Most newspaper comic strips are looked on not-too-well by the comics intelligentsia, the fancy-pantses with their big fancy parties in New York City eating cheese and hating each other and talking about whatever new Croatian refugee drew a bunch of pictures of their depressing life. This fictional comics intelligentsia is right. Most newspaper comic strips are absolutely terrible in every way imaginable, a dull newsprinty soup of tired half-jokes and pandering family-values homilies targeted towards the key over-eighty-or-under-five demographic. With a tiny minority of exceptions, the comic strip has always been a pretty miserable little waste of paper. This is why the appearance of authentically good comic strips on the Internet over the course of the past few years has been so weirdly delightful. Why should the Internet, a forum for any crazy jerk on the planet to say crazy things that the whole world can see, actually encourage work of real quality? Let's take a look at Achewood, a bizarre and literary trip into the cartoon world of anthropomorphic animals.

Achewood is Chris Onstad's ongoing comic opera starring a collection of mostly alcoholic housecats and stuffed animals. It has drawn praise from such big league tough guys as Dave Barry and Weezer, and rejection from alternative comics behemoth Fantagraphics. Achewood fans are as committed as junkies, but many seemingly intelligent people are confused or even upset by the offbeat hilarity. Where do you fit in this taxonomy? Maybe a quick trip to the classic "Oh No I Grew Pubics" will clarify the matter. While some enjoy the dark humor of Nice Pete's Faulknerian origins, others seem to find his pain upsetting.

Still with us? See, Achewood takes full advantage of the fact that it owes no allegiance to a stodgy syndicate or the demands of newspapers across the country, including the uncool, complaint-prone parts. Onstad just decided to make something good and put it on the Internet. The readers came on their own, and were willing to spend enough money on T-shirts and the Achewood cookbook to support him. He takes full advantage of his editorial freedom, as well. The strip meanders pretty much anywhere it feels like from comedy classics, like Japanese usage of English, to less explored matters, like the business end of the adult film industry, or when you accidentally murder your Southern uncle.

The world of Achewood is deep—if you choose, you could keep track of a few dozen characters. The mainest of the main characters have come to be Roast Beef and Ray. Both talking cats, Ray is a hedonistic millionaire record producer with a heart of gold who serves as the sole guardian of his young nephew Charlie, while Roast Beef is a soft-spoken chronically depressed computer programmer from a trailer park background. Their friendship is painted with remarkable tenderness; Ray's loneliness without Beef is palpable, despite their periodic fighting. Onstad's savant-like commitment to the world of Achewood has afforded everyone, particularly Ray and Beef, back-stories on a Tolkienian scale.

In fact, the pathology of the Achewood mythology runs so deeply for Onstad that he maintains supplementary weblogs for ten of his fictional characters. So, for example, if you are especially fond of Pat, you can check his "blog" to learn how and why Kleenex has just lost a customer.

I'll leave it up to Achewood to convince you of its quality. Rest assured, though, behind the willfully inaccessible jokes about gourmet cooking, the obscenity, and the soap opera complexity is some not-quite-beautiful but extremely effective art and the best dialogue in pretty much anything in the whole universe.

It should be noted before we all go crazy and start reading things that Achewood deals in "mature" themes, and demurely suggests that minors should not read it. I leave readers to their own discretion; maybe you should not read these awesome swear words and jokes about narcotics and sexuality. Or maybe you should, because your parents are suckers and you need to learn about life somewhere.

And remember, folks, if you start to feel guilty over reading this awful pulp, remember that E. E. Cummings loved Krazy Kat, and he was someone famous in history.

— Sean Boyland