Yeah guys the N word has been said in this comic before. It's not like Onstad is acting like it is okay to say "paki". He is not glamourizing the life of someone who says it.

Sure, but perhaps commenters who are using the word do not appreciate its full import.

Not meaning to sideline the serious debate (although, for the record, I'm on the side of both the Pakis AND the Niggers) but I really enjoyed how you spelled "glamourizing" with both the UK U and the US Z!

I spell it that way because I am both Canadian, and an Idiot.

I'm guessing when you were chuckling at the idiotic abortion protestors outside Ray's neighbors house your Selective Indignation Meter did not go off.

To be honest, my response was more one of confusion than of ridicule. I find it pretty difficult to get morally upset over anything that happens within this strip, most of whose humor is completely absurd. I mean, the term in question was used not only by a fictional character, but a character who is fictional within a fictional setting, and the term is fairly meaningless to this entire hemisphere.

As to the subject of lames, I agree it's up to personal choice, but I find it almost too much work to parse through the hundred-plus comments for an entire thread and spend energy letting someone know that I think they're stupid. To do it to one or two comments where it's a knee-jerk reaction, yes, that's fine and is probably what the feature is there for, but to do it over and over again to relatively innocuous comments seems borderline cruel. It feels like you're going out of your way to put a blemish on someone's day. I haven't even lamed you yet, because I do think things like this deserve to be talked about.

I suppose, yes, it's all up to personal choice, and it is just a tally next to a moniker on the internet on a website about a bunch of high cats who drink and fall down all the time. But then if it's so meaningless, to devote time to something that's so minutely disheartening...

Well. I'd just prefer it if we were polite. But this is the internet, after all. You perfectly have the right to lame every one of my comments, regardless as to whether or not you disagree with it or even read it at all.

Paki is sometimes used in headlines in Australian newspapers to refer to the Pakistani Cricket team (in the same way that Brits is used instead of Britain).

This is sometimes used as evidence that Australians are innately racist by hyperventilating Guardian readers who forget that the term is only offensive because of the many Brit racists.

He was using it to show how unpleasant the publican is. Mr. Bear enraged Mr. Teal and was left to be shouted at by a horrible, horrible fake man.

The use of such a word enhanced the reader's understanding of how unpleasant it is for Cornelius to have to sit there listening to him ranting racistly when all he wanted to do was hook up his printer.

I think this is pretty much the most accurate description of a joke, ever. I understand the word is offensive, and it might strike a certain chord with some readers, but at it's core, it is a joke. Something written with the intent to humor. It would really lose it's effectiveness if it was p*ki or "Acceptable Western European Racial Epithet".

Surely the context of its use is not comparable to 'hearing a friend say something quite offensive in an offhand way', but rather a purposefully racist fictional character, reflecting a certain reality, in a fictional comic strip? Are you offended by the depiction of racist characters? They are a pretty necessary aspect of any media that wants to portray anything real.

I should know better than to get into this, but that's ridiculous. Are you really wondering if Onstad "meant" it? Have you even examined this logically? The word is being used by a crass, nationalist stereotype that both Cornelius and the implied author find distasteful. If what neonaoneo says is true and Al Murray doesn't use the word, then Onstad is guilty of a slight mischaracterization at worst. But your example with the friend doesn't work at all, since he'd be presumably saying it in his own speech.

Words are nothing, context is everything. But if you want to get your feathers ruffled at the mere presence of certain words because it makes the world easier for you to process, go right ahead.

P.S. "Paki" was actually used in The Office and I don't recall any great controversy then.

P.P.S. Nigger, Kyke, Wop, Polock, Jawa, Cracker, Fag, Bitch, Cunt.

I never said Onstad was being offensive; just wondering, out loud, if he really knew the connotations and significance of that particular word. The guys who wrote The Office certainly did, which is where the uncomfortable humour comes from.

If Onstad does understand just how loaded that word is, then it actually makes that last panel pretty fucking sublime.

If he doesn't (and let's face it, as he lives thousands of miles away from any place where this word is in (shamefully) common usage, no sane person could hold a grudge against him if he doesn't), then he may have acccidentally, needlessly, used a rather offensive term where something else would have worked just as well, thinking that it was just a 'cute' Britishism like 'bollocks' or 'wank'.

I agree there's no point geting upset over words, I would just like to think that people understand what those words mean when they use them, that's all.

As for the reader being startled by an epithet in the context of an achewood strip, yeah, many readers would be, initially. This is not to say that many if not most of these readers would also immediately understand the context. An epithet is one of the most powerful types of words. I think it has a similar effect as when your peripheral vision catches sight of a fist flying towards your face. Immediately, before you even have time to consciously deconstruct the context, (say, perhaps, it is your friend playfully trying to scare you,) immediately your brain processes this stimuli and actually generates a physiological fight-or-flight type of response. Heart rate quickens, higher-level cognitive function takes a back seat as the brain focuses all attention on sensory input. A word can produce this reaction, and if it is in a context where the reader is not normally expecting it, the reader may do a sort of double-take before she catches herself and realizes that it is, in fact, just a joke. Yes, catching the audience off-guard is generally a tool of the comedian, although, it certainly is often a stretch to accuse the comedian of purposefully pushing low-level deeply visceral buttons of the audience. I think we all have these buttons, and to a large degree we each need to take personal and contextual responsibility for guarding these buttons and allowing them to be pressed or not... The extent to which this responsibility is our own or that of our interlocutor depends entirely on context. In the case of the specific context of Achewood, I would say that hey, epithets are part of the package. The disclaimer is implied, I think, by the overall character and take-no-hostages artistic brilliance of the strip. Authors working in such an artistic context by definition do not generally selectively self-edit. Is it pressing an intellectual button to startle the audience by having Philippe blurt out an epithet? Yes. And it is perfectly acceptable in *any* context, I say, for an author to intend to intellectually startle the audience. Now, a side effect of such a technique when it involves an epithet, of course, is that *no matter what the context,* you can be assured that some of the audience will be startled on a fundamentally visceral level. Obviously, this is usually not the intent, and in many contexts, it would be unreasonable to expect the author to take responsibility for the audience's own management of it's own visceral buttons.

Someone mentioned affective fallacy. I think that there is also a sort of codependent affective fallacy at work here, where we tend to judge the value of a work by the response that we think likely to be provoked by the work for a pathologically innane audience (John Q. Public.) Those who are affected by codependent affective fallacy wish not that the author should be custodian of their own visceral emotional buttons, but should be custodian of those of the public at large.

Hey jackass do you know how many of Bothans died for your freedom???

MANY BOTHANS

I prefer to think he did it out of shame more than fear. Then again, White Guilt disease does tend to make us think that use of any racial slur regardless of the company present will result in Immediate and Incredible Death.

You had me at, "fuck you."

The cod-sifters and the honey-haters will meet and plan at a "Scourge of Decent British Society" convention in Brighton this summer.

If you're going to properly roger in a stairwell, some amount of shirt-lifting is necessary. I know this.

Oh god dangit a cop.
We already arrested.

Roger that.

Sorry but that's not an invention: 'shirt-lifter' is an authentic homophobic British insult of long standing.

Oo-er LONG standing, eh Vicar, whoops!

Also known as the Conservative Party Conference.

Typical psuedo-liberal!!!!! SORTA WAKE UP!!!!

Vote for my protest candidate, Jerry Robert David Ollie Benjamin. He has five first names to Ron Paul's two.

I met Ron Paul, and told him I'd be voting for him.
I lied.

Well we did drag you into Iraq with us. Sorry about that old bean.

Apparently if you piss off a bird in Achewood you're doomed to have a fat publican give you threadbare directions on printer driver installs.

Perhaps he went to a hospiteal?

Yes, he was in desperate need of some tweetment.

He'll be okay; I think it's just another flare-up of his chirpes.

Also, Mr Teal says "TWEET" in binary before leaving.

And because I believe that posting things in binary will be a craze on this strip, here is the binary alphabet:

01000001 00100000 01000010 00100000 01000011 00100000 01000100 00100000 01000101 00100000 01000110 00100000 01000111 00100000 01001000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01001010 00100000 01001011 00100000 01001100 00100000 01001101 00100000 01001110 00100000 01001111 00100000 01010000 00100000 01010001 00100000 01010010 00100000 01010011 00100000 01010100 00100000 01010101 00100000 01010110 00100000 01010111 00100000 01011000 00100000 01011001 00100000 01011010


Have fun you crazy kids.

or should I say,

01001000 01000001 01010110 01000101 00100000 01000110 01010101 01001110 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000011 01010010 01000001 01011010 01011001 00100000 01001011 01001001 01000100 01010011

CHING CHONG WING WONG

When I read that I indeliberately unfocus my eyes like I were viewing a Magic Eye poster, and I swear I saw boobs.

Or a multiple "3's". Or a lady's corsetted waist. All of these things turn me on.

Come on sucker, lick my battery.

is that sexxy tho

This mission was doomed before it started.

Asherdan's little known first post on Assetbar: IDDQD

I know it means nothing to anyone - but I just discovered Achewood a few weeks ago during my buddy's hospitalization. I started from the beginning and finally caught up to present day. I'm a noob. And damn this is some great stuff. I'll go back to lurking now. xoxo

You were like so bored by your comatose friend that you used the hospital WiFi to surf through web comics? That is my reading. Anyway, welcome aboard, mate.

They usually spend all of their time adventuring; Phlox has nothing to do but stroll through the Achewoods in this time of convalescence.

I will.

185. The Judging of Others:

You and a Lady are making fun of people around you. The Lady does a :(

Solution: Point and quietly laugh at someone relatively nearby and claim that he/she probably "needs to change their diet."

Seems to me Mr. Teal looked to slip in some naughty honey talk only to have his plans thwarted by a bear who refuses to play along.

But, in a rather Pythonic fashion, the last panel punchline itself was pretty crap and run-of-the-mill, webcomics-wise.

The question is - was this deliberate? Is it a post-modern artistic jab at your average comic strip formula?

Or perhaps it's just because, hey man, it's ok to be kinda formulaic every once in a while. Don't be so picky, and enjoy simple humour. Gotta mix it up and stuff.

And more to the point, the essence of Achewood is not the destination, but the journey. Arcs are sometimes just dropped because he doesn't care about them anymore, deus ex machina'd like fuckin' crazy, and/or wrapped up quickly with little closure on the story when you think they're a stayer - but that's all part of the joke! That's what makes it funny.

What makes it an interesting read is the fact that in the middle of this (admitted) late-night/early-morning-contrived madness where he's managed to do whatever the fuck he wants and we clamour to read it and try to figure out how the mysterious man works (it is such a damn good thing he doesn't post here regularly in order to keep up the mystique), he also manages to put in deep long-term character development and, amazingly, continuity.

I may get lamed out for explaining the obvious/criticising the strip/writing a long post/generally being a douche, but whatever man. I'll make some b-movie reference later to make up for it, I promise.

I think what people mean when they talk about character development is that jokes evolve based on the known characters, and not that the characters change a whole lot. They change only slightly.

For example, this arc deals with Connie and a computer. Connie used to use a typewriter, (I think) and therein lies the potential for humour. What would a computer made for someone like Cornelius be like? Onstad posits that such a computer would be disappointing in a manner unique from the manner in which people of more pedestrian persuasion (such as I) find computers disappointing; yet at heart, the disappointments remain the same.

sorry that was so long and pretentious--but being on the internet does that to people.

So just because Cornelius is a bear means he automatically looooves honey. Is that it?

Not cool, Mr. Teal. Not cool...

You want him to shine ya shoes? You want him to smiiile for ya?

You know, now that I think about it, that blasted Office paperclip would have been a lot more amusing if it started having psychotic episodes.

All curling up into a ball, convinced the government is out to kill him and unravel his flesh in order to eject a stuck disc, or running around the desktop and stabbing your other desktop icons with the innocent yet situationally horrifying laughter of a child?

Who would have thought that Mr. Teal would be the WORST OF ALL?

Birds are just flying lizards with pretty clothes and loud voices. Sort of like drag queen velociraptors. Even the little ones want to straight up eat your face.

I love that "...STAIRWELLS!" is used as the final insult, as if it's the one that Mr. TEAL knows will push Cornelius over the edge.

Also, Cornelius' eyebrows in panels 5 and 6 express such breadth of emotion. I've noticed that in a lot of Achewood (Example)

This thread reminded me of a story that I will relate to you assetbears.
I was once assigned to read the book Jack Maggs. Whilst reading it, my professor told me that there was a brief homosexual encounter, very subtle, that I should take note of. Not 15 minutes later I got to a passage describing how a character had "reamed, rogered, and ploughed him until he could scarcely walk the next day," or something to that effect. That word will forever be linked to the feeling of my jaw slowly dropping.