Achewood
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0032 - The Account, Pt. 3
🕑 Added 2023-12-08 18:00:09 +0000 UTCSPOILER ALERT: Tina's Awareness of Different Garnish Styles. The presence and style of garnish silently communicates specific information, and here Tina demonstrates a surprising appreciation for this rarefied dialect. Her easy use of the term "captain-cut" for Vandyke lemons (lemons cut in half with a zigzag pattern, ideal for single-handed squeezing over seafood) suggests a long familiarity with higher-end fried seafood restaurants, which typically serve a "Captain's Platter," or variety sampler; producing the Vandyke pattern in citrus is a labor-intensive affair unlikely to be lavished upon fast-casual patrons.
Although today's lazy scholars have yet to connect the words "Vandyke" and "lemon" in any sort of satisfying etymology, we would be remiss not to note the tempestuous relationship between 17th-century Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck and his mistress Margaret Lemon, who, according to the surviving gossip, once attempted to bite off his thumb. The zigzag pattern may symbolize the dental incisions of his injury.
Some have compared the zigzag cut of this lemon garnish to the small, triangular "Van Dyke" beard historically worn by untrustworthy men, but to recognize this etymology would be to validate and take into lading this disreputable perversion of grooming, and we cannot in good faith do that.
It is currently unclear whether Tina appreciates the function of parsley in the larger conversation of garniture; future restaurant meal scenes in which she participates may produce this information.
Comments
Arms_Crossed_Negative
This is the high water mark of Achewood, period.
Vi Hermens
Philippe wins this one
Vi Hermens
Aldi Ray
Vi Hermens
Don’t assume you speak for anyone else. They haven’t spoken. There is a reason: everyone else loves it
Brian Horstead
Teodore is the bag of frozen seafood
C C
Tina!
SignOfZeta
Fuck this guy.
Alexander Rediger
Hahahahaha. The last panel. Damn. Onstad reads my journals. Lol. I realized today why I like McCarthy so much.
Aware
Nuh uh
Cohen is a Ghost
shut up dude
jacob moore
Tina's capping
Aware
I genuinely don't mean it as a diss, or to imply that I'm objectively correct, because all I've got is my personal opinion. When I say "nobody else seems willing to", I mean there are possibly other readers feeling the same as me. Not that I'm universally right which I'm clearly not if these replies are anything to go by. I'm not bedgruding anyone for enjoying the new strip, but people might not have wanted to speak out against it for fear of coming across as a dick. Which I've tried not to 😅
Vijnananath
Maybe "nobody else seems willing to" because not everyone agrees with you. Sometimes an opinion is just an opinion, and not the great truth others cannot fathom. As others have said, it's cool of you to have that opinion and it's cool if current Achewood isn't speaking to you so much, but for me, it's speaking to me where I'm currently at in the way that older Achewood spoke to me when I was in my 20s. Hell, I read older Achewood with a much different eye than I once did; even the "purely for laughs" bits feel bittersweet to me because of how I look back at my own young adulthood. Stuff changes. We don't always process it the same way, and that's groovy.
2scrogz
Is Teodor the Joe Satriani of disappointing people who give him job opportunities? (My guess is: yes, yes he is.)
2scrogz
The way he lost focus to his internal horniness IMMEDIATELY after anticipating that Tina was about to tell him a career-launching secret really underscored it.
Cody Richmond
Not saying I agree or disagree, but instead I’m saying this: some bands make great first albums, and some bands continue to make great albums ten on; album #10 doesn’t sound like album #1, and it’s just as okay to prefer #1 as it is to be into #10 as well.
E Corcoran
he'll realize the van was his true destiny
Guilherme Töws
Téodor seems uncapable of talking to a woman without getting Interior Dialogue about it.
Matt Thurston
I mean I respect you expressing this opinion, and recognizing in yourself there’s something you want that you’re not getting. At the same time…well. Personally I’m very much into this new wave of Achewood, which we can’t overlook is coming from a different place, under different conditions than the prior stuff. I like most of the old stuff, and the new stuff is not like the old stuff, and I totally get it if it’s not working for some people. But it is working for other people, and I’m going to suggest that the version of Achewood we have now is arguably coming from the best place it can come from. So I hope it still can become something that wins you over.
Oppido
I don't want to speak for Chris here, but I had the impression he's chosen to mostly post longer strips because Achewood is now 1) weekly and 2) subscription-only, and he maybe wanted people to feel like they were getting their money's worth, rather than paying a monthly fee for just two rows of comics every Friday. It would make me a little sad to think the days of snack-sized installments are over -- a six-panel strip has a certain internal rhythm that you can't really reproduce in a strip twice that length -- but I also get why the economics and the distribution model might be dictating the form somewhat.
Dan Brookes
username checks out
Aware
I'm saying this with all the love, respect and appreciation in the world, but I'm just gonna say it, since nobody else seems willing to. These strips aren't great. They're not funny but mostly they're long winded and overwritten in a way that doesn't suit the format, or the essence of what Achewood should be imo. At some point you decided that you wanted to be a serious writer, which is great, but you poured that into Achewood and made it something it isn't. Achewood is a hilarious comic strip with loveable characters and a unique world, but it's not a dense work of literary prose. Just have fun with it dude! If you want or yearn for longform just write a novel (I remember that being on your to do list anyway), I'd love to buy an Onstad novel. This hasn't felt like Achewood since the start of its patreon run, but feels like it's closer to your burnout years in the late run, still.
BootsMcGuffin
Kreayshawn
b.zap
FU Tina ... Friday?
tossrock
The Commodore Tina gave Ray that Téodore was compelled to participate in as a disembodied voice, unable to experience the visceral pleasures, yet forced to listen, no doubt left some kind of Grecian impression on his vision of Tina, the water to his Tantalus. Basically, he is down bad.
GruntyGinMan
You mean...a poor man's bloated?
GruntyGinMan
He better start drinking water.
Cf Duddy
I’m thinking norcal, oakland
Datura
i think it is supposed to be kind of mid-century southern like ray, which i guessed just now based on his dad and his estranged uncle culpepper
Datura
the difference between teodor and lyle is that teodor's shame lets the whole world know they should judge him
Ben Sunshine-Hill
Instagram.
Oppido
For all that Ray presents as a ladies' man, I believe Tina is canonically the only woman we've ever seen him with more than once. (At least in the strip -- I dunno about the blogs.) This suggests either she's got some allure Ray is powerless to deny, or that she's the only woman in California willing to put up with him.
Mike Crotch - Harvey
can somebody tell me what Tina's accent is
Spins Giardinere
Ooooo, good point!
Dalton Reyburn
Tina mentioned at one point that seeing Ray as very intelligent and business-savvy is what motivated her to get her MBA, I read her as kind of a funhouse mirror version of Ray that he was inadvertently responsible for creating.
Nicholas Williams
Oh shit man Teodor is going to try to get all up in there.
Andy Nemeth
huge slam on Van Dyke facial hair out of absolutely nowhere
Don Rowe
Pinocchio growing donkey ears and T buying $500 designer frames both make Philippe lose control and make Bad Choices.
Bungus Bronbo
Philippe doesn't usually have panels dedicated to his dialogue, that was neat. Also, Teeodore really, really, really should've listened to that lesson and then taken a look at everything that's happened to him since he first heard from Tina.
Bungus Bronbo
She's straight up Ray if Ray was a woman
Omurice
I slipped into a back alley outside of a restaurant called the China Gourmet and found a guy cooking on a garbage can lid. The manager told me it was a new lid, never used. The incident was on the Cincinnati Health Department website for years, no idea if it’s still there.
Omurice
Good call, I just hope Tina drives a little more responsibly.
Joe Locastro
Oh Christ, Teodor, the thirst will drown you.
Eli Parker
Also, I like that this is the 2nd strip in the last few months to revolve around designer frames. Feels like there's a story behind that.
Andrew Springer
You know it's a good one when the first panel makes you laugh.
blair
Only using the Vandyke lemons in the counter display ties the whole thing together, really. As would using them as a cover for utility-grsde seafood.
Eli Parker
It's interesting to see more of Tina. I'm inclined to read her as some sort of mirror image of Ray. Like what if Ray was a little bit evil? Or what if Ray had the attention span to stick with one thing long enough to be corrupted by it? Or what would Ray be without Beef to keep him grounded? Not sure if that's supported by the text so much as Tina just being another cat with glasses who has been connected to Ray.
Oppido
Teodor both does and doesn't deserve what's coming to him.
Zen Window
but evoking dread thats new
Zen Window
t evoking pity is familiar ground
Yelahneb Unicornucopiax
T's visualizations are in tandem with my own
Hunter
T is about to prove his ability to fold with a focus and intensity normally seen only in successes.
Ollin Williams
Why does vandyke lemons gotta be hard? Just use one of them coring knives with the v-shaped blade and visualize your last failed romance. Wa-la, zigzag cut lemons. Two for the price of one, if your frustrated rage is precise. Like you can remember the precise shade of hazel that short bitch's eyes were.
Bill Cameron
Is that a typo in the second-to-last panel, or is that somehow linked to how Tina pronounces T's name?
EndgamerAzari
The way Tina specifically mispronounces T's name makes the significance of the note from a few strips ago so much more clear.
zoë hayden
surely this isn't going to go wrong for our hero
J Hardy Carroll
Jiro Dreams of canned tuna and jars of Trader Joe's salmon roe.
Josh Egbert
Poor T, he's so bad at life he thinks the gun pointed at his head needs to be gargled first.
Matthew Harris
She doesn't seem like someone who would appreciate parsley for its function, or for any other reason for that matter
Christopher Malone
Tina's voice is Tiffany Haddish in my head.
chili sunrise
I’m unclear as to whether T is finally seeing the red flags, or if he’s just got the hots for Ray’s ex.
C.F. FROST
Maybe it’s a maturity thing but I never quite realized how feckless Teodor is in the earlier days. Fucks sake. Have some self respect my guy.
