Achewood
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0061 — Shadow Puppets
🕑 Added 2024-04-19 17:00:10 +0000 UTC(As is now custom, visit the In-Universe Tier or Author's Tier for the rejected panels—and the original 2007 inspiration artwork—from this strip! Posting at noon Pacific Time.)
In order for this strip to validate, it is time for me to declare that Philippe is a river otter, and not a sea otter. Sea otters have a mitten for a hand (sans thumb), while river otters have articulate little fingers that help them call their mothers and experience uncomfortable conversations where the persistent reference context of familial awareness — and thereby motherly love — is broken for the first time. At this point a river otter's little heart goes into both a tailspin and a panic, and he will not allow himself to think hard upon it for a while. When he does, it will typically be expressed along with other things which have been troubling the little fellow, such as all the nuclear brinksmanship he sees on the news, and the terrifying headlines about technology which threatens to eradicate us. Once this pattern is complete, his simple, playful nature once again emerges, and the little rascal sets about entertaining his friends. His complex inner life is no match for the joy of fond company.
Please read the preceding paragraph in the voice of Sir David Attenborough, while he still has his memories.
Comments
Ruxine
he spent his knee-high years listening to liebot's saddest stories, and now he's a little emo grenade with a loose pin.
Rex Mantooth
Dang Onstad, that just gave me hella pause.
2scrogz
THE. SADDEST. THINGS.
Lionstooth
oh. oh, Philippe. buddy.
Douglas Wykstra
He is five.
A. Hamster
This is why, I think, Gen X took the previous generation seriously when we were told to save the world. Akin to shedding one’s religious upbringing, most of us have now converted to amused detachment. It’s represented by that GIF of Michael Jackson eating popcorn, on a neverending loop.
GruntyGinMan
Jesus Onstad I ain't even sat down yet
kdusjjdhxksj
It sucks, I'm sorry.
P Arbuthnot Walker
When I was a child in the 80s my mother was a volunteer in the Royal Observer Corps, which meant that in the event of the Cold War turning hot she'd have been involved in some way in civil defence. As a precocious and nosy child I was looking through the training material she brought home, including such things as how to secure your house against radioactive fallout and charts of expected casualties in a major city as a function of altitude and megatonnage. I remember going to school and, upon being admonished by the teacher to memorise my multiplication tables, thinking "what is the fucking point. I'll be radioactive dust before I hit puberty."
Benjamin Seitelman
Phillipe's mom has definitely given away his inheritance to Christian scammers
RBM
I like that the AI robot has a massive erection
J Hardy Carroll
Philippe is going awful dark for a six-year-old, but then again Calvin used to go there once in a while
Anu Kirk
Indeed. I was just about to post the same thing. Dealing with a parent going through this now. I am well past Philippe's tender age. This one hit me like a truck.
Shawn Ritchie
jesus CHRIST onstad
James
Holy moly. Could you not have left this one until Monday for full emotional impact. 🙏🏼
Ben Wilinofsky
We are all alone with our most private fears when we drop the simple mask we show our friends to make accepting us easier on them
Don Rowe
I think That Scene in T2 is Gen Xers' and Millennials' primary shared reference point for what it would be like to be killed by a nuclear bomb. I see little indication, though, that it has made a difference.
Datura
yeah for me it a boy got hit by a car and didn't die but his leg got broken, started the ball rolling. then a girl's grandma died and i started thinking about it a lot, first about my parents dying, then me. that moment of realization can hit over and over, it's like an epiphany. like seeing you're in a dream that is going to end. it still comes over me sometimes and i bug out and hit the table with my fist or something. but when i was a kid it was just constant
Ben Wissett
Wee one was Affected by that vanishing house, non?
kdusjjdhxksj
Philippe's mom is suffering from dementia, which is arguably the worse of the two for someone in his position
Joshua M
Damn. Existentialist Philippe, huh. I really wasn't ready for that this week.
Josh Burton
From now on I am going to refer to death as "losing all one's memories"
A. Hamster
The word “timeless” is bandied about, mostly by nostalgists who want to indicate that a piece of media has aged well and with few problematic references. This strip is “timeless” in that it takes me back to 1991. I was 13, and I had just watched Terminator 2 in a movie theater that was about an hour and a half’s drive from where they invented the nuclear bomb. Intergenerational trauma is where it’s at. Nostalgia is for people who still like to wave back at the Teletubbies.
Chris Onstad
I wish Wikipedia entries would start to get bored and begin to entertain themselves like this
Chris Onstad
Good catch. And, yeah, the little guy is almost six now.
Tom PM
Werner Herzog also works.
Tim from New Hampshire
I was maybe 5 years old when I realized death was real and applied to my entire family someday. No amount of reassurance from my parents could console me. It's been an existential thorn in my side ever since. TGIF!
Oppido
In this specific case, I think you'd say HIV is infected with Showbiz, not the other way around.
Oppido
Sometimes growing up means no longer needing to ask a robot what's the saddest thing.
Julie (HiDeeHoGal)
Whatever else Philippe is, he is very talented with shadow puppets. (any poke at parental memory is gonna Hit Different but that is okay)
W. C.
Your description of river otters is reminiscent of Britannica's description of the difference between alligators and crocodiles: " The North American alligator has a v- shaped snout whereas the crocodile has a more rounded snout. The largest difference is, of course that American alligators are freshwater while crocodiles are saltwater creatures capable of living in the freshwater. This explains why crocodiles are more worldly and understanding. Their ability to travel and see new places allows them a certain degree of emotional intelligence that is not available to the alligator. As a result, conversations with alligators can be most boring, usually focusing on topics familiar to them like the type of fish that spawns this year. And how do golfers taste? The crocodile is capable of talking about many more things including politics. + Religion."
kdusjjdhxksj
Sometimes you just have to say that stuff. There's not really a designated room you can do that in, or maybe there is but you have no interest in being in it, so sometimes it just kind of falls out. Then you can go back to business as usual, maybe feeling a little guilty for not screaming at the horror of it more often, but primarily interested in smoothing over the roughness you spoke into existence with your little japes.
Chris Onstad
Well I mean that’s every strip he’s been in, but I guess I could call it out specifically, yeah
Datura
i guess what i am saying is if the depths must be plumbed then plumb away onstad happy to have you at the helm. have you considered doing a strip where showbiz has HIV
Matthew Harris
Existence is a constant fruitless search for Barnable's world
Nicholas Williams
ROUGH. CHUCKLES.
Josh Egbert
Jesus Onstad, why you even got to do a thing
Datura
it was easy for me to read this as "grim 2024 achewood" but in truth it is a less-discussed thing that we all as children have unshared thoughts of utter horror. i feel like people don't think about how easy it really is for a kid to get fucked up over stuff. i saw a scary thing on tv once when i was a kid and it messed with me for like 20 years. and used to nightly realize i would die and run into my parents room in a furor
