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[Llewelyn Ash]

Hello, I am newly registered and have been trying to find a topic relevant to this and I apologise if it is something that has been tread over and over, though I would appreciate being pointed in that direction.

I only discovered Achewood the day before 'Our Predictions for 2011' was posted and I spent weeks solidly reading through every strip; it became possibly my favourite thing in any medium though I was upset how late I was to the party and I checked every day for a new strip. I was overjoyed when 'Ray in Rehab' came up and I wept with laughter at the Roast Beef-isms. But I have finally found myself questioning whether he has, well, 'lost it' so to speak.

I have no enmity towards Onstad, as people often seemed to display in assetbar, and am under no illusions that he owes me anything or should exist to please me. He created a wonderful thing that still exists and few enough people even know about it. I wouldn't be angry if Altimiter Tim became a new main character in a daily strip (just deeply disappointed), but reading back over old strips as I do most days I can't see a damn reason why he should have lost it. I think it was great because although obviously it was hilarious, it was a sparse and effective thing that sometimes became totally transcendent and magical. It strikes me that it could do that because it never forgot it was a comic strip. I know Onstad worried about repeating himself but I'd pay money to read 'The Philippe Times' every week or Vlad's talk show and it might not break new ground but it would add to a body of work that is valuable and doesn't need to prove itself. Now it seems that he just wants to try and make the transcendent, esoteric part and forgot about the comic strip and the only possible result is that both will fail. I can't second guess him, I don't know what he's planning but in the last couple of days when I load the page and see Altimiter Tim's face it makes me think a thing I've been trying to ignore since the hiatus started; that it's over.

I thought the Nate Small novella was really fantastic and I dearly wish I could buy proper books of it and I'd never question Onstad's great talent, but I don't know why he doesn't seem to use it. I would be grateful to know what other's opinion is.

[wombat]

Yeah, it would be hard to pinpoint a single thread about this because this discussion has probably been at least a small part of every on-topic thread about the comic for the last how many years? It would be entertaining to know the first instance on this board of someone opining that Onstad had lost it. But I am willing to bet you will get some takers for a central place to discuss this issue.

What's interesting about this to me is that I now feel differently about artists who decisively called it quits on a comic, like The Far Side or Calvin and Hobbes.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Watterson and Larson both made a clean break. Said "I've taken this as far as it will go" and walked away. Onstad has been kind of wishy-washy about it. Made production unpredictable, kind of half-assed it at times. Easier to understand and respect the former approach than the latter. Of course, commercial success no doubt factors into it--the first two guys had sold enough books and page-a-day calendars that they could walk away and be fine. Onstad still has to figure out how to eat, so he's no doubt been reluctant to give up on Achewood as a potential source of income.  (My opinion, I could be completely wrong.)

[Llewelyn Ash]

I saw a post about the Philippe graphic adventure strip in 2008 and it seemed that even then people thought it was going off the boil but I think it was a great addition to the sort of strips that got made, maybe someone reading the current strips in the future will be able to see it all as worthwhile but just now I feel like it's being squandered. Maybe I've just developed a sense of entitlement. I can't believe that Mr Bear hasn't been in a strip for four years as I think someone said as I got to see it all laid out at once, maybe I expect something that never existed anyway.

I'm glad for Onstad if he doesn't need it as a source of income anymore though I suppose I wish he did and paid it the attention he obviously used to. I started to feel though that if he doesn't ever really want to 'bring it back' properly then it should have a line drawn under it. I know I don't need to read it if I don't want but I really really want to read it. The street sheet strip was, in my opinion, as good and funny a strip as ever appeared but i remember Onstad sort of apologised for moving away from the hospital storyline and I wonder if he thought that's what people would be tuning in for, maybe everyone else was I don't know.

If strips continue and for years we never see Philippe again, or if Ray is actually Theo Freedom now or if Roast Beef's role is subsumed by characters like the ones who've been appearing in the last seven months or if indeed seven months of strips will see the same value of content as used to be fitted into a week, then maybe it is really over already and has been so for a while.

[jay-ell]

I just came here to say two things:

1) Welcome to the board, Llewelyn!

2) Is there something wrong with me if my first thought on seeing this thread title was, "What is this birthday thread for Jough doing up in the Achewood section?"

[jaydub]

Is there something wrong with me if my first thought on seeing this thread title was, "What is this birthday thread for Jough doing up in the Achewood section?"

If there is, let me know because I've got the same condition.  Bastard doesn't even like me.

[CortesDiddy]

The last great arc imo was "Philippe, Entrepeneur"

[littlefallsmets]

I tend to think the whole thing is less about the guy being creatively tapped on the characters and more some combination of... the guy having enough of a body of work with the characters that he's become perfectionist about what he thinks he can do with them to an intensely neurotic degree, the changing business model of the strip shifting from mainly merchandise driven to mainly subscription driven completely fuck*ng up the guy's creative process, the guy in some great internal struggle with the idea of the kind of cult fame the strip got him making him uneasy with the whole project to varying degrees and/or personal-family issues to which we cannot be privy fuck*ng the whole deal.

Probably some combination of alla those, though I'd probably lean toward the "business model changing fuck*ng up his process" and "personal life" as being the main drivers.

I am, of course, an opinionated asshole who sometimes projects too much of my own issues onto the motivations of others so who the hell knows.

[pmcd9]

For some reason this arc made me want to look for Achewood tshirts. Apparently there are a couple of places out there selling bootleg shirts.  My Google search also led me to this article which I don't think we've seen before.  It also led to this thread where we (Ash and sMets specifically) were fairly prophetic.

[CortesDiddy]

Plus you know, the Portland Mercury thing. You have to be on your fuck*ng GAME if you are writing anything professionally. Writing is arguably an even more obsessive art and more intense in its demands than comics/telling good jokes.

Not to mention his audience for that apparently are even bigger assholes than most of the Achewood fanbase.

[AKKOLADE]

The way I see it, we're lucky to have had a decade's worth of genuinely brilliant comics. We're even luckier that he's still capable of making them on occasion, especially given that a certain amount of Circumstances seems to have happened in the last few years. Maybe he should have quit while he was ahead, but then when exactly would that have been? Because the Philippe-Entrepeneur storyarc had some of the best work he ever did - cf Philippe's Dad - and was immediately followed by what increasingly felt like Achewood itself having a breakdown.

[Llewelyn Ash]

Thank you for the welcome jay-ell. I have never used a forum before so please forgive me if I'm a boor.

As littlefallsmets says the business model must have thrown things into disarray, I wish I'd been able to buy a t-shirt though. I donate (pay for a service) when I like a new strip and I pay for the things in the honour store but surely there are people who appreciate him enough that regular strips would pay off? He built up such a vocabulary of different ways to write that it makes me think he must be really incredibly sick of the whole thing not to make use of them. I subscribed when the option came up again and my account wasn't activated so I emailed and asked about it and said exactly how much I appreciated Achewood's existence but I had to send, I think, four more emails before it actually got activated. The last one I sent just said that I just wanted to pay him for a product but I couldn't do it if I didn't get the product and made me sad that that was the email that seemed to fix the problem. Maybe he's trapped in a negative loop of perfectionism/lack of self worth.

I was reading about how Yeats always knew he was going to lose it as he got older and he would have the whole of Wordsworth read to him so he could meditate on that poet's long decline, perhaps the fear of losing it is as fatal as being blind to ones' flaws. A main reason I want him to make new strips is because otherwise I'm just going to be reading these ones every day for the next fifty years and I fear I won't stop checking as long as either Onstad or I have life.

[side_show]

I was asking myself this very question reading the latest strip.  I compare it to the Simpsons, which I love still.  I don't want it to go away, but I know in my heart that it used to be better and that the best days are behind me.  

As a writer who works in a different medium, I count myself lucky that I don't work in a format where I'm expected to keep with the same characters.  At this point I pretty much hate writing the main character in my most recognized work and I'm so glad I'm done with her.  At the same time it's so hard to let it go.  I just proposed a new project, my first in three years, after saying I wasn't going to write any more and that I didn't want to go back to it.  Once you start being a storyteller, there's really no letting go of that.  Maybe Onstad will find a way to make it new. 

I honestly wish he'd go back to some of the other characters too.  I miss the automatons and Phillipe especially.

[Llewelyn Ash]

I wish he'd put a Nate Small book on Kickstarter or something.

[jaydub]

Both Ash and LFM were on fire in that thread.