0055 - panel edits, original script
Added 2024-03-08 18:21:21 +0000 UTCThis strip was remarkable to me because the original script took about ten minutes to write, and changed very little through the production stage. (This happens maybe once every thousand strips.) I vacillated a bit on the seventh panel — I always find a way to waste an extra hour or two — but ended up staying with the original. Why? Because it's important for the reader to know that this character's "best case scenarios" still involve parasitic brain mortality and the unmasking of love as a passing chemical phenomenon.
Careful readers will recall that a previous exploration of this character's "best case scenarios" involved a foreign woman marrying him strictly for a green card, so that she could then get her MBA and dump him.
Comments
(To be clear, I'm not trying to conflate having a mental illness with being a jerk -- I too have depression, and I too can be a self-absorbed asshole, and that's how I know they're two different things.)
Oppido
2024-03-10 00:20:58 +0000 UTCIt's interesting the "brain tumor" bit was the occasion of some deliberation. When I read the posted strip, it struck me that for Depressed Beef, "woman has brain tumor" is a preferable scenario to "woman in perfect health has simply stopped having feelings for me," and I thought it was Chris's (IMO admirable) way of not letting the reader forget that Beef can be kind of a self-absorbed asshole, even as you feel bad for him.
Oppido
2024-03-10 00:17:42 +0000 UTCThose of us who are fortunate enough to find generosity and compassion in our marriages are so very grateful.
Omurice
2024-03-08 19:18:09 +0000 UTCOr what if she was getting an apartment and the landlord quoted her false terms?
Jay Williams
2024-03-08 19:03:16 +0000 UTCI love getting to see how the strip comes together like this. What’s more, I read the final strip and there is a quality about it that “IS” Achewood, and seeing/reading the other versions, it’s clear (even without the kindly provided captions) that “no, these didn’t get quite to Achewood, did they?” I can’t articulate even how that works, I only reiterate that I am loving these glimpses behind the curtain.
Thomas Williams
2024-03-08 18:45:02 +0000 UTCWhen you think about it, bringing a Welsh peasant woman back from hell is the ultimate green card marriage.
Ste & Danni JM
2024-03-08 18:33:38 +0000 UTC"a future basically defined by extreme silence" is one of those phrases that immediately embedded itself in my brain, never to dislodge lo these many years
Crab Explosion
2024-03-08 18:31:55 +0000 UTC
