2:30am: You aren’t asleep because jet lag or midnight gelato or both roused you from a dream about not being able to find your car at your own wedding. The hillsides are alive with howling, yowli...
2024-09-24 09:17:23 +0000 UTC View Post
In 2007 an Australian journalist named Tim Blair commissioned me, writing as Ray Smuckles, to compose a series of columns for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Ray, true to form, didn’t r...
2024-09-23 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
For the next two weeks, while we're away on our honeymoon, I'm running three new strips a week, M-W-F. These are ultra-classic, single-row Achewood strips like you saw in 2001...
2024-09-23 17:00:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Sunday, leaving Ercolano
Last night we were the only tourists at a bright and lively locals restaurant filled mainly with older couples. The food was fine but the people-wat...
2024-09-23 04:41:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Perhaps the most noteworthy event of our flight from Portland to London was discovering that our Premium Economy seats, which actually reclined to within one degree of where the body understands th...
2024-09-21 08:12:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Lyle's song at the end...I know it's 2024 and the rap songs playing over the loudspeakers at Starbucks are bullish on coprophagia, but it felt a bit extreme for this gentle universe. If there ever ...
2024-09-20 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
As is custom, the bloopers, outtakes, & unused lines from this strip will post at noon in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers. Upgrade for a month and get access to over 100 other pieces...
2024-09-20 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Chos of Woes! As promised, here is the second installment of our honeymoon diaries. We are at the gate at PDX, next to one of those people who listens to videos out loud on their phone in a crowded...
2024-09-20 01:55:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Ray, I'm making more money than I ever have before in my life--but I'm still always broke! Can you offer some advice for a man who is working his tail off and still cannot maintain his...
2024-09-19 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Tomorrow, at a reasonable hour befitting two people who are trying to treat themselves nicely during a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, we will board a plane for Heathrow, then bella Napoli. T...
2024-09-19 05:40:27 +0000 UTC View Post
The livestream archive will be open and free to the public, so please share! THE WORLD NEEDS MORE PODCASTS
One hour and forty-two minutes of me answering questions submitted ...
2024-09-19 02:33:59 +0000 UTC View Post
It is a quiet, chilly, early fall morning as I post this. Looking out from my second-floor office window, across the yellow and purple Giverny of treetops soon to be bare twigs, and having just bee...
2024-09-17 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostAll paid tiers (Weekly Comic, In-Universe, and Author's Tier) will be able to join me for a livestream event tomorrow, Tuesday evening, 6PM Pacific time. From my home high above Portland, Oregon I ...
2024-09-17 04:29:14 +0000 UTC View Post
(Post now edited to include the attached column)
Some many years ago, an Australian journalist named Tim Blair commissioned Ray Smuckles to write a series of columns for Sydney’s <...
2024-09-16 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
I still struggle with the feeling that these "cutting room floor" pieces should go in the Author's Tier, since they're clearly past the fourth wall, but a precedent is a precedent. Polling has show...
2024-09-13 19:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
The outtakes and unused scripts for this strip, as always, post at noon today in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers.
To be a very young boy decades before the Internet was t...
2024-09-13 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Tell me by 1pm PST today which of these designs you'd like to see on apparel in the 2024 Achewood holiday shop! Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
The first three will be tees, and I...
2024-09-13 16:39:30 +0000 UTC View Post
As mentioned elsewhere, I got married a few days ago, which signals a return to my full-time writing and cartooning in the Achewood Patreon! Here are the updates currently in the hopper for your en...
2024-09-13 16:01:32 +0000 UTC View Post
On Saturday afternoon at 4:30pm Lauren and I were married before a small gathering of friends and family on the property we had prepared for the last year. It went off with a hitch.
We were ...
2024-09-12 04:56:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Ray — I am engaged to the most wonderful woman. She comes from a smaller family than I do; I am very fond of her parents, and her sister is a charming character (this is fundamentall...
2024-09-11 18:17:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Huzzah! Fresh-brewed, let’s see if I still got it. Wish me luck!
2024-09-07 21:37:56 +0000 UTC View Post
(This strip is not the beginning of a storyline.) (Also, I apologize but the noontime bloopers version of the weekly strip will return next week, please read below.)
Dear Rea...
2024-09-06 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Ray,
I feel distant from some of my family (cousins, uncles, aunts). I’m almost 30 and I’m wondering if its worth putting in the effort to get closer to the...
2024-09-05 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Today I felt the inevitability of the wedding tractor beam for the first time. It was signaled by the surprise pop-by arrival of an excited friend, the first indicator that things outside of my con...
2024-09-03 03:22:43 +0000 UTC View Post
I was wondering if I ever used that "you don't look good at karate" scenario anywhere. Did I? If I didn't, I could still use it in a strip, even though it's just been "spoilered" a bit. I think I c...
2024-08-30 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Outtakes and production notes for this strip post at noon in the In-Universe and Author's Tiers! It's like a whole other strip every week.
During the autumn r...
2024-08-30 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
It's a news roundup kind of morning!
On Saturday, September 7, Lauren and I will be married at a small ceremony here on our property. This event i...
2024-08-28 17:41:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi Ray. How are you so calm and chill? I am anxious about everything. —Jonathan
Jonathan,
No way to sugar coat this: chill is a born ...
2024-08-27 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm not going to lie, but I am typing this sentence at a pretty good clip because I want to go play my electric guitar. Evening is wrapping up fast, not much light left, and there are moody clouds ...
2024-08-23 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
(A full page of outtakes, along with a very different version of this flowchart, post at noon in the In-Universe and Author's tiers!)
Ray was recently challenged t...
2024-08-23 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post