raccoon : notes and scavengings

Comments:

Nice. Achewood is so much better than it has any right to be based on its premise. Despite the surrealism and the talking animals (both real and stuffed), Onstad creates very fully developed characters and some surprisingly affecting storylines. And every once in a while there's a sequence of startling originality and weird beauty, like the utterly puzzling, silent-movie horror of the "Cartilage Head" storyline. And you're right, Roast Beef is one of the best characters -- the strip was pretty funny even in its earliest stories, but it really came into its own when it introduced Ray, Pat, and Beef, and especially when Beef began to become a more developed and complex character. What a great comic.

# posted by

Ed Howard : 11:12 AM

I totally agree with you about the power of the strip's odd forays into unsettling territory (horror?). And one other thing worth mentioning here is that even though Onstad clearly feels affection for these characters, he also seems quite almost perversely willing to elicit laughs from their various miseries (it is worth nothing that "Did you know that I want to commit suicide," above, is the *punchline* to that strip).

Or, say, this one as an alternate example.

# posted by

jpb : 3:04 PM