but sometimes its not but people still think it is. I think some people will always say it is funny because they have been brainwashed. Comic strips will brainwash you in a couple of different ways. First of all they use pseudo-intellectual jokes to make people feel as though they are intelligent. A joke will seem like you really have to understand some complex form of humor in order to get the jokes. Its as if the jokes have an air of wittyness about them. The reader doesn't necessarily understand the joke but he fools himself into believing that the joke was funny. The reader wants to be perceived as being intelligent. In order to appear intelligent the reader will fool himself into believing a joke was funny. When confronted the reader will make claims like, "You have to read some of the previous strips to get this one. Trust me, its funny." Peanuts is a good example of this technique. Sometimes I swear Charles Schultz was using the same panels over and over again. It seems like it followed a formula. One pane showing a preview of the subject matter. This would be followed by 3 or 4 panes of what seemed to be setting up the joke. Then in the final pane there would be a pseudo intellection statement made by one of the characters that was totally unrelated to the rest of the strip.
Another way these strips work is through the use of time drains. After spending so much time reading a strip people are loathe to admit the strip wasn't funny. Admitting the strip wasn't funny would be admitting that you have just wasted some of your life completely. "Family Circus" is a good example of this technique. How many of us have followed little Billy's path repeatedly knowing full well that nothing funny was going to happen to Billy? Yet we refuse to admit to ourselves that the Family Circus just isn't funny.
As far as the Achewood goes I feel it has potential. It doesn't have any of the traditional boundaries associated with comic strips. Sometimes it even approaches classic strips like Spacemoose. I don't mind so much when the writer has writers block. Hey, at least he is honest and doesn't try to have us believe he was away at an important meeting in Paris with the top artists from across the globe. I also like the fact that the Achewood is ethnically diverse. You can tell that that girl Phillipe likes is asian because she calls him fee-reep. As an American-African I find that my particular group is not represented in comic strips. I can't even seem to get my neighbors to stop calling me white. I'm not white, I'm an American-African. Perhaps the Achewood could start a new character that would appeal to my particular ethnic group. I'm not sure how many of us there are but I think it would be interesting for all different types of people to see a little bit of our culture.
In closing I would just like to thank the people at the Achewood for thier effort. They put forth an overall great strip and I am appreciative of thier willingness to try to make my day a little brighter. Kudos to the Achewood.