Hello All! I'm back, and I've finished analyzing Achewood: Volume II: Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar. Now, I say analyzed, because I've already read it for pleasure a couple of times, and loved every page. It is a great buy, not expensive, and I highly recommend it. No, I went back and compared the book, strip by strip, to the site to see if there were any omissions, just for the sake of completeness. There are a few, but they seem to be due to page or content constraints; there's really nothing that was omitted that would be worth getting upset over. Especially when you look at how awesome and gorgeous the whole anthology is. Anyway, I thought I'd share my findings just so everyone could be aware of what is and is not in the book:
-This anthology is 136 pages long and covers the strips which ran from 10/01/2001 - Phillipe is Standing on it through 05/08/2002 - Breakfast in Bed. It includes titles, alt-texts, and commentary by Chris for every strip, as has already been mentioned. There are also achewood maps, pictures, and bonus biographical content on the various characters, concerning how Chris first encountered them. They are great reading.
All strips which come before the introduction of the cats (01/10/2002 - The Dirtiest Dudes in Town) are relegated to an appendix. The appendix, however, is incomplete, probably due to a page restriction, and is missing the final sixteen strips which run from 12/18/01 - A Dangerously Good Haircut through 01/09/02 - Van Practice.
It is unfortunate that these strips are omitted. For one, 01/02/02 - I Love My Fat Son marked the beginning of the recurring alt-text. The "Téodor's date with Penny" mini-story arc is concluded in the omitted strips, and Blister is introduced. The omitted strips also contain some of Achewood's biggest "duds" or fan-condemned strips: 12/26/01 The Unfinished Strip and 01/08/02 Kung Foo.
Moving on:
Page 108: 11/12/01 - The Humans Show is missing its alt-text (The first alt-text, to be precise). This is most likely due to the fact that there were NO alt-texts in the appendix comics and there was really no need to put such an insignificant one "Early adopters will recall this as a bonus comic from 11.12.01" in.
In the main section of the book, there are five strips which originally ran in color. Due to the fact that this book is a black-and-white print, they are printed in black-and-white. Those strips are:
Page 34: 02/11/02 - Color Monday!
Page 35: 02/12/02 - Ordering Pizza in English
Page 36: 02/13/02 - Pork Chops
Page 47: 03/05/02 - A Glimpse Inside Ray’s Place
Page 48: 03/06/02 - A Fee!
There are also three (fairly pointless, Chris put them up because he was busy moving, I believe) one-off strips which were omitted from the anthology. They are:
After page 23: 01/25/02 - Hey, You're the Best!
After page 37: 02/15/02 - An Ad (Also a color strip)
After page 38: 02/20/02 - Ebay Shopper: Let's Slam!
My plan is to re-create the style of the pages in InDesign or Photoshop and print an addendum to the book, which I will keep in the back cover, because I'm anal-retentive.
Once again, I intend in NO WAY to imply that I am dissatisfied with this anthology. It is everything I've ever wanted from printed Achewood material, and more. If you are on the fence about buying this anthology, don't be. I just wanted to document the omissions for the sake of completeness. Enjoy!
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Topic: Compilation/Anthology questions (Read 10150 times)