There was zero clipboard content generated by strip 0100 so I picked a random date and, happily, there was a strip for that day, which I could mine instead.
It was very satisfying to mindlessly type “05042006” and have it be not just any strip, but the strip where Ray has Airwolf, and accidentally launches a missile at Philippe. Pleas...
2024-12-13 20:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
The second image is a preview of what the usual noontime "making-of-this-strip" drawing board looks like — always available to tiers 2 & 3!
Thank you for being here, for helping Achewood get to this milestone — one-hundred straight comics. Two years ago this wasn't even an idea, and...
2024-12-13 18:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostHello, Author's Tier!
My friend Lev Grossman, brilliant author of The Magicians trilogy, as well as the new and stupendous (I've actually read it) Arthurian novel The Bright Sword, as well as the film The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, wrote ...
2024-12-12 19:14:02 +0000 UTC View Post
[Dear Readers: Ray went long answering his first letter this week, so we're publishing it as a standalone piece. The usual three-letter format will return next week, because a lot of people need help out there!]
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Who's on your mixtape list for that special lady? —Tracy W., Spain...
This strip made me miss Cornelius. I feel a Cornelius Friday coming on for Strip 0100. Whoah! There have been ninety-nine new Achewood strips! There was a time not so long ago I was certain such a thing would never again come to pass in my lifetime. I didn't specifically thank you for making this all possible at Thanksgiving — my timing's...
2024-12-06 20:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Extras from this strip post at noon in tiers 2 & 3!
In panel four, Roast Beef is referring to the popular copulatory position you may know as "missionary." Why is it called missionary? When I was a very young boy, this term led me to assume it was the position in which priests had sex, because it was more "godly...
2024-12-06 18:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post
"Spoiler alert. Ray Smuckles ain't too much on top of his science fiction, but he does privately wonder if AI can finally invent a version of him that don't blubber." —R.B. Kazenzakis, interviewer and transcriber
Enjoy this chat between old friends Roast Beef "Road Toad" Kazenzakis and Ray Smuckles, as they discuss the f...
2024-12-04 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
This December, your purchases are expected to ship within 48 hours, via Insured USPS Priority or Registered Mail. Email chris at achewood dot com with any inquiries, or send a message here for faster response. Thank you for browsing this new collection!
2024-12-03 18:01:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Click here to shop at 10am PST! (password protected until then)
I've spent the last year building up a fresh collection of pieces, in styles old and new. Since it's the holidays, I'll be shipping all art orders within 48 hours.
I'm sharing thi...
2024-12-03 05:49:42 +0000 UTC View Post
(Okay, okay, here's the verse I was mulling over when asking why Bible passages are always freighted with metaphors. I ultimately decided to keep this discussion out of the author's notes for strip 0098, but now I am quite curious to discover how many Biblical scholars are out there in Cho Acres.)
Just for fun, let's have a ...
2024-11-29 20:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
As always, excised panels, rough drafts, and unused gems of dialogue from this strip post at noon in tiers 2 & 3!
It struck me when all was said and done in this strip that it might contain an enfolded metaphorical narrative. You can't toss in a crucifix without inviting speculation of a deeper meaning, amirite? And wh...
2024-11-29 18:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post
For our wedding rehearsal dinner in September, Hayden asked what sort of outfit would be appropriate. I said something upscale but not formal. He sent a snapshot of him wearing a sheer long-sleeve blouse that revealed all of his tattoos, thoracic jewelry, and underarm mammalia. While I want to encourage his individuality, and I know how much peo...
2024-11-28 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
If you are enjoying the Sauce Diaries Project, please say so in the comments, or just tap Like! Otherwise, I will assume everybody has grown tired of watching me preen around.
Careful reader Douglas "The Legal Regal Beagle" Wykstra mentioned the "casual Friday" concept in reply to an earlier Sauce post, and it must h...
2024-11-22 22:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
The Christmas holiday looms near at the horizon, which means I am busy gathering oddball lines and visuals — like a squirrel with his walnuts — for the Twelve Days of Christmas mini-strip run. Or however it shapes up this year. In the above scratchboard (which lives off to the right of the board where I assemble the final strip) you wil...
2024-11-22 20:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Early drafts of this strip appear in tiers 2 & 3 at noon! This month, the upper tiers also featured Ray's Place, an interview with Cornelius about the afterlife, several installments of my new personal fashion column, Roast Beef's post-election interview with Philippe, a look inside my art studio (including dozens of pieces), and muc...
2024-11-22 18:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
One of my ongoing quests/hobbies is to recreate the best of the 2024-11-22 04:14:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Ray, what’s your stance on having children? Who, when, where, why or why not, how many, etc. —Sam J.
Sam,
Consider it like this: folks been havin’ children in every wacked-out terrible situation imaginable for all of history. (In a cave on a cliff while a hungry eagle is shrieking in the hole; behind the ...
2024-11-21 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Why do you dress the way you do? I like chatting with people about this topic, so please comment. Okay, on with today's piece:
I have yet to receive so much derision for my vanity that I bury my entire closet in the back yard, so here is another installment of the Sauce Diaries. Why am I doing this? I hope to address the ...
2024-11-20 22:00:35 +0000 UTC View Post
So many people* replied to yesterday's post begging for photographs of me wearing clothing** that I gave in to the pressure and put these together. You will have noticed in my various social media incarnations that I am not much given to selfies, or any general thirsty celebration of my physical form, but when you take dead aim at ...
2024-11-19 23:07:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Good morning. It is 11:24am as I begin this, this momentary diversion on the road to whatever it is you and I are doing this afternoon. This is probably nothing more than a journal entry; or is it a powerful and precious shield against the intrusion of yet another news cycle into your already-vexed and -incredulous temporal lobe? But there I...
In this installment of the "What is Shangri-La" series, Roast Beef interviews the one denizen of Achewood who might actually have some advanced and well-considered ideas on the matter.
Previous interviewees have been Ray, Peter H. "Nice Pete" Cropes, and the unlikely duo of Philippe + Lyle.
2024-11-16 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
As you can see, this script landed on the page in near-final form, with minimal fiddling as it was worked through the strip production process. The bulk of the work this week involved inventing how Bensington Butters and Akkolade (particularly Akkolade) look from multiple angles. This is not what I am good at. At first I feared Akkolade could
The workspace/draft version of this strip posts at noon in Tiers 2 & 3!
There are two main things I noticed about this particular strip.
One is that no one mentions the graphic design Ray displays for his "The Echelons" concept. This has to infuriate Ray, as it clearly is the product of a specific vision, and lik...
2024-11-15 18:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
AUSTIN, TX (Achewood News Wire) — A Texas Cho's storage unit was recently burgled to the tune of all his life's many precious things, excepting these three Cocoa Buddies, and a few other small pieces. It is gut-wrenching to read, and to then walk one's self empathically through a similar predicament. It warmed my hea...
2024-11-14 02:20:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Roast Beef checks in with Philippe after the American Presidential election, and they hatch a plan to unite America.
2024-11-09 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
This is a pretty good peek behind the scenes, in my humble estimation — First you see (on slide 2, sorry) as the idea changes radically from the initial Big Game Hunter direction, and then you can see the way words shift and morph between the framed-out version here and the final version.
2024-11-08 20:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Two pages of unused panels and scripts from this strip post in Tiers 2 & 3 at noon, as does a new Roast Beef + Philippe interview on Saturday at 10am Pacific!
I will admit to writing this several days before the 2024 American Presidential election, so it is easy and accurate for me to claim this has nothing to d...
2024-11-08 18:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
®@¥, I am a man of humble muscle mass who is looking to change that. The problem is that I have basically no idea what to do in a gym. Do you suggest taking group classes so someone can tell me what to do, or should I just watch some YouTube videos and figure it out? —Brian D.
Brian!
Man, do not get ...
2024-11-07 18:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Several weeks ago, the dear Lord in his Vaulted Elysium sat upon his crystal throne, an elbow upon the great Knob of his knee, a fist beneath his pensive chin. (From which flowed a white beard.) Unsure what to do with Chris on the morning after the American election day, he spun through his cylindrical index of Bothers & Agitations - Min...
2024-11-06 22:24:28 +0000 UTC View Post
This strip was almost entirely created on the original artboard, so there is not a lot of evidence of its creation, other than the large trace, and my recollection that instead of a "hippo's ass freckle" Todd had originally referred to himself as a "polka dot." But people do not feel sad for polka dots, so I changed it.
I am also running ...
2024-11-01 19:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post