Achewood Is Back

About a year ago the frequency of new Achewood strips slowed to a trickle. Then that trickle transformed into an ocean of nothing. Rumours about what the fuck had happened were flying around everywhere. Had Chris Onstad gone insane? Was he depressed? Was he hired away from Hollywood or did he become homeless? Maybe he or one of his loved ones were in the hospital? Everyone with a brain was broken up and confused.

I know Chris a little bit from interviewing him for VICE and playing Words with Friends with him. I beat him for the first five games, but once he learned his way around the board he trounced the living boogers out of me.

Anyway, Achewood has returned, and with it, our happiness.

VICE: How are you feeling there, buddy?
Chris Onstad: I am feeling better and clearer than ever. Happy to be back to writing and art after a long and fascinating hiatus, which helped me realise that I do enjoy Achewood. I love the massive swell of support I'm seeing from people who seem to have truly missed it in its absence.

I'm so glad you're returning to Achewood. It's been almost a year since you left us. Can you tell me why you slowed down your production of the strip and why you've returned to it?
I burned out very badly on it, and also mixed it in with a traumatic midlife crisis and unwitting search for happiness. Have you ever repeated a word until it becomes a meaningless sound? I couldn't understand what I had created any more – couldn't see the forest for the trees. I had lost the plot, I think, and rather than churn out work joylessly, I stopped out of respect for the legacy, the audience and myself. I returned because I have new stories to tell, because I still love writing, because I missed making readers happy and because I enjoy not knowing where it will go next. The muse descends inconsistently and with different wands in her handbag each time, and I enjoy wandering down her trails without a plan, trusting that the journey is its own purpose, and that finality is an incomplete concept which diminishes tomorrow's potential.

Did you ever have panic attacks about the comic?
Always. It has made me proud, fascinated and satisfied, but also paralysingly anxious and morbidly depressed. For a regular person to have the speculum of public entitlement visit every word that falls from their lips is not a fate I would wish upon anyone but the most hidebound parking control officer. However, I can't do what I do without the lash as a byproduct, so I will do what I do and the many types of fingertips will have their ways, often outpacing their capacity for rational thought. Typing classes have become terrifyingly effective. Perhaps the letters on the computer keyboard should rearrange themselves while we sleep each night. This idea is mine; you cannot have it.

What were you doing during your time away?
You'll see.

I noticed you included a Scrabble game in one of the new strips. Is that you sending me secret messages through the comic because we play Words with Friends?
No, the secret messages are for someone else, someone important, someone who is the only man who can save us from ourselves. This is not you, Nicholas. [Pats Nicholas cherishingly on head, checks watch.]

Is it OK that I brag about us playing Words with Friends?
Yes, always. Also, tell them how annoying the boards you set up are. It's like you think words can only be two letters long.

Do you ever think of me in your day-to-day doings?
Before dinner. I wonder how you would look if you became a child again, but a child who went to the gymnasium and read with small glasses from the store.

Which Achewood character am I most like?
Janzen.

Thanks!

Everybody go see Achewood at Achewood.com. The current storyline is one of those weird ones where it's like a nightmare or a trip to hell. Ray has the DTs and is hallucinating in a hospital bed. It is BEYOND THE PALE.

@NicholasGazin