Achewood

Thanksgiving 2023, Depeche Mode

Author's Tier members, you have spoken, and Even More Content it is! Today's update is from the two biggest events of the last week of November: Thanksgiving, and a Depeche Mode concert. I don't need to tell you which had better food. 

Thanksgiving was...

Author's Tier Poll: Content Frequency!

Are you getting enough bang for your buck in this, my VIP tier? (Or too much bang? Perhaps not enough bang?) Help me calibrate this tier to bring you optimal reading and parasocial* delight! Please vote, and if so moved, embroider your response in the comments.

I ask becaus...

A Childhood Christmas in Nacre Shoals, W. Va.

The first of two holiday missives which you will receive from Peter H. "Nice Pete" Cropes this year. Read along and enjoy this heart-warming coming of age story, set deep in the impoverished but hopeful past of our reflective protagonist. 

A rough draft of this piece originally appeare...

0031 - The Account, Pt. 2

Have you ever worked for a marketing firm, digital agency, ad agency, branding group, design house, copywriting shop, or the like? Let's trade war stories in the comments this week. 

In 1995 I secured an unpaid summer internship at a San Francisco boutique ad firm named—in a bit of o...

0030 - The Account, Pt. 1

In which Téodor — incorrectly pronounced "TEE-uh-door" by some, but pronounced correctly by others as "TAY-uh-door" — is shown in his element: scrambling to finally get a job on the actual day that rent is due. Never mind that most jobs don't start paying for two weeks. 

While we'...

Thanksgiving Missive and Past-Blast (Serializer).

I probably give a silent thanks to you, dear supporter on Patreon, every day of the week, if not multiple times throughout each day. I give thanks when I wake, and sit with my coffee in the morning silence, and notice that my base anxiety has palpably diminished with the ongoing success of this p...

The Day Where Nothing Added Up

Man, today just really added up to nothing, and everything seemed annoying. This is very unusual; typically I love my days. I’m excited to wake up, I’m excited to go restore the old fixer-upper, I’m excited to come home exhausted and shower and cartoon in my lazy clothes with the drawstring...

0029 - Back On His Bensington

In this strip we check back in with Bensington Butters, whom careful readers will recall is actually a man named Jimmie "Darnell" Hockawock, from Flokes County, Florida. Along with Ray and AKKOLADE, he is a "Brother in the Syndicate," a term for the members of a halfhearted group of musician...

Sweat Gets In Your Eyes, Part Four (end)

At the conclusion of my mini-series on running: The Marathon! 

Young Peter H. Cropes: Military Intake Interview (pdf)

This piece started life in the Assetbar/Fanflow in November of 2009, but has been so heavily rewritten as to essentially be a new piece. 

New Orleans Photo Tour

Thank you to all you first-water Author’s Tier subscribers for the plethora of New Orleans recommendations. Lauren and I made use of many of your hot tips, but were forced by morbid curiosity and national obligation to take a late night stroll down Bourbon Street, during which we dodged jets of...

0028 - Bandwidth

I got to thinking about how much extra energy is expended streaming all this video for phone calls, and it stressed me out. It used to stress me out when a friend said they streamed Pandora music in their car all the way to my house. All those zillions of bytes, heating up and bothering all those...

New Orleans

Chochachos of the First Water, do you have any recommendations for traveling in this great city? We will be heading there soon, and do not wish to simply scour the haunted alleyways for sightings of Emeril whispering furtively to Anne Rice (she has a tall velvet Dracula collar). Fine food of ever...

Sweat Gets In Your Eyes, Part Three

Part three of four. Prelude to the ambivalence to the return to glory. 

Outtakes from "Ray and Pat in, Road Trip"

Every strip generates lines that don't fit the story, yet still cry out for any audience whatsoever before they sink beneath the waves. These are those lines. 

0027 - Ray and Pat in, "Road Trip," Pt. 11 (Ending.)

In this conclusion to the "Road Trip" story arc — which we began in the heat of summer and now end in chilling autumn — we learn a bit of the origin story of Ray and Pat's friendship. ("Why do they still keep him around, anyway," is often in the air.) There was a time when this bold ...

Ray Has the Munchies, "HARD-type." Téodor Helps. (pdf)

This isn't exactly a Fanflow archive piece, though it largely originated there, in November of 2009. Ray seems to have flensed his tale of starvation and adventure into sharper focus in the intervening years, and even posed for a reenactment photo. 

Lost Achewood: Recently discovered missing rows

Strip Title: "Small Times. A Look." Run date: January 15, 2010

As with most things of thirteen years past, I can't remember why I chose to remove the completed fourth row of this comic before running it. It feels perfectly on-voice, and even gives nice clos...

Sweat Gets In Your Eyes, Part Two

I will not bore or delay you with words here! Please read installment number two of my running stories! 

Sweat Gets In Your Eyes, Part One

0026 - Ray and Pat in, "Road Trip," Pt. 10

It would be difficult to accept how much unsuccessful slang I generated in order to create an original phrase that means "barebacking." (The line, "Answer him, you Barebackin’ Beagle! You Nut-Smugglin’ Snoopy! You Lie-Pipin’ Snoopy!" sits to the side of the artwork you see here.) "Skinnydip...