Achewood

Leg Day; Prada-Spotting in the Clouds

2:30am: You aren’t asleep because jet lag or midnight gelato or both roused you from a dream about not being able to find your car at your own wedding. The hillsides are alive with howling, yowling, baying hounds in tempo prestissimo. They freak each other out in simultaneous call and response, and this continues unbroken until dawn, when you look up the phrase “the dogs bark all night” (i cani abbaiano tutta la notte) so you can say it to Salvatore, the charming little old Italian man who manages the lemon grove and ...

Ray in Australia: Part 2 of 6

In 2007 an Australian journalist named Tim Blair commissioned me, writing as Ray Smuckles, to compose a series of columns for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Ray, true to form, didn’t really ask what Mr. Blair wanted from the partnership, and randomly submitted these pieces over the course of the next several weeks. Remarkably, they actually ran, but as they no longer exist on the Tele’s site, I reprint them here for your enjoyment. 

(Edit: Thanks to alert reader Jarret for pointing out that many of these Au...

0084 — Honeymoon Shorties #1/6

For the next two weeks, while we're away on our honeymoon, I'm running three new strips a week, M-W-F. These are ultra-classic, single-row Achewood strips like you saw in 2001. 

I'm posting three a week instead of the usual one-on-Friday because, frankly, posting short strips makes me feel insecure about providing enough value for you, even though I love how this set of six captures the old absurdist flavor of original Achewood. It's me, not you. 

Why am I doing short strips at all? B...

Death at the Seashore, Tobía the Dog

Sunday, leaving Ercolano

Last night we were the only tourists at a bright and lively locals restaurant filled mainly with older couples. The food was fine but the people-watching was Michelin-grade; tables full of bangled wrists, sheer tops, stuffed trouser-fronts, hairpieces, discreet vaping, and towering bowls of mussels entertained us for nearly two hours. It was an education to see Italians in their sixties outpace us (in the slow sense) and finish a Saturday dinner at 11:45pm.

Today we wept to leave behind ...

Mishap in the air! Mishap on the Cobbles of Ercolano!

Perhaps the most noteworthy event of our flight from Portland to London was discovering that our Premium Economy seats, which actually reclined to within one degree of where the body understands that sleep may commence, were not so thoughtfully engineered that popping back wouldn’t topple the stubby wineglass of the lady behind you, causing a great deal of distress for both parties. I only did it because the person in front of me had swung theirs all the way back, to no inconvenience or injury in my quarters. Startled words that edged accu...

0083b — Misbegotten Keystrokes & Other B-Sides

Lyle's song at the end...I know it's 2024 and the rap songs playing over the loudspeakers at Starbucks are bullish on coprophagia, but it felt a bit extreme for this gentle universe. If there ever is an Achewood musical, though, (which is unlikely, because I despise musicals) it will be given the badass title PRISON AT THE DIVE BAR RIOT. It's an edgy phrase which can't be easily parsed, which quickly qualifies it as pop culture gold.

0083 — House Rules

As is custom, the bloopers, outtakes, & unused lines from this strip will post at noon in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers. Upgrade for a month and get access to over 100 other pieces!  

For the next two weeks, while we're away on our honeymoon, I'm running three strips a week, M-W-F! These will be ultra-classic, single-row-format Achewood strips like you saw in year one (and of which you also saw twelve last Christmas holiday).

I'm posting three a week instead of the usual one-on-Frid...

My cat was cold bleppin’ (Leaving USA)

Chos of Woes! As promised, here is the second installment of our honeymoon diaries. We are at the gate at PDX, next to one of those people who listens to videos out loud on their phone in a crowded place. Can you imagine life as such a creature?

This is a rather thin update, except for the news about how our cat Zigzag would not stop blepping last night when we tried to shoo her from the bedroom. Eventually we carried her and her blep to the landing and shut the door.

If you happen to be at Heathrow in about ten hours, let’s...

Ray's Place: High Cost of Living, The New Manliness, Salad Dressing Hack

Dear Ray, I'm making more money than I ever have before in my life--but I'm still always broke! Can you offer some advice for a man who is working his tail off and still cannot maintain his greenbacks? Many thanks, Frothy 

Frothy, 

Yeah, I seen it. Got the stack comin’ in every month, but you’re livin’ above your means, and that’s a real sour pill to swallow. I taught a seminar once on how to live thrifty, and while it didn’t go over too well—people yelled that it was “infuriating h...

Honeymoon - Eve of Departure

Tomorrow, at a reasonable hour befitting two people who are trying to treat themselves nicely during a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, we will board a plane for Heathrow, then bella Napoli. There will be no one-two punch of awful sleep and terrible airport pastry that makes everyone constipated. There will be no seeing of one's breath while loading into the Uber. This honeymoon will not begin with unsightly cortisol abdomens, or the harrowing sort of disassociation where you wonder if you were just talking out loud to yourself in your ...

September 17, 2024 all-tier AMA

The livestream archive will be open and free to the public, so please share! THE WORLD NEEDS MORE PODCASTS

One hour and forty-two minutes of me answering questions submitted by Chochachos in an AMA-style Achewood Community chat. Topics include: webcomics, my recent wedding, the two categories of cheese, and what I'd be doing for a career if I wasn't doing what I love. Makes fantastic background listening during car drives or silverware sorting; my rich, sonorous voice is never irritating or gluey.

This is the sec...

My Stint as an Actual Cook - Pt 7, The End

It is a quiet, chilly, early fall morning as I post this. Looking out from my second-floor office window, across the yellow and purple Giverny of treetops soon to be bare twigs, and having just been through the camera roll of my time working at the grocery store, the moment feels draped in a forlorn gauze. Five years have passed since I learned to mince garlic in a food processor that could turn barbecue tongs into tinsel; it has been five years since I felt the food serviceperson's resting grudge stain the envelope of my perception.

...

Achewood Livestream — 6pm PST Tuesday 9/17!

All paid tiers (Weekly Comic, In-Universe, and Author's Tier) will be able to join me for a livestream event tomorrow, Tuesday evening, 6PM Pacific time. From my home high above Portland, Oregon I will be happily fielding your questions, complimenting your achievements, and commiserating in your miseries (limited to 3).

You will get an email letting you know when the stream has started, but best to set an alarm, as last time the alert was buggy and only a fraction of the actual membership got it. I had a lovely hour-long chat with a m...

Ray in Australia - Part 1 of 6

(Post now edited to include the attached column)

Some many years ago, an Australian journalist named Tim Blair commissioned Ray Smuckles to write a series of columns for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Ray, true to form, didn’t really ask what Mr. Blair wanted from the partnership, and randomly submitted several pieces over the course of the next few months. Remarkably, they actually ran, but as they no longer exist on the Tele’s site, I reprint them here for your enjoyment. 

The following col...

0082b — Unused scripts from "Vaginas"

I still struggle with the feeling that these "cutting room floor" pieces should go in the Author's Tier, since they're clearly past the fourth wall, but a precedent is a precedent. Polling has shown that you fine people enjoy them here, and that's what this is all about anyway, so here they shall stay.

In other In-Universe news, you may have noticed that I got married a few days ago. This signals the end of my aggressive home repair and landscaping efforts (we had the wedding at our house, and did not want the guest toilet to be a ven...

0082 — Guessin' 'bout vaginas

The outtakes and unused scripts for this strip, as always, post at noon today in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers.

To be a very young boy decades before the Internet was to live in an information desert of speculation, misunderstanding, and ill-intentioned lies. What precious little could be deduced about the female body occurred in the liminal mental space between the brassiere section of a catalog, and a terrifying thing a cackling boy from a broken home said about boobs leaking during orgasm.

May the unmana...

Vote on these designs for the new Achewood tees/hoodies!

Tell me by 1pm PST today which of these designs you'd like to see on apparel in the 2024 Achewood holiday shop! Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

The first three will be tees, and I want to re-release the Dude and Catastrophe on a thick forest green hoody, As Is Classic. Thank you!

Coming Soon in the Achewood Patreon!

As mentioned elsewhere, I got married a few days ago, which signals a return to my full-time writing and cartooning in the Achewood Patreon! Here are the updates currently in the hopper for your enjoyment during the next several weeks:

All Tiers (including Free)

Free Membership Trivia Contests — The last two were a lot of fun, and I will be doing these again, so that more Free members can come in and see just how much great material goes on here. (A one-month free membership was awarded to ten...

A wedding; a marriage

On Saturday afternoon at 4:30pm Lauren and I were married before a small gathering of friends and family on the property we had prepared for the last year. It went off with a hitch.

We were seen unto the pouring-forth of our conjoined life by children, sisters, friends from small times, patient parents, and a man who is quietly dying. (He forced himself to be well enough to come. He is not pictured here.)

The living room floor joists did not collapse into the basement under the weight of guests who sought pre-ceremony air condit...

Ray's Place: How to Handle People Who Suck; Grappa Advice From the 90s

Dear Ray — I am engaged to the most wonderful woman. She comes from a smaller family than I do; I am very fond of her parents, and her sister is a charming character (this is fundamentally a compliment, but complicated). Thing is, her sister's wife? She sucks. She is ungenerous of spirit, incurious by disposition, and aside from some unimpeachably virtuous choices re: their children, the kind of person one would try to drum out of a party by making loud fart noises at every time they try to speak. Is there a proper way to express a...