The Butcher's Diagram

The Butcher's Diagram 08/24/2007 « prev 1st rand curr next »

It's the hardest call a little boy ever has to make.

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Jesus Christ

You shouldn't have yelled at him. That was uncalled for.

Congratulations Jesus Christ

You are

The Horrified Exclamation of the Week

I've never told anyone before that I laughed until I cried without using it as hyperbole holy shit man.

If you laughed at this there is something wrong with you.

Oh god dammit. That'll teach me to ignore threading of comments. Now I look like an idiot.

... Now?

Thankyew, thankyew. This been responses with a perfect set-up. I'm your host Ghede. We hope to see you again next time. Goodnight.

your mother

Sorry, Gormster wins.

your mother ...is Lord!

the new film in select cities by Peter Greenaway

Jesus Christ takes... a Lord! *splut*

my cat died today. and your avatar got me to smile. have a chubby, knowing that you desrve 50.

Don't be sad! In this strip, Philippe looks like a piece of toast!

And that's a neat concept!

This is my worst nightmare. But it's an entertaining horror.

Phillipe Phillipe Phillipe...The saddest thing is a piece of dog food scuttling across a table top to call his mommy and ask for help.

The Saddest Thing is that he believes that his mother can help him.

Of course she can! You don't get to be mom if you can't fix everything just right.

I'm guessing this is a pink floyd reference?

Your avatar makes this comment incredibly chilling.

"the only thing YOU can redistribute is my disapproval"

It IS the saddest thing. Reading the last few panels made me feel this pit of despair in my stomach. I've had to make a phonecall like that before (however not for similar circumstances).

That is so freakin awesome! Haven't seen a truly scary one in a while.

retarded? I'd be careful. Phillipe is like everyone here's nephew.

He is FIVE.

I do not see ribeye on that chart.

From what I hear, it is the mosts nutritious cut of steak.

Definitely. It's made of 100% health giving meat.

So healthy is the ribeye, in fact, that when it was still connected to the cow, the cow was alive.

Cows cannot live without their ribeye steak, because it is taken from them and devoured. They die. They are butchered for their meat.

See there is a cow, then you cut it into pieces. One of these pieces is the ribeye.

Bummer for the dogs who have to eat other animals' faces.

Also, that was amazing.

In the world of Achewood, dog is the lowest of animal and they throw it the scrap parts of the cow because it does not discriminate.

I love dogs, but they will eat a cow's face with no shame, and then beg for more.

You know barbacoa is cheek meet from a cow, right?

It is a delicious meat, particularly in tacos.

isn't cheek meat called rump?

I'm here all week. Try the barbacoa.

It's generally goat here.

I thought barbacoa was barbecue. I was looking for Carne asada on the chart. No such luck.

But I will say I do like well prepared goat!

"carne asada" means "roasted meat", dude. It wouldn't be on the chart unless the cow was pre-roasted.

Chorizo is often made from cheeks and salivary glands. If someone can tell me that chorizo is not delicious then I will know that he is lying.

Now I know, without a doubt, that you hail from Austin TX and not Hampstead, England. Mmmm, cheek tacos!

Dogs eat faeces all the time for no good reason I can think of.

note to teodor: good birthday presents do not inspire visions of relentless horror.

New bumper stickers, inspired by lack of article:

I give chubby.
(by itself, or with options:
Option 1: ... at RR tracks.
Option 2: ... for kids.)

Give Chubby?
(choose celebrity with iconic representation of chubby, akin to milk on upper lip.)

Chubby on Board.

Can Has Chubby?

No is chubby, is Vlad.

Has Vlad Chubby?

Until you are SO chubby.

Assetbar has Officially Overlapped with my real life:
This morning in the cafeteria a friend of mine dropped a Wilde reference on us and i told him "Chubby for literature, dude." It just popped out. I had to explain to everybody about Achewood and assetbar and the chubby system. I live in fear of a friend's arrest.

Do you people see what you've done?

"Consider yourself CHUBBIED!"

or maybe

"If you can read this, you are LAME!"

I have a feeling Teodor wouldn't have said this if he saw that Phillipe took the time to outline his own face before posing the question.

The blood... the urgency... But really, it was when he said "Mommy" that my heart broke.

Ohgodohgodohgod it is 4:18 in the morning and that is *plenty* of time for nightmares to come.

Whats worse is you know he can't hear her loving and calming words, his ears already having been made into tasty little dried chew toys.

Also, Phillippe's thinking face is exceedingly cute.

Agreed. Worse is people just repeating the punchline from the current strip, and then getting a zillion chubbies for it. We already read it, people.

The dude has got no mercy.

Oh god what have I started.

A lamefest for things that used to be given chubbies.

Times have changed.

Well, I'm glad someone finally said it. Chubbies for you and gormster below.

I'm inclined to give people a pass as long as they aren't quoting the same comic they are commenting, and if the quote is actually relevant, and hasn't been done a thousand times.

Unless the very fact that it has been done a thousand times is being deliberately satirized... of course.

Whoa, fuck. That is horrible.

Videogames desensitising you? Who are you, Joe Liebermann?

I think you were just born with a malformed 'aughghghghghg' gland

he said literature, too! zefiel got all mean and street-tough from reading jane eyre

William Wordsworth made me The Monster that I am

Oh! dreadful price of being to resign
All that is dear in being! better far
In Want's most lonely cave till death to pine,
Unseen, unheard, unwatched by any star;
Or in the streets and walks where proud men are,
Better our dying bodies to obtrude,
Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war,
Protract a curst existence, with the brood
That lap (their very nourishment!) their brother's blood.

The pains and plagues that on our heads came down,
Disease and famine, agony and fear,
In wood or wilderness, in camp or town,
It would thy brain unsettle even to hear.
All perished -- all, in one remorseless year,
Husband and children! one by one, by sword
And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear
Dried up, despairing, desolate...

(WW, The Female Vagrant)

Lewis Carroll got me.
Now we're all mad here.

What kind of games have you been playing?

Actually I think there might be something like this in the Mortal Kombat series, though I wouldn't exactly call those "video games" so much as "dog shit".

Yoshi's Island.

That game is so violent

Philippe's face is a soggy, spongy slab of tofu, streaked in dogfood jelly.

Philippe, you must know something: things will never go back to being okay again.

I just realized that when I had a nightmare loosely based on this strip some time ago, your comment here was part of it. Congratulations!

Phillipe is a fucking legend.

I'm with Gerry Butler on this one.

I dont want to talk about it.

Paging Dr. Phillipe Lecter . . .

Hmm . . . my comment makes no sense now without the one lamed off above it.

Don't worry, I have my lame limit set to 9999. The idea of removing comments based on lames alone seems kind of silly to me. Especially, but not exclusively, because it's based on lames alone and not the chubby/lame ratio.

I said "lames alone" twice in consecutive sentences. HELLO INTERNET IT IS 3:00 AM

My lame threshhold is is set at 10, and it works pretty well. This typically only removes really shit comments anyway.

I think the whole thing of making things that are "too lame" go away is really silly, even if it were to be based on the ratio. God forbid we read something our peers have deemed to be UNCOOL.

When I was five I dreamed I had done very badly in Kindergarten and was given to the "better" students as a dry fiber filled husk doll. That dream haunted me for months. The black stitches!

when i was five i dreamed that Chewbacca cornered me in an ally repeating "i'm not gonna hurt you little guy, i'm not gonna hurt you."

it inspired a short story that got me a smiley sticker.

So did he keep his word or did he sucker punch you as soon as you let your guard down?

he pulled out a knife and pressed it against my throat. i woke up screaming about chewbaca and his knife.

UWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Yes, that is nice, I like to read that.

I don't think there's anything scarier than Chewbacca speaking english.

Oh my god. In some kind of "Of Mice and Men"-style dumb Lenny tone of voice?
Waves of paralzying fear and revulsion just passed through my head and throat.

I choked on my own spit a little at that, yes.

At first I missed the "not"s and thought you said that he was saying "I'm gonna hurt you little guy, I'm gonna hurt you."

Which would be all kinds of wrong to say to a five-year-old.

Those are...definitely "dog-food-outta-can" noises....

He researches his sound effects real good.

SNIF SNAF SNOOF

Lamed for hypocrisy.

Absolutely justified.

Have you ever seen anyone do sound effects, in text only, better?

Indeed I have not.

only Dave Sim.

There are two cuts of Phillipe: Face and Not-Face.

That's one tender faceless steak though. I'd wrap in in bacon.

This should be the alt text.

Your dog could be eating the face of a five-year old right now.

Yes, and yesterday I bought five DENTED CANS of Alpo from the "Priced to sell" cart at Winn-Dixie. There was no reference to "Otter and Otter By-product" on the label, but the Alpo was made in . . . CHINA! They'll can anything! (Tibetans, usually, these days. Oh, and there's documentation of Chinese dog food being made from . . . dogs. Like they haven't heard of the Laws of Conservation of Energy; how entropic can you get?)

Canine spongiform encephalopathy. Nice.

Man, hi-five for the mad cow reference.

Mad Dog reference ?

It better be! If it isn't then the pound fucking lied to me and I'm suing those bastards for fraud.

Phillip has discovered body art!

Kinda, Kinda.

Shaving glasses into yourself goes a bit beyond a haircut.

I've had to make calls to Mom like that before. But now I consider myself lucky, because each time I still had my face attached to my body.

Phillipe's dismembered face wants to be animated in the style of a mop from Fantasia

I see it more as the blanket from The Brave Little Toaster

god dammit that'll teach me to be slow

Spot-on. All catchin' on the thorn bush as it gets whisked just out of reach of the merry group.
BLAAAAANKIIIIEEE

Everyone who's been complaining about nut-hanging fanboys can just read this one and give up on putting Onstad in a box. A Ziploc will do nicely for Philippe's face, though.

"I chose to have my meat parts eaten, Mommy."

wanna go out later?

Seven-kinky!

she is So nude

Gave me the shivers.

Fucking brilliant.

There hasn't been a strip this demented in a long time. I love it.

I think what does it is the way his face has little meaty legs that flap about

flap flap flap

For a Five-Year-Old Philippe can have some disturbing images.

I think Beef is rubbing off on him.

man beef's not into that jesus why would you even say that you pervert

oh god that made my stomach churn so early in the morning

Philippe's square face walking around is like a horrorshow version of Sweet Cuppin' Cakes.

EH! STEVE!

EH! BEEF.
it...it rhymes.

It's like the animated sequel to Eraserhead.

In Achewood...
Everything is fine...

Were the shoes with turned-up points a birthday present? They seem new.

I would have liked a 12 panel depiction of the dialing process.

I would order a Phillipe face, rare with sea salt and peppers.

I've had a shitty morning. And that made me feel better. And I can't figure out why.

I fear that this makes me a bad person.

So, I guess this strip brings up the important question:
Who would you call in the event your face was made into dog food?

I certainly wouldn't call my sister.

I'd call your sister

I gave you a chubby. No, my sister gave you a chubby. But then I gave you one.

man, your pissy Phillipe makes your comment seem so angry and indignant.

also: "pissy Phillipe" looks like a euphemism waiting to happen.

My feelings on my own grandiosity are con.

Send lawyers, guns, and money; dad, get me out of this.

Alternatively: Joanie Vollmer.

I love that Phillipe has no problem w/ people eating his flesh; he's just horrified at the prospect of being dog food.

also the neutralness of the third panel is what gets me.

If faces are Prime Cuts, what body parts are Low-Cost Cuts?

*shudder*

And who do you pay to skin the face off a talking, 5-year old river otter with little shoes on?

There are probably people who would do it for free.

ooh-la-laaa!!!

Are you kidding?

Maybe. But maybe the lames register irritation with unelaborated gripes. If you won't or can't say why, in your opinion, this strip represents the point at which Achewood has shark-jumped, then you are just typing crabby words on a computer screen.

"might not be as great" is what I meant, of course.

Lames are for people whose comments don't even warrant the effort it would take to disassemble them, which includes any comment that references the phrase "jumping the shark".

I disagree; that sounds like such an easy excuse. You don't have to disassemble their "arguments." Hell, just do what twohundredninety did up there. I just think the anonymous "lame" approach is as childish as spamming/trolling.

Yeah. Unelaborated gripes are annoying, but lames are themselves unelaborated gripes.

Not that I don't lame stuff. I give out lames and chubbies pretty casually, I think. But still.

Honest query: what does jumping the shark mean?

It's a phrase used originally of formerly good TV shows that have lost the plot, and, desperate to keep their audience, get real stupid. The specific origin is a late episode of Happy Days featuring Fonzie jumping a shark tank on his motorcycle.

Get bossy on a search engine and you'll discover that the phrase is now wildly overused to mean, "My taste is better than all of the hoi polloi, and I shall share it with the whole wide internet."

The phrase could be accused of jumping itself, in fact. Jumping the shark is the new so last year.

Fonzie jumps a shark tank? Badass.

They also reference this, I believe, in a second season episode of Arrested Development. Throughout that episode they make several reference to the popular fast food chain Burger King, culminating with a character played by Henry Winkler (the same actor who played The Fonz in Happy Days) proclaiming "I skipped breakfast so I'm going to Burger King!", afterwards jumping over a dead shark that was laying on the dock he was at.

Hilarious!

No, using a phrase as hackneyed as "jumped the shark" = lames. Regular dissent can go either way.

Just to put this in perspective, I actually told my girlfriend not to look at this strip because she wouldn't like it. I don't like it either. It freaks me the fuck out. Kudos to a comic strip for doing that but...Jesus...this is so horrible. I'll never eat dog food again.

I'm never touching otter steak again, either.

What the hell's wrong with you guys? Cartilage Head was WAY worse than this.

Doesn't mean this isn't FUCKED UP

Cartilage Head wasn't Phillipe's severed face making a phone call to his mom.

Cartilage Head was just a performance artist with an abnormal bone structure. This goes way beyond that...

Cartilage Head was also a bit of a jerk

I remember having little kid fears. The strangest things freak you out. When I was a kid and that old commercial came on with 'OOOOLD MAAAAAN WIIIINTER' on it I would dive behind the couch and piss myself and cry hysterically because I thought he was going to encase me in ice.

Probably, every waking moment is like this for Phillippe.

Phillipe is such a little mensch, to regard this as the result of a choice rather than a victimization.

The dogfood guy persuaded Philippe with an emotive slideshow of malnourished dog photos. Poor Philippe couldn't very well say no after that.

Oh no. I did not need my heart broken at 10 am on a Friday.

HAH. HAH. HAH.

This is absolutely terrifying.

Bravo Onstad!

face-only-Phillippe brings memories of the autonomous blanket from "The Brave Little Toaster." That movie was horrorshow enough, what with the dead cars all singing about being worthless. Now that same depraved feeling is back.

Phillippe, you are a special piece of meat.

Onstad you are working some rough chuckles these days.

I wanted to chubby this so hard. both for content and Icon. I'm sorry I can only give 2 chubbies a page, thicker. I hope your flying dog will forgive me.

fuck. run out again.

Hahaha, do you have something against me, per chance? That is ten kinds of awesome.

not at all. have a chubby. looks like i have to give out 200 of the fuckers to get one lame.

I have this vague suspicion it's based on how many chubbies *you* get.

well, that's me fucked

Is there somewhere we can go, to look at all our chubbies? I suppose get a pencil, paper, and scan my posts.

Otter, Sea (facial portions)*

Nutritional Information
For 100 gram serving (3.5 oz) raw, edible portion

Calories 80.0
Calories from fat 90.0
Protein grams 20.1
Fat grams 10.0
Saturated fat grams 2.5
Sodium milligrams 47.0
Cholesterol milligrams 66.0
Omega-3grams 1.6

Teodor. Read the blogs.

Holy shit, awesome.

Philippe is going to get Depression if he keeps thinking up these things.

Brutal.

Onstad's taste for terrifying childish images makes me wonder how much of Philippe's pathology was inspired by Brave Little Toaster.

panel three is adorable.

i really hope this horrible little fantasy turns into a story arc, that would be, as they say, dope.

I actually did not find this at all horrifying. Panel 3 is very cute.

I found it disturbing rather than horrifying.

Each new fact Phillipe learns about animals seems to bring him closer to vegetarianism. I see a lot of Fake Salads in his future.

Phillipe has just officially surpassed Lie Bot in his ability to imagine the saddest thing. Next is to go up against Beef for the championship title.

Philippe is five.

i want to chubby you but I ran out.

The raw underside of his disembodied face is what really got to me.

Yes, it's absolutely a 5.

However, I wouldn't be too freaked out. While he is just a face in the dream, he's got his mother's attention, and could probably be hooked up with Emeril's friend's scooter - perhaps draped over the headlight. He could have a fine old time driving around and helping them trashspot.

What the hell is that guy's name? Sponge-something?

-Darren MacLennan

Spongebath.

Phillipe is slowly turning into Roast Beef, only more demented.

I AM CHUBBYING THIS WITH MAXIMUM POWER

Nailed it man.

Saddest strip ever.

Yeah, this is the primo shit. This is like grade A high-resin Columbian Achewood.

I'm going to go to bed and have nightmares, now, okay?

the Fear is back

mr. onstad, i am sorry that i ever doubted you

Holy...
I mean...
I was just surfing at 1:48am and...

wow.

Reminds me of Blanky from The Brave Little Toaster.

Do you think he got to make friends with any of the other faces in the can? Imagine if he ran into Ultra-Peanut's face in there.

hey thanks

no, seriously, i needed something to ruminate on for the next year or two and you have amply supplied me

Just like a sad little piece of toast.

This reminds me of the bit at the beginning of Jimmy Corrigan where Jimmy's trying to comfort the decapitated head of his dream-son. Now that's some rough chuckles.

Jesus Christ. I love the way that the darkness of the horrible imagination falls over frames 4,5,6, and 7. When I was a child, I used to flush the toilet and run in terror because a chopped-off bearded head that I saw in a book of German ghost stories was definitely coming up out of there to get me. Kids see this shit for real. They are slightly schitzo.

I would chubby this but I'm out. The people commenting on how Philippe seems kind of disturbed for a five-year-old apparently do not remember being five.

Kids' imaginations work both ways; their worlds are filled with horror as well as delight.

well said

I didn't think this comic was all that horrifying... until the last panel. Then, as the OP said: Jesus Christ.

This is perhaps slightly less nightmarish if you remind yourself that Philippe's face is made of polyester.

Awww, poor little Phillipe's face!!

That would fuck a man up good. Why did you have to do that Teodor.

why

Made my girlfriend laugh until lemonade came out of her nose. a 5 in my book.

make her laugh until a lemon comes out her nose.

that would be a THING!

'when laugh gives you lemons'...

i think you mean 'zing'

Was she drinking lemonade at the time?

Did no one else feel that "Beef showing various cuts" was the best part of this comic?

Beef gave him a wind-up plane that doesn't work right. T�odor gave him the beef chart.

Wow, this is creepy. If Cartilege Head shows up, I might die of fright.

or No-No.

-CRKK-

interesting name, eh.

nononononoNONONONONONONONONONONONONO!!!

This depressed me alot. but i enjoy when philippe depresses me.

*sob*

This is exactly why I became a vegetarian- the fear of what exactly might be going into my sausage!

Ironically, I ate an otters face because of unsolicited stories about how people became vegetarians.

Crazy, huh? I guess nature finds its own balance.

damn, what a quick turn toward the surrell

Nightmare fuel time. AND GO!

I COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING. Wow. It even translated well to telling another person what the stip was. One of my twisted fav's. This and Cartilage Head.