Jes Tom on Why They Love Chris Onstad’s ‘Achewood’ Webcomic – Vulture

Looking for some quality comedy entertainment to check out? Who better to turn to for under-the-radar comedy recommendations than comedians? In our recurring seriesUnderrated,we chat with writers and performers from the comedy world about an unsung comedy moment of their choosing that they think deserves more praise.

A decade before BoJack Horseman gave us anthropomorphic animals who were both funny and full of existential dread, there was Chris Onstads webcomic, Achewood. Set in the titular fictional town, the comic centered mostly on two protagonist cats: Ray Smuckles, a wealthy hedonist full of optimism and confidence, and his best friend, Roast Beef, who is often introverted and depressed. They were surrounded by characters like the young otter Philippe, elder statesman Cornelius Bear, sensible Molly Sanders, and Pat, who aimed to feel superior to the other characters and had Crohns disease. The comics distinctness came not only from the depth of the characters but the stylistic choices made by Onstad, who used minimalistic black-and-white drawings, played with font and punctuation, and invented new words and phrases (like sass gut) to bring his creations to life.

After it debuted in 2001, Achewood earned a cult fan base that appreciated Onstads ability to create a comic full of comedy and pathos. As the years went on, Onstad began taking sporadic breaks from the webcomic until seemingly retiring the series in 2016; the last strip was posted to the Achewood website on Christmas that year. But the comics fan base still lives on through Reddit posts, Onstads Twitter, nearly every list of the best webcomics ever, and the occasional online tributes.

Comedian Jes Tom has been an Achewood fan since they were a teenager, and their upcoming New York Comedy Festival solo show, Less Lonely, tackles themes that overlap with Onstads work: sex, death, gender transition, and being alone during the apocalypse. Tom says the webcomic influenced them not only in how the characters saw one another but how they moved. Their small gestures like the tiniest cock of any eyebrow had a big impact on Tom and their comedic sensibility. Tom recently discussed their love for Achewood, queer representation in the media, and which character from the comic they relate to most.

I had never heard of Achewood before but quickly found it has a passionate fan base. How did you discover it?I must have discovered Achewood in high school or college during a time that I was reading a lot of webcomics. Webcomics kind of had a moment in the mid-aughts, and I was really in that. As a comedian, Im much more influenced by things like webcomics than by people doing stand-up.

It seems to match your persona onstage: dry and direct. Thats me: very dry. I always read comics in the newspaper as a kid. I think that theres really something about comedic timing that you learn from comics. Comics are so cinematic. It varies moment by moment. It shows you how to draw out the delivery of something to make it as funny as possible.

There was one review I read comparing Achewood to Shakespeare in that Chris Onstad was inventing words.I think thats what I really love about Achewood how writerly it is. Theyre all these very specific characters, and they all have a specific way of talking and relating to each other. Its a lot of things that I like. I like anthropomorphic animals. (I like animals more than people.) So I like that they are all cats, bears, and otters. I love the weird way that they talk. Im a person who has a very specific way of speaking, and Im influenced by things like this.

Theres a character called Roast Beef. We dont talk about why his name is Roast Beef. His full name is Roast Beef Kazenzakis. Hes Greek, and we dont know why. Its totally absurd, but it has its own logic in its own world. It is a training exercise both as a reader, being able to hear characters voices when you read them, and as a writer to be able to create characters who have such distinctive voices. Its kind of a scary comic sometimes. It gets scary, it gets sad, it gets serious, and Im really into that.

One of the Achewood comics you recommended was from 2006, prominently featuring a piece of toast. Why did you choose this one? I just love this one as an example of what this series is doing. Its so small. The whole joke of it is that Roast Beef is having these really, really small reactions. His eyebrows go up a little bit. He squints his eyes closed a little bit more. If you look in the last two panels, to me the joke is that you can see his drool starting to drip off of the toast, because he has been holding it in his mouth so long because hes so depressed. Its so funny and so sad. Its a real manifestation of a depression that is relatable to a lot of us. Its really sweet, because youre watching this person at the lowest of lows, and he has this person who loves him so much that shes going to pull the toast out of his mouth.

Its a great example of how the comic leans toward more subtle punch lines.I think the punch line is buried in this one. The punch line is that hes basically doing nothing, and shes like, Good! Youre doing great! Hes doing nothing, and thats awesome.

Ray getting stoned from 2005 is more all over the place.Ray getting stoned is awesome, because I am a stoner. Its just him going around having high thoughts, and thats it. That it ranges from things that are stupid like Nutmeg! THATS the secret flavor in Coke! to What is it like to see someone die? I wonder if my mom knows. I just think that ones classic stoner content.

Rays thoughts completely go everywhere. I dont know why it made me laugh so hard, but his one line (Those are some pans that I have) when hes gazing at his pans in the kitchen got me.Its about the little profundities of being stoned things that are total nonsense to things that are, like, I wish in the past I had tried more things, cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea. In my life currently, Ive been contending with my own anxiety about getting in trouble, then I saw this and was like, Oh yeah, being in trouble is a fake idea.

Do you see overlap between Achewood and your own comedy?I think so. I feel very influenced by the way Achewood is this very minimalist comic. The art style is extremely minimalist, and a lot of the movements are extremely minimalist, but the writing is lush, full, and particular, and I think that is how my stand-up is or has classically been. I identify with the small font of Achewood. The way they express things in a small way I think thats how I express myself.

The gossamer bloatee was one of my favorites.I love that one. Obviously, now through our current eyes, Im like, Okay, at its core, its a fatphobic joke. And now it takes on this additional meaning to me, because in the comic, theyre talking about the idea that an overweight guy grows a goatee to change the shape of his face. But I really identify with it as a transmasculine person. What were doing a lot of the time is growing this gossamer facial hair that we have to keep because were like, This is my precious facial hair. Its so important to the way that I get perceived that I have to keep this facial hair. So a lot of us have really goofy, stupid-looking facial hair, because we refuse to shave it and because its so important to our identities and the way we see ourselves. I have this ridiculous pervert mustache, a little soul patch that Im not going to get rid of. I look like fucking V for Vendetta. And Im not going to get rid of it. I think that its basically the same as this argument theyre having in the comic about the goatee.

Theres so much to mine from each panel. Its all the little things in this comic. Roast Beef speaks in a smaller font, and it does so much to build the character.

And theres no punctuation for Roast Beef.It just gives them such a specific voice. It gives the two of them a kind of dynamism that I think wouldnt be there otherwise. It shows how a little choice gives the character a distinctive voice. I love this one, because at its core, its an argument about men feeling insecure, which is a universal experience. But theyre talking about it with such specificity.

Theres no backing down from Ray to the end.Thats Rays declaration of his masculinity. Hes slapping his ass. Ray is a cat who wears glasses and a thong and a big chain. Hes slapping his ass and saying his ass is tight as a drum. Thats him declaring his manhood.

Ray and Pat have an interesting back-and-forth in this comic from 2006. Rays checking to see if Pat thinks hes homophobic. I think this one is so interesting, because its 2006 when this comic was posted. Its just a whole other landscape for queer representation in the media. Not to give a cookie for something really small, but I think its a big deal that Pat is gay. He comes out as gay in the series. I dont think he starts out as gay. Hes just sort of the sourpuss character, then eventually, he comes out as gay, and that contextualizes and textures why he is the way he is. Which is, like, Hes a fucking asshole. Hes a bitch. Hes always critiquing and tearing everybody else down. And now youre like, Oh, hes a bitchy old queen thats why hes like that.

Its a 2006 comic about a straight man trying to support his gay friend, and hes being so crass and offensive, but thats the way he supports him. Its really sweet and funny. In the second to last panel Dang, I never thought it would be like this! A guy is rocking my can! thats Ray demonstrating a deep open-mindedness, actually, and an attempt at empathy that is so funny. Its so funny how hes pissing Pat off this entire time while hes trying to be supportive.

The intentions are good, but what comes out is crass. Its so up front.Right its very of its time. Its very mid-aughts. Weve come all the way around on political correctness now. They dont talk like this on TV now. There are all these TV shows with queer characters, but theyre not having this kind of candid conversation. I would love for there to be more of this in media with queer characters being more real and not afraid of being offensive. The offensiveness is the joke. Thats that characters point of view. Hes trying to be helpful. Its funny.

On the subject of queer conversations, do you feel like TV shows now are portraying what they want it to look like rather than what it actually looks like?Theres a real trend right now of trying to make this kind of feel-good representation media thats like, Were queer people, were all happy, we have friends, and Im having this meaningful conversation with my mother where she tells me shell always love me the way I am. I find it very saccharine. Its not for me. I like things that are abrasive, that have conflict, that are sweet at the heart. At the heart of Achewood, this is a wholesome, heartwarming comic about a straight man, a cat man, who is just trying to relate to his childhood friend who he now knows is gay and is pissing him off.

Which character from Achewood do you relate to the most?I was thinking about that. What I really like about Achewood I dont know if this is exactly what Chris Onstad is doing, but to me, it seems like its all of the extremes. Each character is an extreme that the same guy could have. Ray hes braggadocious, hedonist. Roast Beef has deep depression. Pat is gay and judgmental. Lyle has rage. Philippe, the little-boy otter, is nave and positive. That is whats appealing about the comic: You can relate to all of them. Theyre all just different parts of you at their most extreme. I think Im probably a Ray and a Roast Beef though, insofar as theyre foils to each other. Ray is this hedonist pervert to Roast Beefs deep depression. Its pure self-confidence with a horrible self-worth at the same time.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

View post:

Jes Tom on Why They Love Chris Onstad's 'Achewood' Webcomic - Vulture