Achewood Vol. 2: Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar

by Chris Onstad

Whoever it was at Dark Horse who decided to start their collections of Chris Onstad's Achewood webcomic with The Great Outdoor Fight before publishing the earliest strips was very wise.  This collection has the first pile of strips, and while many of them are very good, the level of quality is somewhat inconsistent at times.

I have only recently begun reading this series on-line, and am pretty frustrated with its erratic scheduling and Onstad's willingness to abandon stories for months (when is High School Night going to end?  The suspense!).  Reading these earliest efforts, I see that there has always been an element of randomness in his work, although being able to read months worth of the series at the same time gives it a stronger sense of connection.

What really makes this comic work is the strong personalities of its different characters.  I find that I love all the different animals for different reasons.  When we finally got a string of strips that built into the story of Téodor's party, it was fascinating to see the different characters interact with each other.  Onstad has a strange sense of humour, and frequently doesn't seem to know how to end a particular strip, but that seems to be the source of so much of the book's charm.

Included in here are a series of prose stories which have the author describing how he meet the different animals who apparently all live with him (but he doesn't tell us about the cats - that's for later).  Achewood is unique, and strangely addictive.  It's worth checking out.