Roast Beef's Initial Considerations  08/17/2007 « prev 1st rand curr next »




Embed the Strip

Embed:
Facebook: Share on Facebook


Login to post a comment

Displaying all 179 comments
equinn2006 » pro 2 years ago
The Northeast gets no love from the screaming children being drowned by their mothers.
unfun » pro 2 years ago
Texas: The Six Star State

(when stars are screaming children being drowned by their own mothers)
ford » neu 2 years ago
I have a question: In this stars-are-drowning-children scheme, what do the Big Stars mean? Bigger families?
unfun » neu 2 years ago
Bigger children (harder to drown)
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
whoooo Austin! Yeah! That is the place where I am currently at therefore I am required to give it a whoooo!
semiquaver » neu 2 years ago
Everywhere you go, with every word you say, Stephen Fry is giving you a freaked out glance.
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
I like to think Messr. Fry is simply opening a small window in your browser, popping his head in, and making a wry, amusing comment before extricating himself to continue Being Very English on his own.
semiquaver » neu 2 years ago
In that case, I am required to notify you that Messr. is actually a sarcastic way to call someone conceited, Messrs. being the appropriate plural of Mr. Good day, sir.
theora » neu 1 years ago
Oh god your Stephen Fry and Stephen Colbert avatars are having an argument IN CHARACTER with each other...
i guess i'm a tiger. grr.

gormster » neu 1 years ago
I think the Stephen Fry avatar is particularly appropriate since he recently admitted to having manic depressive disorder.

Or rather, I recently watched a documentary about it which could have been made years ago. Who knows.
spinynorman » neu 1 years ago
Well, I knew he was manic depressive, but... How... how is that appropriate? Is it appropriate for, like, me? Or the situation?
semiquaver » neu 1 years ago
I suspect he realizes that any foreign person trapped in an argument with Stephen Colbert would be so crushed by the overwhelming superiority of the United States of America that he would be cast into the utmost dysphoria.
woodenteeth » neu 1 years ago
Considering Stephen Colbert's wonderous grasp of things that are excellent outside of the U.S. and his acute self-awareness of the U.S's horrific foreign policy, your comment has the worst synergy with your Avitaricon ever.

That or you're missing: [sarcasm][/sarcasm]
spinynorman » neu 1 years ago
Yeah, I'm not sure why, but I thought the "he" in gormster's first sentence referred to me.

...pretty retarded, in retrospect.
semiquaver » pro 1 years ago
More like [incharacter][/incharacter]
woodenteeth » neu 1 years ago
I missed a subtle joke on the internet?! Me!

*sigh*
atticusonline » neu 1 years ago
My name is Philippe. I am 5. I am learning about Hobos!
atticusonline » neu 1 years ago
We should have an Achewood convention at the Omni Austin Hotel with guest speaker Stephen Fry....this could be a thing.
semiquaver » neu 1 years ago
No.
sdskyle » neu 1 years ago
Woo, yeah! Looks like Waco is the children-drowning capital, though. Austin moms need to get to work...
bixschmix » neu 1 years ago
I was thinking it looked like Dallas had the big star... HELL YEAH, METROPLEX!
atticusonline » neu 1 years ago
Dallas is not that far south...yay!
cracker » pro 2 years ago
To be fair, it's worth noting that Texas is the second most populous state in the US. The screamers per capita award appears to go to Mississippi.
adelazero » pro 3 months ago
Mississippi and Louisiana are pretty much the black holes of the US. I'm surprised to see there are no screaming children in LA, not even in the northern regions.
mangtastic » neu 2 months ago
Well, not on that particular day, at that particular time.
katsura » neu 2 years ago
or maybe it is just hidden by Beef's speech!

who knows, there could be drownings happening in upstate New York as he speaks and we will never know. :[
ghede » neu 2 years ago
Nah, upstate New York is all mountains and frozen bodies of water.

They just leave the kids to freeze there.
bhlaab » neu 2 years ago
their screams are drowned out by everyone elses screams (eg philadelphia, new jersey, rhode island)
straw » neu 2 years ago
Mothers don't drown their babies in the Northeast, they shoot them.
spectre » neu 2 years ago
Same in the Northwest -- anybody remember Diane Downes?
achilleselbow » neu 2 years ago
You're thinking of the South, or possibly the Midwest.
nonorganon » neu 2 years ago
I was actually kind of comforted by that.
i_love_kate » neu 1 years ago
Hilariously, I at first thought this was a reply to Straw's post. Oh ho ho.
nighttoad » neu 2 years ago
you'll notice that illinois also has no drowning children. this is because in my home state, we prefer to burn them alive.
sargasm » neu 2 years ago
The Economist is the safest place in the world to hide things when you are hiding things from Ray.
dreamachine » neu 2 years ago
Wouldn't this work really well as just the first five panels?
cpnglxynchos » neu 2 years ago
the line in panel five made this one Great Great Great!!
yossarianlives » pro 2 years ago
Last two panels are the funniest panels with just text I have ever seen.
galen » neu 2 years ago
Beef really cares, things about the bigger picture... but it also makes him throw up, so...
catgrl131 » neu 1 years ago
Er... how?
joestork » neu 1 years ago
he meant panel 11... his upper lip, specifically. I noticed it too. It's weird. Also, what the hell are you doing responding to a year old comment? How could you have the audacity to assume someone would reply? Well... you got LUCKY this time...
homepie » neu 2 years ago
Whenever I wake up too early, I also start thinking morbid thoughts. "I wonder if anyone I knew died while I was asleep."
unfun » pro 2 years ago
Damn wise guys, always working at Burger King, always playing pranks on the new guy, always dunking his head in the deep-fryer
frogg » neu 2 years ago
Poor Beef :(
tellumo » pro 2 years ago
that is exactly what i thought.

:-(

hopefully he will recover soon w/ Molly snorgles.
sabalpalm » neu 2 years ago
I think that map probably proves Chris Onstad has never been to Austin Texas.
stopeatingmyeyes » neu 2 years ago
austin!
twoply » pro 2 years ago
Moving there next year! Good to know Achewood peeps will be around.
sabalpalm » neu 2 years ago
Yeah I'm going to just hazard the guess that Austin has one of the highest percentages of Achewood readers for American cities.
lereya » neu 2 years ago
Yep. I read it, and so do a lot of my friends.
1000hz » neu 2 years ago
Let's all give a round of applause for Austin.
ethelthefrog » pro 2 years ago
Austin's a good town. Very few children drowned by their mothers. That's Houston.
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
Houston is a two hundred miles of baking cement and boiling glass. It's a fog of strip malls, a tangle of highways, a never-ending maze of the same suburban street again and again. Much of Houston is interchangeable. It doesn't matter where you are, because you're in Houston.
ethelthefrog » neu 2 years ago
apt description
farqussus » neu 2 years ago
Stats don't lie. You can't just go around putting bug stars on maps without some kind of science, and we all know about science.
sabalpalm » neu 2 years ago
The funny thing about people from Austin is whenever they are gathered together there is basically always a spontaneous applause for their treasured city. We are a people who love ourselves and each other and have this amazing pride in our choice of location. And right we should in some ways; I for one have never felt at home anywhere else.

PS:I think I got some lames up there for implying that Onstad might have ever done something someone didn't like. Sweet.
lereya » neu 2 years ago
Well, here's a chub for posterity. For Austin.
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
I talked about Austin before I scrolled down.

I feel left out of this, because I wasted my whooo.
boredom_man » neu 2 years ago
That's cool and all, and rest assured I wasn't the one who lamed you, but writers rarely make fun of cities in direct proportion to their dislike for them. If that was the case here, Onstad's most despised city would be Austin, and his second-most despised city would be Clovis, NM, which seems unlikely. Not that I know what he was up to, but many writers make fun of the cities about which they have mixed feelings, not which they stone-cold despise.

P.S. Your city keeps West Texas and the Louisiana Coast in poverty that it might experience the power of Manhattan-priced beers.
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
We... We're making the South poor by drink decent beer? Is that it?
boredom_man » neu 2 years ago
So you admit that people from Austin are yankees? You'll never beat Perry with that attitude.
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
I still have no idea what you mean. At all.
boredom_man » neu 2 years ago
I was being hyperbolic, and the Yankee-Perry business was purely a joke, in case that was unclear. I assumed that Texans would have some idea what I was talking about, and your question was poking fun at how overwrought I am. Please feel free to consider me overwrought when I've explained myself, as I intend to get bored before you do.

First, Austin is a technological hub, which is fair enough, though that's not as big a slice of the economy as it used to be. It also has Texas' big State University (I know you know these things, public forum and whatnot). Because of that University and (to a much greater degree) the fact that it houses the massive and wealthy state government, it attracts all sorts of investors, but especially real estate investors who wish to work in the state of Texas, with its leasing laws so famously biased towards landowners. These real estate investors will live in Austin, and buy land in rural, especially west, Texas. We then have money flowing "up" from impoverished west Texas to further stimulate the solid Austin economy.

As for Louisiana, I refer to the oil investors of Austin, and the partitioning of the oil resources of the Gulf of Mexico unfairly in Texas' favor.

Both those things are also true of Houston, with one huge difference being that Austin is actually a pleasant place to live, and Houston isn't even a pleasant place to smell from a distance. And the University of Texas at Austin does stimulate the economy statewide, as well as make a legitimate contribution to world knowledge. Parents throughout Texas send their bright and ambitious kids to Austin, where they pay 50% more for a Newcastle than they would in Albuquerque, money that comes at least in part from their parents, elsewhere in Texas. That's a small scam, and those parents know full well they're coming out ahead with UT. But again, it's money flowing "up."
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
Okay, I sort of get it now, but you got to admit, it is indeed a long and winding road of logic from talking about beer prices to the real estate, oil partitioning, and University-funded industries of the South and Southwest.
boredom_man » neu 2 years ago
US 290
spinynorman » neu 2 years ago
baZING-G-G-G-G-G
boredom_man » neu 2 years ago
That's spinynorman! He's funny! He's not usually in my bedroom, though.
tekende » neu 2 years ago
Wow. I think my head is going to explode with all of the information I'm currently trying to process.
landstander » pro 2 years ago
"Oh no it's today" is my new favorite line. I think that pretty much sums up Roast Beef's existence.
fuckyoufriday » neu 2 years ago
That's such a perfect encapsulation of the 4:32 AM experience. Unless you're in college, in which case it means you should get to bed before the fucking sun comes up.
slalvation » neu 2 years ago
I think that at least two times most days, more if I take a nap. (First post-midnight, second at seven AM, and from then on upon waking.)
invidious » neu 1 years ago
It's also what I think when I wake up on every day that doesn't start with an "S".
mrclarinet » neu 2 years ago
South Carolina - a great place to not drown your baby
kombatmedik » neu 2 years ago
Connecticut: the best place not to drown your baby.
farqussus » neu 2 years ago
Connecticut women have the maid do it.
lacrimus » neu 2 years ago
Louisiana has no children drowned by their mothers.
featurelessvoid » neu 2 years ago
Unless you count Mother Nature :-(
ethelthefrog » pro 2 years ago
Zing.
gormster » neu 2 years ago
Wait, was that a joke about Katrina? Is that okay now?
lacrimus » neu 2 years ago
It's a thing now. If we can't make jokes about it than the terrorists and weather phenomena have won.
gormster » neu 2 years ago
Fucken weather phenomena
Come into our country
Take our jobs
cpnglxynchos » neu 2 years ago
sign me up for so much spam!
ravindra108 » pro 1 years ago
Just a little tweeking, and you've got youself a haiku:

Damn fucking weather
Coming into our country
Taking our jobs
ravindra108 » neu 1 years ago
Holy crap... I wrote that before I saw your next post about haikus...

I'm totally freaking out right now!
biff » neu 2 years ago
Beef in agony
Where will he puke this morning?
In the sound baffle
imitationcrab » pro 2 years ago
Your picture is a dude with his head up his own ass! It took me sooooo long. To find out. But I found out.
imitationcrab » neu 2 years ago
Before I thought it was a ninja in a black mask with a turd on his head.
biff » neu 2 years ago
Your picture is a tasty snack! I knew right away.
gormster » neu 2 years ago
Oh! Oh, I see it now! Man, maybe you shouldn't have made it a black background? That's really hard to see.

15 points to the first person who figures out what or where my pic is.
valrus » neu 2 years ago
"Mondrian ceiling" would be a good band name
miku224 » neu 2 years ago
Hooray for the Beatles!
ravindra108 » pro 1 years ago
One way ticket, yeah
songbirdspectre » pro 2 years ago
I love baffling sound.
k_buttsworthe » neu 2 years ago

how does a child scream if he or she is underwater?
katsura » neu 2 years ago
my guess is 'hrbhrbherbhrelllrbrl'
plummet » pro 2 years ago
insta-chubbied
featurelessvoid » pro 2 years ago
errantly-lamed
I accidentally clicked the lame link rather than its chubby neighbor, and now I want a do-over.
katsura » neu 2 years ago
I seem to get a lot of accidental laming on Acheworld nowadays!

But it's all right, you get a chubby for owning up to it.
k_buttsworthe » neu 2 years ago
that is a sound of nightmares
farqussus » neu 2 years ago
'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!' being screamed hysterically from the door is also a sound of nightmares.
fuckyoufriday » neu 2 years ago
Almost 60 chubbies for the sound of drowning children? I think we, as a group, need to get some counseling.
tekende » pro 2 years ago
69 now. Freud might have something to say about this.
woodenteeth » neu 1 years ago
hedonismbot>>pro ASAP ago

...masturbating furiously

Got your back HB.
spicyponyhead » neu 10 months ago
YES.
Forgive me for posting a lol-dog, but I sort of always imagine this sound:
[IMGS OFF]
cpnglxynchos » neu 10 months ago
yeah, i'll chubby that.
plummet » pro 2 years ago
Ha ha ha, oh those Wise Guys...

All coming from Chicago on Mafia business, all dunking people's heads in deep fryers, all getting lame shows on HBO...
brian » neu 2 years ago
No mothers drowning their children in Kentucky or Tennessee? Is it because of the lack of indoor plumbing?
unfun » neu 2 years ago
As a lifelong Tennessee resident, I would like to point you to the above comment about Louisiana.
solobuttons » pro 2 years ago
I hate when it's today.
woodenteeth » neu 1 years ago
I hate it when it's 15 seconds ago...


forever.
cpnglxynchos » neu 10 months ago
hella 1401 stylez.
this_is_a_thing » pro 2 years ago
As a man of science shouldn't Beef make a noise blocking device to put over his head so he can heave in his own bathroom. Some sort of Barf Bowl. Like a divers helmet, but bigger. Oh but where will he keep it. I guess it's just too much hassle.
gormster » neu 2 years ago
Man Beef can't do that shit when he's got depression. He can't even go to the grocery store.
cchauffe » neu 2 years ago
this is classic beef, man.
noah » pro 2 years ago
Have you guys read Chris Ware's stuff? Onstad talks about him a lot, and I think his influence is really shining through in these all-text panels.
ethelthefrog » neu 2 years ago
I love this book
ethelthefrog » neu 2 years ago
sorry, messed up the link. the book is Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth" and it's stunning.
gormster » neu 2 years ago
I think "tiny green worms on invisible threads" might beat out "cellar door".
puguglypress » neu 3 months ago
Yeah but it wouldn't look right on Drew Barrymore's chalkboard.
twoply » neu 2 years ago
In Las Vegas people don't drown their children. They prefer the slow agony of a locked car door, summer heat, and a Walmart parking lot.
sabalpalm » neu 2 years ago
And quite a heat it is.
fmercury » neu 1 years ago
I thought the car bomb was the preferred method.
twoply » neu 1 years ago
Las Vegas, Nevada not Las Vegas, County Cork.
taiiga » neu 2 years ago
best achewood in a while for me
catachresis » neu 2 years ago
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/newstreetlaw/lisa_faulkner.shtml]Damn you, wise guys[/url]
catachresis » neu 2 years ago
byronic » pro 2 years ago
Onstad must have watched the movie "Scotland, PA."
astro_zombie » pro 2 years ago
Putting a dude's head in a deep-fryer is never wise. Not ever.
havenless » pro 2 years ago
"Oh no it's today"

We've all been there. Only difference is that Beef is always there.
skiddyfisk » con 2 years ago
Doesn't live up to the last two. I can't wait to see Lyle's, though.
mikeleffel2 » pro 2 years ago
yay molly has smurf-butt.
neonfreon » neu 2 years ago
I watched "Goodfellas" right before i read this strip. Wiseguys prefer ovens over deep-fryers for sure.
anomalous3 » pro 2 years ago
Panini grills are the way to go. One for each hand.
plezure » neu 2 years ago
It looks like a lot of children are being drowned in Dallas.
andyetandyet » neu 2 years ago
Looks more like Austin to me. Hence my fiance's discussion above. Austin is a really awesome town, you wouldn't think of so many children being drowned there, really. I mean, Dallas I could understand a little more. Houston, definitely.
biff » neu 2 years ago
Isn't Austinite who hates Houston redundant?
stopeatingmyeyes » neu 2 years ago
I wonder if I know any of you!
yearsinhotclaws » neu 1 years ago
You do prefer your hot radio DJs head-on collisioned though right?
cpnglxynchos » neu 10 months ago
when i'm between them, yes.
son_of_selleck » neu 2 years ago
it's 4:32 am. have you drowned your child yet?
featurelessvoid » pro 2 years ago
Double-wall plastic bags. The dude is Prepared.
killingthejay » neu 2 years ago
WAS prepared.
songbirdspectre » pro 2 years ago
when are they going to get married?
prine » neu 2 years ago
twohundredninety » neu 2 years ago
johnmatrix » neu 2 years ago
Both of those strips were way back in Achewood's early days, before most of the characters had been strictly defined and given a set role in the strip. As such, you can't compare them to strips today.

People are probably going to disagree, but I have to wonder whether Beef's character has really changed that much. He's found true love, moved out of his grandma's house, participated in the GOF, and yet he's still the same nervous wreck he's been before all of that happened. It's not character development if the changes aren't permanent.
fmercury » neu 1 years ago
The comic wouldn't be very interesting if it were just two completely normal, well adjusted cats talking to each other in Paulo Alto.
aelindil » neu 10 months ago
Paulo Alto cleans my pool sometimes.
fmercury » neu 10 months ago
That's an embarrassing typo!
tombsgrave » neu 2 years ago
He's getting married soon--plus Ray's been acting up at him--he's got plenty of stress. I think that's why he's freaking out stronger than normal.
fuckyoufriday » neu 2 years ago
I don't see any deviation from his character development so far here. The dude is from Circumstances. In addition to his depression, which ranges from remissive to crippling (very true to form, I think), he has pretty massive anxiety issues. These compulsive ruminations on the horrors of the world don't seem like parody to me. In fact, they're almost too accurate to be funny.

I've been having real awful dreams about giant apocalyptic machinery just mowing us all down.
riazm » pro 2 years ago
Wait a minute, what the fuck, when did it become "Current Kid Status" ?

I look forward to a decade from now where it's "Current Teen Status"
tekende » pro 2 years ago
"Current Crotchety Old Lady Status"
boswelljn » neu 2 years ago
"Oh no it's today" is classic. Oh my.
dr_sexlove » neu 2 years ago
I've been having real awful dreams about giant apocalyptic machinery. Just mowing us all down.
fuckyoufriday » neu 2 years ago
Oh shit! I didn't see this until after I made the same reference. I gamble, I lose.
lugosh » neu 1 years ago
But you linked yours, so it is better?
spectre » neu 2 years ago
Boy Howdy, they're a rowning 'em in Orlando! Check into a Disney World hotel and do it there or head for one of the two convenient water parks -- or he many ponds and moats of the Magic Kingdom! So says this Florida boy.
Maybe Disney allows this under some weird set of rules. They have their own government, after all. (Google "Reedy Creek Improvement District" if you don't believe me.)
delzhand » pro 2 years ago
This comic had very slightly more weight before I realized that panel nine did not say "Oh god the heavens"
arbys » neu 2 years ago
So did anybody notice the tiny star in the northwest corner of Arizona?

That's the location of Colorado City, one of the two border towns populated entirely by members of the Reformed Church of LDS.
tekende » neu 2 years ago
Why is there a Colorado City in Arizona? Colorado is pretty far away from Arizona.
arbys » neu 1 years ago
They're both Four Corners states, so that's a rather silly statement

In any event, I would venture a guess that it has to do with the fact that the Colorado River runs through that area.
tekende » neu 1 years ago
Well, it's far enough away that the one city can't overlap both states.

But the river thing makes sense.
dueledge » pro 2 years ago
Beefs parents were not good parents.
eatmorekix » neu 2 years ago
rereading this strip, i realize this is the way i've been sleeping lately. wake up before sunrise. think paranoid thoughts, hear noises, panic that there might be a spider in my ear, feel sick and lie awake thinking about terrible things before i drift off to strange nightmares.
fosters » pro 2 years ago
I single-handedly created the one star for Alabama! Well, I had to use both hands, but you know what I mean.
captneko » pro 1 years ago
This is how my day starts too. Yay for manic depressive anxiety disorders!
dj_douche » neu 1 years ago
Mine has been starting like this for a month now .. But that's because I have had typhoid. :(
cpnglxynchos » neu 10 months ago
that is pretty terrible. i'd chubby you if it wouldn't be considered a dick move.
dj_douche » neu 9 months ago
I chubbied you for the implied chubby. :D
dj_douche » neu 9 months ago
(i don't think 'implied' was the word i meant to use there, 'intended' maybe?)
tonyhighwind » neu 11 months ago
He has double-wall plastic bags hidden there, too.
jaldor » neu 9 months ago
NEAT BACKGROUND FACT: Ray is so rich he has a golf shoe cleaning system. That implies multiple machines, working in tandem, to wash his golf shoes.
Displaying all 179 comments