that.

This is not going according to plan!

After viewing panel twelve, I can't decide if this strip has been brought to me by the letter R or the fine, hardworking people at Tor-Lok.

What is that curious R????????

That lock looks like it's been chewed on some

Scratched at by ill-fated nails, bitten by teeth that soon gnawed no more.

Of course no gnaws is good gnaws.

That goes pretty well to Blinded by the Light.

i love how i had absolutely no difficulty in imagining that haha

There's some brain stuck to it.

Is...do you think it's JFK's?

It's all starting to make sense now....

Screw the chessboard, they should've just let Ray play Whac-a-Mole...

That being said, well-played, Nice Pete.

I entirely agree. If a person tries to kill me I'm not just going to keep being their pal because I think that now they owe me a favour. Obviously being a very middle class sort of chap I'd try to get them into a Thai prison on drug charges, or trapped in the French Foreign Legion, rather than cold shanking them, but the principle is the same. Don't come after me if you aren't ready to have a sequence of dastardly tricks and schemes enacted against your person!

Perhaps we'll get to see trouble man and no-no again. Worth the life of an ill-hung teddy bear who's already died once, if only for five minutes.

i heard the man invents machines

I heard a Fly buzz %u2013 when I died %u2013
The Stillness in the Van
Was like the Stillness in the Air %u2013
Between the Heaves of Doodies %u2013

The Eyes around %u2013 Mayner's and Lurquilla's %u2013
And Chernchillas were gathering firm
For that last Onstad %u2013 when the dead homosexual would
Be witnessed %u2013 in the Van %u2013

I willed my Keepsakes to Lyle and Philippe%u2013
Signed away
What portions of my tiny anatomy be
Assignable %u2013 and then it was
There interposed a Fly %u2013

Landing on an uneaten Denny's Hamburger %u2013
Uncertain stumbling Buzz%u2013
Between Nice Pete %u2013 and me %u2013
And then the steel shutters fell %u2013 and then
I could not see to see %u2013

oh god

DAMMIT.

lamed for u to strive to be better

yeah... chubbied for the fuckin honesty.

HOLY SHIT GUYS

if T ends up dying then, that's lame. it's like onstad got pissy at himself after chickening out on the "no more Philippe" story arc and decided to prove his rocks by killing the most annoying, easily cast-off character instead.

shh

No one stays dead in Achewood.

T is annoying, obviously, but he is the most successful character in my eyes. A perfect portrait of the person I become if I don't have a job for over a month. I would rather loose RB or Lyle than T.

i'd rather chill with either lyle or RB than the fat sad bear. my achewood love ain't all based on narcissism.

Shenanigans on anyone actually wanting to hang with Lyle or Todd or any of the more irresponsible characters. Lyle man douches in the hall with vinegar. That is not a good person to be around. Ray is even a stretch. Who wants a friend that finds $50 on the ground as he tells horrible jokes about Taliban lawyers and parrots?

But you'd get to ride in Airwolf!

his blog was full of awesome parties too!

he gave beef the car from Peel Out Summer for chrissake. i want to be friends with that man.

See this is all awesome but if someone is being totally IRL to the max then you'd probably only want to hang out with T.

Jesus, has everyone forgotten about Cornelius "Fucking" Bear? He is the only character that I would truly want to hang with, just listening to his stories.

Like I want toxic levels of sass every time I put too many forks in one part of the utensil rack in the dishwasher. No thanks Fucking Bear!

I think toxic-sass would be preferable to dithering, but that's just my taste in friends.

I have friends like that. Aside from the $50 thing.

As I see it, Teodor is the least easily cast-off character. Consider that, in writing this arc, Onstad really has no choice but to have Teodor in the back of that van, because he's the one Achewood character who can react in the really human way that gives this any sort of drama or tension. Can you imagine Ray standing naked, passive, and frightened in that van? How about Lyle or Cornelius? If Pat, Vlad, or Lie Bot were in that situation, there'd be no way to make it anything other than absurd. And Beef has too many cares to even begin to play along at being Darren.

Teodor is the human heart of the Achewood crew. Without him, everything would somehow seem ridiculous. So long as he's there, understandably bemused, everything works out. Ray couldn't be Ray without a Teodor there to make being Ray possible. I'm pretty sure Onstead knows this, and I don't think he's going anywhere.

Of course, that's just Onstead. I'm not sure about that Onstad guy.

I disagree. The otter was never going away. That arc was a great representation of the simple truth that you can never go back to the way things used to be. It was, in my opinion, Onstad accepting he can't go back to how it was before he moved.

before he moved, when he used to draw strips that were funny.

It's not funny, it's character development.

I know, our antebellum innocence was
Never meant
To see the light
Of our armistice.

T looks positively muscular in some of these panels

not suprised, he did win the wrestling match

he's been muscular. he is in the "running in the buff" panel

...years ago.

In panel six there is a flash of lightning, followed by portentous thunder.

I think it's worth saying that the rules of death don't generally apply to this comic strip.

yeah but man when pat shot beef, i already hated pat.

i sorta liked nice pete up til now

If the rear view mirror is in front of Nice Pete - which they tend to be - then how can it pull the thing down behind him?

Or is his madness so profound that it bends the very fabric of space.

I kind of wondered this too. Maybe you and me are friends.

I thought that too, so no, it's got nothing to do with friendship.

i too considered it, so maybe we are all destined to start a club

no, I refuse to be in the same club with Dusty. he's been curt with me as of late. If he's in the club too, then I won't go to all the meetings or if I do I'll show up late.

i thought about it too and i don't even like CHRIS ONSTAD

you (ratacattt) were on the road to cubbed glory until this cunty reply.

But will you join the club so you can hit dusty over the head with it?

well okay then that might be okay

Him being a clown also disproves the friendship hypothesis.

Yes. I am a clown.

I think pretty much everyone hates you then. Me included.


SEE! even MIMES hate clowns!

that was an agreement silence if I've ever seen one

I think it was actually more of a humorously tragic silent cry of ironic boredom with life.

Just like a Bright Eyes concert.

(I love Oberst to death.)

jesus he's just a mime not a hipster.

If your murder van wasn't designed by M.C. Escher, then I don't know why you'd even bother to get one in the first place.

I was wondering; i was also wondering why Pete bothered to add a padlock to the back doors, as the "handle" seems to be clearly bolted to both doors and thus impossible to open anyway.

psychological effect?

chew toy for his "dogs" that he kills when "daddy loses his job".

The third method: endless writer's block.

Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken.

btw

whats errybody doin' in life. lik, wats use doin', survivin'? i m training stick fighting and toughing my kuckles for inevitable karate training later. i am muscling up my lower body for to horse-stance when the time comes, i am strengthening my grip to hold stick more firmly, i m enhancing my ambidestrosness for 2 double stick fight more fluidly.

what i m saying is. what is you doin' that u think you can FUCK with me. erry goddamn day i dont kill sum1 is success cuz i m havin' to chain/control a beast witin me dat tal'rasha couldnt even tame.

so step back next time u wanna say sum shit at me. cock suckers

The best part is these are always interjected into very dull messageboard discussions where nobody is threatening or insulting anybody, and then Gladd is all like "yeah, that's what I thought, fuckers!"

i'm fucked up right now but okay

Toughing one's kuckles should only be done with the aid of a professional and after serious dialogue with your primary physician.

wassup he's rockin' some rough kuckles

Let me be the first to say this.

Chairman Yang is a dick.

I would totally bang Lady Deirdre, though.

And when the bear had gone his body remained, there in the secret redwood patch.

I like this line. It is literature.

tl;dr

ta;mysld

(too abbreviated. makes you sound like a dick.)

Oh shit! Oh Goddamn!

It's like Saw except all choices lead to death!

and also it's not like saw

I wish I could chubby this.

I did it for you cause I can't stop staring at your avatar.

ganymedeio does get a pretty sick ryhtm out of Pikachu self harming.

Tuh-tuh-tuh tuh-tuh tuh-tuh-tuh tuh-tuh

Drop me a phat beat, I'm about to harm Pikachu.

i imagine fry's head going around that pineapple making like a record scratchin noise. and the beat is phat.

wiki wiki = record scratching onomatopoeia
It's also what runs through my head when I click the link.

i was thinking more of a jeeyrRRuh eeyrRRUH

"Noticeably F.A.T.? Rewind the tape!"

Your avatar was my reaction to reading this. (Except I was Reginald.)

If you drink enough, "Steve DeNeuve" is an anagram for "deus ex machina."

And if you rearrange the letters in "Heaven" it spells DEATH'S DESIGN

Spoiler alert.

That lock has SEEN things

All those blood stains and scratch marks inside the van are gonna kill the resale value.

A nice van is a thing which you do not plan on reselling.

you don't resell a serial killer van. You dump it in the ocean or something. Maybe with Teodor still in it.

I have observed a strong North American prejudice against vans, and particularly a notion that they are driven by murderers. Did a famous murderer have a famous van?

All of them.

The Van Patten family is insipid.

Charles Manson reputedly had a VW bus he drove around in for a while in California. That's a lot like a van.

In the South a van has no such connotation. And by N. America do you mean Canada too?

as a canadian, yes i'm scared of those rapist-vans that i see driving around. but i think of rape rather than murder, dunno why.

in the South a van means mexcans

That's a good question, really. I don't think there was ever really a well-publicized serial killer who drove a van. Maybe we have all absorbed The Silence of The Lambs van into our collective consciousness.

it's not the vans. It's the people. People in the U.S. are crazy. Crazy people and vans = serial killing. There's just less crazy people in other countries.

I'd normally disagree with this simplistic assumption, but aiu has a van and is pretty crazy, so I'm counting on his experience.

Not all vans are for rapists/murderers. For instance, a van with a mural of a Valkyrie riding a dragon would not be for a murderer.
It's more the windowless, white, nondescript vans that have that connotation.

I think johnnyrocker has a van with a mural of a Valkyrie riding a dragon

he's trying to put us off the scent.

johhnyrocker, do NOT defend vans! I did NOT raise you low-class.

You'd think the prejudice would be worse in Britain what with the Yorkshire ripper and the Moors murders.

But no. The worst prejudice van drivers have here is that they piss in bottles and beat it to Page 3. Which isn't quite as bad really.

what is up with page 3? Seems to be a European thing. Here we have nudity, and we have newspapers. The two do not combine. Page 3 is for sappy human interest stories.

Page 3 is the kids section

not in Denmark...

...well, maybe. They have a very relaxed attitude to sex education in Scandinavia.

To the right buyer they actually increase the resale value substantially. Dried blood, for instance, is much like wine in this way.

having wine splashed all over the inside of your car makes it more valuable too?

depends. was it splashed as the victim struggled against the inescapable clutches of death?

According to Yentl - it's used to prove you were a virgin.

extra value if some gets on the mayor.

BREAK THE GLASS ON THE BACK DOOR WINDOW WITH YOUR FACE COME ON WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE

This guy is at the top of my list for people I want to be locked in a van with. I want to SEE this shit.

"Cryztal the windows roll down what the hell"

"Now we gotta get your knocked-out, bleeding-faced mess to the hospital with rain coming in the windows. what the hell!"

I looked good and hard at the picture of the van's back doors. I saw nothing resembling handles to lower them. So then I was like, "Shit man, just bash your skull in that and get the fuck outta Dodge."

Joke unrelated to Nice Pete's van. Joke related to other vans.

I'd only do it if a serial killer/some other type intending to do harm upon my person locked me in a van. Needing stitches on my face > getting stabbed.

Cryztal we are holding you completely accountable for a thing you said on the Internet.

This man is a thinking man.

A man, a plan, a murder van.
nav red rum analp anama.

Aztec?

As if you parsed that last bit as "analp anama."

ANAL PANAMA: Van Halen gay porn.

The...only way out is up!

everything is possible in a nice van

In planning this murder, Nice Pete accounted for everything.

Everything except the "Hecho en Mexico" stamp on the van's engine block.

No.

NO.

yes?

about to go on a magical trip "On the great space nice-van"

ughh i am too friendly for you snowden. i will always be too friendly for you.

Teodor should be safe until the tube socks and wifebeater is put on.

Let's all look at Nice Pete's mouth in panel 15.

Okay

Now what?

shhhhh we're looking at the mouth

Ahhh chubbies for this thread.
(those that DESERVED it)

Oh wait. You have a her avi. Guess I'll give you one too.

Oops. Been too friendly.

I predict that Philippe will somehow rescue Teodor, reuniting them in the most dramatic way possible. And then, hugs!!!!

Or perhaps not, as Teodor will be bloody and naked, and that's something of a thing.

HugPower Rescue Force!

Er yeah, Nice Pete? Hello? Hi, Troy from the Assetbar-
Quick question I just wanna throw out there, if I could-
If you can't see them, how are you going to know when they escape through a back window?
#SHRUGS SHOULDERS# Just wonderin'.


Please don't kill me.....

The lesser known Isaac Hayes song title

chocolate salty deathtrap-vans?
the theme from Sha (deathtrap-van) ft ?

Bumpy's Lament, bruj

Teodor's had enough opportunities to escape, such as when he was left alone to leave a bowel movement on the lawn, or left alone when Nice Pete went into Denny's. In either case he could've ran away, but presumably the problem is that Pete will find him unless it ends on his own terms. I'm liking this arc because I want to know how Teodor negotiates his way to safety, or to see how Nice Pete's night moves forward.

Oh shit, T. Oh damn.

Also, but damn, that is some amount of cranial matter stuck on that lock.

...the elderly homosexual's?


Jesus damn, am I the only person who thought it was gum?

No you're not

I am now traumatized

You...you're more traumatized by the thought that it might be gum, as opposed to brains ?
I suddenly gained a whole new level of respect for you. And by respect I mean WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

maybe he thought it was gum as in what your teeth reside in not what they chew.

The jawbone connected to the maxofacillary bone. Dat shit all connected to the skull bone...brain....Woh!

You guys are going full retard.

I meant that I thought it was Gum too, but I am now traumatized by knowing that someone got their brains smeared on that lock, and it was probably Nathan

Chubbied for the avatar

Outside the van the sky is black. The back windows of the van show gray. It is my position that these windows are merely indentations in the solid rear doors. Pete has painted them gray just to instill false hope in nearsighted victims.

If you wish to debate this topic with me - be warned! I too am ambidestros stick fighter.

yeah but your spelling sucks, so you wouldn't pass the vocab test, mr. ambidestros.

He's still calling him Darren so maybe this will end like all those old murders we used to do in high school, right guys?

Shit just got real.

I think if I had been Onstad, doing the details for the lock would've been my favorite part.

Can Nice Pete be killed off at the end of this strip? Creeps me out every time he's in a story.

Is it just my damned eyes playing Andy Larson-esque trick on me, or did Nathan The Elderly Homosexual somehow get taller post mortem?

Can we be completely certain that Nathan's really dead?

We cannot....but I will continue to wish that it is so.

Not because I dislike elderly homosexuals, or anything, but because I dislike people named Nathan. Particularly those that, apparently, grow 8 inches upon 'slipping loose the mortal coil.'(**insert lowbrow, engorgement humor......HERE**)

Nathan prefers to be called the Oggmonster, anyways.

It's more of a mid-mortem kind of thing with him right now.

Nice Pete is totally miffed at the assumption that he might fail the vocabulary test. He may be a serial killer but he is not of low mind.

OT: Listen, rest of the world, if you want Americans to take soccer (soccer) seriously, at some point you're going to have to let us count one of the soccer goals we score.

A comment left by fady was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by smaconi, relaxing, Scorpio_nadir)

Shut the FUCK up! How dare you besmirch America's God-given right to dominate everything on earth.

It's all ours: pop culture, natural resources, political hegemony. If we choose to take over your faggoty "no hands" game, then you best let us.

Don't be fatuous.

-- Jeffrey

And damn if we won't bring hands to the game if we feel like it!

(...sorry France)

Don't cry for France me, Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don't keep your distance

Have I said too much?
There's nothing more I can think of to say to you

I am there.

And the second to last defender is over there.

And the 2nd official is blind.

And I am the winner.

this shit has nothing to do with achewood. get your own message board.

AND MY VUVUZELA! BLATTTTTTTTT!!!

BLATTTTTTTTT

And you have passed the second place runner.

And you are in second place.

The second place runner is now the third place runner.

And the first place runner is still in first.

really getting killed by nice pete is the best thing that could happen to teodor.

It's the old old story, bear meets murderer, murderer and bear go to Taco Bell, murderer plays high school prank, bear is hurt, murderer hurts bear more, murderer goes to Denny's naked and picks up an old homosexual, murderer kills homosexual, Taco Bell, and Bear! How many times have we seen that story?

before this? zero.

Nine fucking years and the strip only gets more entertaining.

Nice Pete: animal transport specialist of the dark side

Nice Pete makes me never want to read Achewood again.

Standard screw heads on the locking mechanism -- a 1.5 (out of 10) on the MacGyver scale.

9.5 if you're a naked stuffed animal without a Swiss army knife.

Man, this story arc is going to give me nightmares for a while.

A comment left by gladi8orrex was marked lame too many times and excluded. (marked lame by woneLOVE, Null, lonestar52)

they're in your mouth

fuck you, stupid

fuck you silly

(I will)

when my dick go in(s),
it aint cum out til-
the sperm run down ya shins,
n im just grinnin' 'n beamin',
gloggin' ya butt plumbin'-wit-semen,
cuz thas how i go in, on ya knees,
knees deep--waist deep BALLS DEEPS
so much blood from the bust-a-ya black cherry--
bury me alive i aint sign up for this gruesome shit
watchin ya eyes glaze over in a shock-fit

was u struck by lightning?
light at enda the tunnel brightening,
it aint freightening, it calming ,
let the waves of jizz wash over you, your face--,
embalming
sendin' you off nice, read ya last rites
dont fight it, dont fight it
drift off now, rest n wallow
ya ass is a storage silo
for my dead kids
pour one out

ya tomb is ya bed
stained wit jizz n feces
u fuck to me again
u gon' rest in pieces

go hard or go home i said FUCK. YOU. son of bitch

Man, if you read this closely, there's a hint of homo-eroticism.

Yeah, a real crypto-Maverick-Iceman-volleyball thing.

Yo.

Onstad.

Fuck you too.

oh god oh god

Is... is Nice Pete... the winner ?

Not yet. They haven't even made it to semi-finals!!

I feel as though it's still possible that Nice Pete was meant to take Teodore on a nice trip around town so that the rest of our beloved cast could throw together a great will-smith-themed birthday party.

I don't like this arc.

What're you - a goddamn unicorn?

He is Worst Unicorn

Just for comparison- can you give us an arc you did like?

If I had to guess it would be any arc where a character we like is not tortured and killed in a van

This comic remind me of when I watched The Collector. No one told me what it was about, they just said it was awesome and totally a mindfuck. I sat and watched it through, waiting for something to bend my brain and make it worth it, but it ended up just being 2 hours of people being tortured in the worst possible ways.

Now, I don't mean to say I think this arc sucks (like The Collector), it jut brings back that familiar feeling of being stoned and watching a fucking disturbing mess unfold before your eyes when you were expecting something else entirely.

Yeah, but this is Teodor...

The rear-view mirror is also the handle of a cage door.
Of course, I would expect this out of a murderer-cat.

remember back in the day, when all comment threads began with some cock still writing the alt-text, then everyone just bickered and called each other FAAAAAAAAG until Dr Manflesh swooped in and made it all worth scrolling past?

you're obviously a fag

Will Darren Wilson lose at basketball to Andy Wilson? Did Mayner's chinchillas burn? Will the late night homosexual Denny's patron regain consciousness? Will assetbar get this "Soap" reference?

Tune in next week for an all new episode of "Achewood"!

All this, and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 Minutes.

Really, Teodor? You just *now* notice the padlock?

No, I think he was looking at it and saying to himself, "Oh, so that's what that's for..."

What I like most about Achewood is that it mirrors many things. There are many story arcs that mirror my life to such a degree that I have scanned for hidden cameras (but Onstad's technology is better than mine).

Nice Pete, though, is like a horrid cold chunk of cheese embedded in a hot slice of pizza. It not only kills any appetite, it makes one hesitate about any or all pizzas. In fact, it makes pizza a matter of endurance rather than fun.

If your idea of fun is sucking on razor blades, you will like Nice Pete. If you simply like life, and enjoy the play of thought against thought, you will hate Nice Pete, and wish Ray had killed him months ago.

You can't undo the future, though. Sorry for being way internetless. Sometimes you've just got to, though.

huh?

Eh, Onstad is just having the realization that his child will likely die alone and manipulated so he's working out his frustrations here.

i liek how the plast bit makes 0 gd sense

OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH SHIT!

Darren is fucked!

I have just finished watching Season 1 of Dexter and this arc is genuinely upsetting me.

I was really pleasantly surprised to see this strip. I don't want to jinx anything, but it really brought be back to my early days reading Achewood- confused, excited, expecting one thing but getting another...

Despite the fact that it appears that T is going to die, I am really pleased with this arc, and this strip in particular.

I suspect Steve DeNeuve is going to come to Teodor's rescue.

A Zell and Cory tragedy tag team is also not impossible. Or maybe they died I don't know those guys were really depressing.

I suspect that Steve DeNeuve was always really Andy Larson wearing a Steve DeNeuve flesh-mask.

DeNeuve is EVIL. Guarangaddamtee it. If he shows up for anything, it's going to be to help Nice Pete clean up the van after he's through with his 'vocabulary test.'

You know what I love in this arc? The real sense of malice and danger it's got going on. Achewood fears not the rough ass chuckles.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't so bright for Teodor to pass up the chance to get out of the van and go to Denny's...

Because he'd be safe in Denny's?
Do you think Denny's is safer than a dentist's office?
I do not.

These are some of their hands...

And some fries.


And some dipping sauce.
$8.99

The chinchilla farmers are going to save Teodors ass, figuratively and literally. Just sayin'.

oh, darren
i am so disappointed in you
you have forced the script and thus my hand

it's fine
i took the liberty of preparing a shallow grave
in advance


Warning: not haikus.

a little boy died
warning on the package said
may contain peanuts

screaming through the void
fragments of my heart and lungs
decorate the stars

I like this one. I hope its yours.

...though it isn't void if you or stars are in it. I still like it.

locked in with homo
teodor thinks of the cure
murder by nice pete

combing through wreckage
one beady eye still looks out
this teddy is dead

i will say this once
haiku is overrated
enjoy the fucking poem

Hope bereaves a van
Only shutters and padlocks
Bear: dreading, broken

oh, funny funny.
to murder is beautiful
I haven't been caught

half step, movin' up.
check mate, man down, check your mate
pulse is gone, *so'm i

***so am*

drop a deuce, let loose
screaming in pain, on the thrown.
i knew i'd die alone

teordrel, on the floor
moments before death: we watch
teordrel, no more

(i like this one. not to be biased or anything)

i fucked up the first bit im sorry. omit something of your choosing. you know what i mean

i fucked up :X

map quest, do the rest
i don' need no help drivin'.
hella skilled at'dis

i did 4 like stereo,
aint no step for a strider,
ain't no jump for mario,
i no shit {i]i an insider[/i]

what i write may not be pleasin',
for whatever reason,
cant deny i got enthusiasm
like brendan gleeson

i do sorta run outta inspiration easy tho, i m not maji poet by ne measure o imagination i do wat i can n ima let u no ib it lands me a wife or not. k im out

the bear's blood, lotus
splotches on rusted metal
his hands cold, wintry.

You're all fucking welcome for the springboard.

::motorcycles away::

nice-on-water thinks
we're all ungrateful bastards
i don't give two shits

It's not that, fatty
I just want to let you know
Who started it all.

>B]

M. Night Shyamalanonstad here just keeps this ball of twists and turns rolling along till dawn

Wat a tweeeeeest

Chubby for good taste.

Or terrible taste, you know how it goes.

Ok, after loving achewood for so many years (not to mention pictures for sad children and hark a vagrant) I've started putting some of my own on a blog. If you want to check it out, you can do so here: https://tryingmybestcomic.blogspot.com/

Too bad "man, why you even got to do a thing" has already been used as a title...

your art is terrible. you would be better off using clip art

Thanks for your input. Yeah, beautiful art is not really in the cards.

Lots of people were bad at art but went on to be famous. Take, for example, Hitler!

(I am kidding you are at least trying to express creativity through an art form and that's already more than most of society)

no I think I would be okay with Nazis causing WWIII if they would eliminate pinkoats stick figure art.

I am serious about the clip art. Or partner with someone to do the drawing. Don't let your inability to draw stop you. maybe you need better tools, like a drawing pad.

his art is better than clip-art b/c it is his own and thats punk as hell =:-[

that's not what your boy friend said about your genatalia

guys, before you debate with ratacattt about pinkoats's art any further, i'd just like to point out that pinkoats is a brand new member who identifies as an old female and has instantly read 476 strips.

ha, an old female? I'm 26. Yeah, I've been reading since 2004, but I've never really been good at forums before. You've caught me, I just hit random comic on achewood over and over when I'm trying to fall asleep.

wingspan is implying that you are me, pinkoats, because I have an automatic achwood reader here: https://midconet.net/achewoodtest
if you don't read at least a hundred or so achewood comics, it won't let you make more than one post per strip. So, it's suspicious that you've read so many strips since you account was created, as that's the sort of thing I might do.

pinkoattt?

Yeah, you may be right. I could do much better art by hand and then scan it in, but I thought it was maybe kind of funny how bad it is.

it'll be funny to some people I'm sure, but maybe those people are kind of dumb. I'm not saying you're dumb for thinking it might be funny. You might be thinking it's funny in a sort of Tom Greenish out there sort of way, whereas, a lot of people who think Tom Green is funny are just morons who don't get the subtle aspects of what he does.

Chapter XIV
In which Notorious Troll RATACATTT proves to be a surprisingly honest and sensitive CRITIC. Also, DR. WOODBURN makes a surprising discovery and offends an Old Friend.

i have a comic where all the characters are drawn by me outlining my penis in different stages of erection. i have yet to post it!

these web comics are hilarious

all my friends love them

make more please

love plummet

Thanks, y'all. I'll definitely keep making some more.

That "click to enlarge" thing stopped working after one strip.

Give it a rest for the night, you'll probably be able to do it again by tomorrow afternoon, sooner if you're young.

works for me

Man, Nathan hasn't had a night this bad since he dropped his phone in a Hungarian party toilet.

is that like, a special thing? Or is any toilet at a hungarian party a hungarian party toilet?

I... could not bring myself to read this blog far enough to find out, mostly because I do not care.

https://www.hungarianpartytoilet.com/

https://m.assetbar.com/achewood/uuaczZZMD

Guys America lost I'm sad see :(

It's okay Nick. They did pretty good considering one guy was a donkey with a helmet and another had a wooden leg.

Not sure we're watching the same thing.

Dude I just read where Lionel Messi promised Noel Gallagher of Oasis he would do everything he could to defeat Germany to make Oasis happy.

Why do you like Oasis, Lionel? It is silly to like Oasis. I think that bodes very ill for Argentina.

That's disappointing because I've thrown in my metaphorical lot with Argentina.

Do not make statues to the living.

Maradona disgraced the statue.
Messi disgraced the statue.
...etc

Messi messed it up ha!

Time for T to stand his ground. Of course he won't.

Oh, will we finally get rid of Nice Pete? Hope so. I hate this character.

This storyline rules it's like Onstad locked his two least compelling characters in a room and forced them to be interesting or fight each other to death before they could leave.

...Almost exactly like that, except with a van instead of a room, I guess.

hey, where did thegoblins go? .......oh. oh right.
yeh, i forgot about that....so...if the van is rockin'
it's either a anthropomorphic bear being eviscerated, or thegoblins having sex... hmmm...in either case...
well, oh hell! let's knock. what could go wrong?

thegoblins biting through the van door and chewing your head off for daring to interrupt her mating session

the joke is that her teeth are huge

...What?

Nice Pete's fly-killing advice is total bullshit. I tested it so many times.