RUNNING FROM 2001 TO 2016, more or less, Chris Onstad’s webcomic Achewood was one of the more remarkable cultural artefacts of the 2000s web. While a lot of it hasn’t aged well, there are other elements to it that remain incredibly powerful (the Michael Jackson strip from 2009 manages to sit in both columns). Roast Beef’s depression and anxiety, which are played on as subjects for jokes, are also treated far more seriously and humanely than in far ‘better’ works of literature. It’s completely internally inconsistent, surreal, some of it’s over-written, and ought to sit with the greats of Americana.

At a fundamental level I am an immature person and have always appreciated an under-recognised part of Achewood’s running humour—jokes based on the sense of smell.

The fart joke is one of the standards of comic writing, and should be treated as fundamental to literature as a 12-bar blues riff is to music.

« What I'm Reading (late August) / What I'm Reading: 'the problem of coming up with suggestions for alternate ways to be' »