Achewood
patreon
Thanksgiving Missive and Past-Blast (Serializer).
🕑 Added 2023-11-23 13:00:06 +0000 UTCI probably give a silent thanks to you, dear supporter on Patreon, every day of the week, if not multiple times throughout each day. I give thanks when I wake, and sit with my coffee in the morning silence, and notice that my base anxiety has palpably diminished with the ongoing success of this project. I give thanks when I go install a new water heater on my kid's trailer out on the farm where he works, and don't have to fret quite so deeply over the price of the unit (or the price of PEX tools). I give thanks when I drive over to Maison Extremely Fixer-Upper that Lauren and I are gutting and restoring, to pull nails and staples from a hundred-and-ten-year-old staircase for six hours, or melt ancient tar-backed linoleum off of once-beautiful hardwood floors with a 1200-degree heat gun and a 4-amp oscillating blade. (In that last example, I am grateful that at 7pm I will get to go write and draw for five hours; I am grateful that I can genuinely look forward to this coveted end-of-day ritual.)
The above image is from a prehistoric and unrelated version of Patreon, called Serializer.net. (I think it was first called WebComicsNation.) The late webcomics champion Joey Manley started it about a year after I began Achewood. It worked; people subscribed. The problem was, generating a second set of subscriber material that I thought was "as good or better than" the stuff on Achewood itself was impossible; I think I got about 86 pieces into it, but the last half, perhaps, were just scans of sketchbook doodles. The Assetbar/Fanflow subscriber service, which ran maybe 2008-2010 (?), proved the same point: it is not just impossible, but deeply unpleasant and confusing, to try to pour your love equally into two rivers.
One of the upsides of the failed Oni anthology project was that nearly all of these Serializer pieces were located and rescued off an old hard drive (it had been placed behind a vase), so I can share them here again. Above is a particularly germane (actually, I learned that word before I went to Talk Like A Dick School, thank you) example of the early posts I made there.
Happy Thanksgiving to those who sidle up to the board and load their plates thrice with monochromatic food and twice with pies we love so much we eat them once a year; and many heartfelt thanks all the very same to those who don't do that, or who do do that, but don't do it because of the American holiday. I am truly thankful for you.
CTO
Comments
Cody Richmond
Thank you, Chris.
s b
It’s nice that the the weekly tithes allow our weary Atlas to shoulder this demented globe once more
Spyguitar
Happy Thanksgiving, Chris. Thanks for all of it.
Matt Amis
NO!
Joshua Nadas
Thank you for doing this and keeping this amazing universe spinning.
Jay Williams
Damn- I wasn’t even aware of Serializer, let alone that there was Achewood content thereon, so I now have even more to be thankful for this year (as if the glorious return of Achewood weren’t enough)! A very Happy Thanksgiving to all, and thanks yet again to Chris- grateful to have you back, sir!
Matt Mitchell
I try not to evangelize too much about creative things I like. Achewood is an exception to that for sure.
b.zap
That turkey looks like it may have been in the back of a dude's car for up to or even over one half of an hour.
Cymbaline
Glad it has worked out for you this time around, Chris. I've loved Achewood for decades, now, and it's good to see you feeling the collective love in a way that notably improves your day to day life.
braap
Is your middle name Tecumseh??
Jess Burke
appreciate the opportunity to express my affection for the art and world you've created, Chris!
Julie (HiDeeHoGal)
And I in turn as a mere consumer of media am grateful to you for continuing to make this strip. It has helped bring back some continuity to my experience of the entire 2000s, all 23 years of it.
J Hardy Carroll
Very cool, Chris. I was really torn up when Joey died. He was such a positive force in comics and had visionary ideas. I got into this whole game in 1993 after failing as a syndicate comic artist in the hopes that the internet would provide a new avenue. It did, but it failed to provide any money at all (even successful syndicate comics don't provide much renumeration in almost all cases). After a while I just lost heart, and I totally got it when you gradually and then suddenly quit. It's fucking torturous to chain oneself to a comic, and readership only exacerbates it became audiences are sometimes disappointed in what we create. So hats off to you, and long may you wave. Your writing is among my favorites, and I'll always be a fan.
