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[linnea]

This got me thinking. I am up late and unable to sleep. I read this article and it got me to thinking, "Man, those are not my top 25."

What are your (maximum) top 5/10/25? No image hotlinking please, just link to the strip. Top fives are probably the best, but for those who cannot decide, twenty-five is probably the limit. Maybe a few sentences or two about why you love them?

Like all top 5/10/25 lists, these are prone to evolution and growth as you check out posts from other denizens. I look forward to seeing y'all's lists.

First of all, for me it goes without saying that the first strip is my favorite. It was the first Achewood strip I ever read. Ditto for the GOF arc, the Baseball Cards, and for the Decision-Making Flowcharts. I love them.

1. http://achewood.com/?date=01112005 Ray's Toilet Party. This strip gave us the phrase, "Bless the baby angel who is in charge of days like today," and my world is so much better because of it.

2. http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07222003 Ray takes Teodor to school re: the internet. He breaks into a Wesley Willis-style rap that ends with, "Rock over TCP/IP, Rock on XML." I love that so much. I can't explain why, maybe it's my love for Wesley and the animated GIF that was made of Ray dancing.

3. http://achewood.com/index.php?date=08182003 Beef's "Me" Day. The receipts... I just love the composition of this one. This one is a tie with the strip from 2 days earlier where Ray gets sassy with Beef, who compares his made-over self to what would happen if Weezer had a baby with an iMac.

4. http://achewood.com/index.php?date=11252002 After Ray sells his soul to the devil, he buys his best friend a 1965 Ford Galaxie, just like "the car from Peel-Out Summer". I get a little choked up whenever I read the Galaxie arc, because Beef is so blown away at his friend's generosity and the sheer awesomeness of the car. This also ties with the next day's strip, where Beef realizes that he doesn't know who America is, but he's comin' to find her. Ray holds up his arms in triumph and presumably shouts as Beef makes the proclamation. I hope that someday I will be able to give a gift that's as meaningful to someone that I care about. Such a great strip on so many levels. 

5. http://achewood.com/index.php?date=11202006 Beef wears his socks in the shower because he's got S.O. S.A.D. This strip reminds me to break out the SAD lamp well before November. Molly's eyebrow cracks me up, and I love the imagery of Beef sunning himself amongst Lyle's marijuana.

I am sure that when I read some of your lists, I will think, "Oh man! How could I have forgotten about that comic!" but this post was after a relatively brief cruise through the archives. All free from the taint of assbar, I might add.

[littlefallsmets]

This is a great idea and... yet... it sounds like the most time-consuming task ever.

Like the kind of task you take on in your middle-age, knowing that death will catch up with you before you can complete it but that's entirely the point of taking it up at that point.

Like a spider needing her whole life and all of her childrens' lives to tell a story over a pig.

It only feels like that because it is 3:30AM over the holidays and I am drunk.

Tomorrow, I will wake up and realize that it would take... like... fifteen minutes.

But for now... yeah. It feels like building the pyramids without hover-technology.

[linnea]

I forgot to post this link in my early-morning post, but here's the article with their top 25 that I referenced.

This is a great idea and... yet... it sounds like the most time-consuming task ever.

That may be true, but at the end of all that hard decidin' you have marvelous top 10 lists. Didn't you see High Fidelity?

[wombat]

I'm sure we did this before - where's Cort when you need him? - but it was years ago, there is so much more to choose from now. I think it would take a lot more than fifteen minutes even wide awake.

[KeithHernandez]

I have wanted to make a thread for like a random hilarious comic daily or something, but this is just as good.  I also am not up to it now, however.

[linnea]

Fuck! How could I have forgotten about the Trivial Pursuit strip?

[theinevitable]

I forgot how funny this one was.
I also laughed at this one.

also: Jaime the Science Friend--

"Do you have any idea how rare that is?"
"probably less so the closer you get to a school"
also, it ends with the Apologies For Men card.

I made a copy of that card for my friend and filled it out. Have you guys tried this? The idea is, the girl thought it was so funny that she forgot she was mad. Also, she wasn't that mad to begin with.

[rabidambulance]

2. http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07222003 Ray takes Teodor to school re: the internet. He breaks into a Wesley Willis-style rap that ends with, "Rock over TCP/IP, Rock on XML." I love that so much. I can't explain why, maybe it's my love for Wesley and the animated GIF that was made of Ray dancing.

I got into Achewood sometime after this strip had already run.  I was reading through the archives, saw it, and thought "Huh, Wesley Willis died around that time...I wonder if that's a tribute strip?"  Then I saw that he died about a month later.  Weird.

[JorgeFabregas]

I forgot to post this link in my early-morning post, but here's the article with their top 25 that I referenced.

The "killing is like basketball strip" is still majestic. I had forgotten about that one.

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/uuadCmccD

Sorry about the assetbar strip.

[theinevitable]

the charlie brown one reminds me that I still think I would really really love reading old Charlie Brown comics. One of these days I will buy like a big book of classic ones.

damn, almost all of the 25 made me laugh really hard.

the one that I still think of in random moments and crack up at is probably Heartbeatzz, the rapping dog who loves
...literally, I will be walking along and suddenly imagine that dog looking at me, say "the rapping dog-- who loves" out loud, and start laughing.

[iron_felix]

For one-offs...
This, this, and this, plus Charlie Brown and the Butcher's Diagram that that other guy listed.

As far as stuff from within story arcs, here's my top five, in chronological order, since I couldn't decide how to rank them.  Honorable mention goes to basically every strip from the Cartilage Head arc, which all probably could have made it onto the list if I'd made it longer.  I feel like I have more to say about these strips anyway, though:

Nov. 18 2003 - "Omega Tetris"
   Please tell me I'm not the only one who has actual anxiety dreams about video games where shit like this happens.  I don't know what it's like to search frantically for a kidnapped child, but I'd venture to say it's a completely analogous feeling to that.  More intense, certainly, but still fundamentally the same.  I thought the Ardbeg tetrad looked more intimidating, but I had to go with this one one the merit of the other four panels.  Omega Tetris, and Lyle ribbing Cornelius about doilies.  Splendid.

Jun. 9, 2004 - "Success!"
   A terrific ending to the Uncle Culpepper arc, which then segued into almost a full week of gratuitous ***** ass-nudity.  Lie Bot's ass makes its triumphant return, the artwork is beautiful, and the whole sequence just rubs in the fact the the entire arc had just been a practical joke by the 'Bots.  WHOOO!

Feb. 4, 2005 - "Scenes from a party"
   If I ever buy a signed copy of a strip, I'm gonna get a triptych with this one and the two preceding strips.  Not as popular as Ray getting stoned, I'm sure, but I think this one best captures the spirit of Achewood's party arcs.  The Tenmen are playing live from inside Ray's bathtub.  It doesn't get better than that.  "Maybe go home before piano fall on you" is also a gem, and the last panel is totally me at a party I went to with my parents when I was Philippe's age... but that may be a story for another time, I think.

Apr. 11, 2006 - "Philippe's creekbed bedside"
   A perfect juxtaposition of the Two Achewoods:  Witty dialogue, character-based humor... sandwiched between the kind of creepiness and foreboding that marks Achewood's darker side.  Side by side, each only adds to the appeal of the other.  The arc as a whole is also one of my favorites; it's even more amazing when you realize there was only a single strip between this and the GOF.

Sep. 29, 2006 - "The helicopter sprouts legs"
   Yeah, Ray, don't Flintstone that bitch!  Also, one of the most surreal Achewoods ever.  The second strip following this one is also great, as it basically drops Ray and Bensington straight into The Saragossa Manuscript, but I remember being disappointed at the time that it reintroduced words to what had become a silent arc.

[Nabubrush]

I'm sure we did this before - where's Cort when you need him? - but it was years ago, there is so much more to choose from now. I think it would take a lot more than fifteen minutes even wide awake.

Here you are, and with the addition of Paul's scintillating scientific method.

[AugustWest]

Here you are, and with the addition of Paul's scintillating scientific method.

Wow, Nabu's back and he's standing in for CJ.  Double plus good!

[linnea]

Dang. Paul got all scientific on that one. However, it was before my time (2003), so I thought I'd make a 2007 redux.

[wombat]

Nabu!

2003. Wow. That is a lot of comic strips ago.