In this penultimate installment: my probationary acceptance into the Life; the specter of inevitability trudges back and forth through our kitchen, daring anyone to make eye contact.
2024-08-22 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Ray, Since you aren’t making music anymore can you comment on the feeling of being “afraid” of retirement? I look forward to the day I have enough of a stash to tell people to fuck off and I’m finally enjoying life. What am I missing? Joshua
Dear Joshua,
I ain’t retired from music! Are you...
2024-08-21 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Okay, all the places this story arc didn't go — too complicated, too long, too predictable, too traditional — are in here somewhere. My favorite thing that I couldn't use is the bit about Philippe.
2024-08-16 19:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
My complete "note dump" on all the planning and unused lines/directions for this arc posts in the Author's and In-Universe tiers at noon today!
The slippery thing about luck is that it's like Shakespeare's Walnut — you can't know the nature of it (say, good or bad) until you have it in context, and even then, depend...
2024-08-16 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
In this installment: health makes me beautiful, I ponder my triumphant return to the gene pool, and I have fantasies.
2024-08-14 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi Ray, heading to Vegas for a nerd convention (the kind that RB might go to, to brush up on his skills at deleting Yahoo dating profiles) and am concerned, what's the best place on the strip both for class and quality, as well as protection against nerds? Should I just bring a burner and use such as unwired mp3 players to listen to my t...
2024-08-13 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Strip 0077 was not actually called that, but that's how it feels, doesn't it, friends? So good to see two old Smuckleses floatin' through the Egyptian Math Portal together at last, goin' to live that life that two good old rascals should have. So good to see Roast Beef play a bass (the glue of music) and bond father and grandson. Next week in ma...
2024-08-09 19:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
As always, experimental but ultimately unused panels, as well as other pieces of my artboard lagan, will post at noon Pacific today in the Author's and In-Universe Tiers.
My fiancée was recently away for a weekend bachelorette party, and I remained happily at home, where I would quickly dissipate into sublime bachelorhoo...
2024-08-09 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Some quality time with Sammy Hagar Davis, Jr; Aaron gets caught in the crosshairs.
2024-08-08 17:39:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello Ray I've been spending a lot of money on my vinyl collection recently and I've got a sort of concern about it. Like I really enjoy looking at the album art and the whole ritual of placing the record on the turntable and letting it do its thing. But given how cheap and simple a Spotify subscription is, I'm starting to wonder if I'm ...
2024-08-07 17:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post
I couldn't have Ray and his grandfather discuss their respective dookie AND keep the joke about "a study on gas in the male," so the latter won out, especially because it ties in with the song about the postman not ringing. (Which is a symbolic joke about not having gas at one of the few right times to have gas.)
2024-08-02 19:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
In a move designed for the real Heads, I’ve hopped over to a more suitable format for this week's installment. Sometimes the fellows just have so much to say that speech bubbles are the wrong tool to pull off the pegboard.
If you enjoy this kind of wall-breaking, rule-destroying update, you will enjoy The Great Outdoor Fight storyline (...
2024-08-02 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostIt's that time again: post your advice questions for Ray here, and he'll answer them as soon as he has good wisdom / a lot of exogenous moon juice in his veins! No matter what category of ick you're dealing with, Ray will help you if he finds your question compelling enough, or if his flight is delayed long enough and he's already eaten everythi...
2024-08-01 14:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post
In this installment our cast grows by aged pixies, nursery-rhyme poltroons, and a manager with revolting breath.
2024-07-31 23:14:44 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Ray, Lately I seem to be the victim of a sort of self-induced insomnia. There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day! So by the time I reach the end of it I don't want to just lie down and get to the next one. I want to relax and spend my free time. However this invariably ends up with me staying [up] late, sleeping in later,...
2024-07-31 18:36:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Since the answer wasn't profoundly important, I used ChatGPT to answer a question about cocaine usage. It occurs to me that it may seem cute how little I know about cocaine usage. I can own this. My experience with the substance, at least to my knowledge, is limited to the following instances:
1. A bachelor party where a fellow on cocaine...
2024-07-26 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
(Clippings from this strip publish at noon in the In-Universe and Author's tiers!)
Please join us as we pause from the current storyline to enjoy a playful, old-school type of strip that we haven't seen in a while! (I thought it would be more fun if everybody had their own Cursed Blues Name as they read along to the rest of the ar...
2024-07-26 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
If you're interested in this shirt design, please comment!
We're getting things in shape for a relaunch of the Achewood shop -- new goods, new shipping partner (meaning actual pros will ship all your orders), new energy!
I designed this shirt to pass as a real-world classic hardcore metal shirt, and modified a...
2024-07-25 18:33:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Hot on the heels of installment one: I get taken under a "real" cook's wing!
2024-07-23 22:28:10 +0000 UTC View Post
About five years ago, facing a health issue and in need of medical insurance, I took a job as a cook in an upscale grocery store — upscale on the face of it, anyway. Kitchens will be kitchens, no matter how clearly you are instructed to smile and wash your hands.
I thought it would be the kind of gig where you can leave work at wor...
2024-07-20 21:16:00 +0000 UTC View Post
The advanced reader will also note that Ray and Antonyne swing their arms identically, in the floopy Smuckles way, when walking. That is a separate curse which will not be explored in this storyline.
2024-07-19 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Outtakes post separately at noon in In-Universe and Author's Tiers!
I've included all the Antonyne Cheops Smuckles (aka Rustmouth Chafings) backstory strips in this update, so that you might enjoy a refresher in his curious history.
In even briefer summary: Antonyne was once the bluest of the ...
2024-07-19 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Oni Press — before the great Belly-Uppiting Act of 2021, which killed the Achewood Complete Canon project, among a very many other things — had intended to release a paperback version of The Great Outdoor Fight at Comicon. This is one of the directions I had taken with new cover art; also included here is a very Téodor set of typography tes...
2024-07-17 18:06:08 +0000 UTC View Post
READER: I'm usually doin' three answers per post. But is that too much reading for you? I like your experience of me to be crisp and punchy, not some big boring-ass obligation. Tell me in the comments! Maybe I could just do one answer a few times a week, instead. Anyhow, HERE...WE...GOOOOO! (Pronounced "Go" not "Goo") 2024-07-15 19:50:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Until now, we have known precious little about the life of America's second-most cursed bluesman: Antonyne Cheops Smuckles, aka Rustmouth Chafings — father of Ramses Luther Smuckles, aka Rodney Leonard Stubbs, and grandfather of Raymond Quentin Smuckles, aka Ray. Legend has it he died at Ramses and Sondra's wedding, so he wouldn't have me...
2024-07-12 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Outtakes and scratchboard notes post at noon today in the In-Universe and Author's tiers.
I recently realized that this is actually part five of the arc, but I cannot be too bothered by that clerical error, as it is fairly on-brand. The astute student of the form will interpret this to mean that the first installment (the ...
2024-07-12 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostI am excited to announce that I have made a fifty-second, single-camera video in which I demonstrate a recipe from Achewood Cookbook 2, for a decadent chocolate mousse that isn't full of horrible sugars.
As it is my first video, please suggest anything you think would make it a more useful or bearable experience! (Such as...
2024-07-11 20:58:48 +0000 UTC View Post
I was fishing about in the archives for some artwork for this week's strip, and wound up in completely unrelated waters. This often happens when I go digging in the archives, which are organized about as well as Earth's orbiting debris field.
Anyhow, I chanced upon this late-2006 follow-up to the promised backstory of Molly Sanders (which...
2024-07-08 19:41:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Todd's urine had a different sound when knocking at the door of the magical underworld this time. Why? Also, the purist will note that Rickenbacker basses and guitars are only made in the USA, meaning that Lyle has been playing a forgery all these years. Is Téodor's Rickenbacker-type guitar a forgery as well? Or did he live in poverty for five ...
2024-07-05 19:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Outtakes from this strip run at noon today in the Author's and In-Universe tiers. Upgrade today to read those and so, so much more!
Much in the Achewood world is loaded upon the shoulders of Mexican Magical Realism, it is true. However, it is far from the only portal to the unseen. Do you remember the time the b...
2024-07-05 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post