[Note: This column first appeared at The Woodshed.] Chris Onstad is America's funniest man. By Thom Morgan  I CELEBRATED MY 23RD BIRTHDAY recently by reading volumes one through five of the webcomic Achewood, a (much appreciated!) gift from my girlfriend. I tend to harp on about Achewood a lot (it's my Paglia, so to speak), but I really think that there's nothing quite like it in the literary world (let alone the somewhat tired circus of webcomics, which is usually a bit ho-hum at best). If you ever have a couple of says to spare, do yourself a favour and read through from the start of the strip (2oo1) until the present day adventures.
It's not just that Achewood is funny - it has bucketloads of humour, some of it laugh out loud, but most of it will produce not much more than a satisfied inner chuckle - but that it manages to bring together such a remarkable mixture of humour, pathos, humanity, absurdity and wit. The cast of talking cats, otters, bears and the like are so remarkably human, indeed, that is Achewood's greatest strength; it holds a magnifying glass to human foibles. Chris Onstad, the writer and creator of Achewood, was formerly a writer for the Stanford undergraduate humour magazine, The Chaparral. But unlike so many of other ivy league funnymen, Onstad is doing something more than writing jokes for Conan O'Brien and co. He used his severance package from a dot.com redundancy to fund Achewood, which - quite remarkably for a free webcomic - now pays the bills solely through the sale of a multitude of merchandise, sold to rabid fans like yours truly. For our purposes here at POLYSEMY, it's worth taking a look at Onstad's creative process. A 'creative advance into novelty' is an apt description, but Onstad is more fond of Mark Twain's expression, 'The tale grew in the telling'. It certainly has with Achewood, which started life as a three panel strip, and whilst stand alone comics still exist, there have been many multi-day, and even some multi-week adventures. The richness of Onstad's imagination (check out the 'Great Outdoor Fight' story arc) is only matched by his ear for dialogue, dialogue not hampered by the constraints of the print format. Not only do his cats suffer the usual friendship woes, they also take drugs, swear, get drunk, and buy Airwolf, a three foot laser and Keith Moon's head, all of which were found on 'Ebay Platinum Reserve'. Of course, then there are the character blogs (twelve in total), updated semi-frequently; this kind of extraneous creativity has been copied by big tv shows, like Lost. It's a remarkable achievement for one man, who just celebrated the first birthday of his baby daughter (seems like creativity always swells in young families of three, Onstad's wife is involved with the day to day logistics of running Achewood). But enough gushing from me. Have a read, and if you think it's funny, let me know. I think my obsession is getting the better of me. I'm planning a birthday party, and damn if I don't want it to be a mirror image of Ray's, complete with Cristal IV drip. A man can dream. —Thom Morgan maintains the blog, Vomiting Confetti. NOT YET A SUBSCRIBER TO POLYSEMY? Make the choice to become one today — click here for POLYSEMY Print, or here for POLYSEMY Digital. ©2006 Polysemy. All rights reserved. |
