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After all is said and done, Cornelius Bear is there to say and do the actual, correct thing. When hubris and patchily-recalled theory form the thrust of debate, and an innocent bystander just wants to enjoy his blink of earthly life with a gently-coddled egg, it is time to step in and hush the din. So much of modern "dialog" is fighting to have fought, while the topic cowers, scared and alone, on the sidelines.

I wish you a peaceful weekend, away from information, among the poofy land-bound clouds of our springly verdant bounty.

B-Roll Strip

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Files

Comments

jordan b.

that last panel ... *chefs kiss*.

Omnithea

"None of you have the acumen to understand nor moral fortitude to uphold the opinions you have pilfered from the world wide web."

Bob the Fish Productions

Of all the nations who could engender a post-scarcity utopia, I trust America to do it the least.

Achewood

Thanks, I was fighting with it til ten minutes ago

Achewood

Can we put that in the Constitution

Josh Egbert

Uh oh, I really agree with Lyle.

b.zap

Don't be woading in here yo

Stavro

Every strip could end with this final panel. Maybe vary the facial hair and the savored dish, as appropriate

Mike Duquette

I see you, Beef, and your slight head sag that two of your firmest knuckleheads are thinking like chuckleheads.

Achewood

Yeah but we are never more than a quarter mile from a place that sells usb chargers AND chicken tenders, so I don’t get all the complaining

Achewood

I was thinking about UBI and then I was like “dagnabbit wait a minute!”

Bungus Bronbo

I'm content seeing that first panel only the one time, I think Also, always love a story wrapping up with a good Connie Ex Machina

Achewood

Don’t woad where you brunch

Amit Katz

Was that first panel really necessary

Achewood

Yeah, like a blini in the evening, Ray has a pony tail, etc

Tom P

For some reason this came up as a "Promotion" in my primary email account. I can only assume that Cornelius's transcendent wisdom, incisive as a wish-granting jewel, shamed the robots. And they sought to hide their shame.

Tom P

Get yourself checked. There is hope.

Achewood

In an earlier version he piped up more but Lyle was the better voice for those thoughts

Josh Egbert

I wonder if we're going to have to apply to be fertilizer on Mars?

Achewood

Uh oh, this is not a good development in the Achewood Gets Actually Seen category. Have any previous friday updates gone to your Promotion folder?

Achewood

That was when I knew I had a strip

Omnithea

With three quarters of the state legislatures.

Achewood

Think of the polymer gravy it's releasing

Glen N

Panel 11 really just an evergreen admonition, up and down the scale.

Achewood

I also toyed with "first oil deposits on Mars"

Achewood

It's my new line for when I call in to afternoon talk radio

Brian Sutton

Cornelius shuts the boys down so hard that they clench up and the comic becomes an infinite loop back to that incredible first panel.

Tom P

Ultimately this Internet thing's functional purpose has been to find everyone's legitimate discontents and just scratch 'em til they hit bone, so perhaps Shrovis-Bishopthorpe had the right idea all along.

Bruce Wright

Truly a classic. “GlyphoState” hits especially hard for someone who’s sworn off American flour.

jordan b.

it really gets across how only Cornelius could shame someone on a level equivalent to getting yelled at by your friend's mom.

Achewood

Your friend’s…college mom

Achewood

I’m thinking a limited run of Melting Plug, In Situ t-shirts

Achewood

Yeah we went off nonorganic American bread maybe a year ago, got sick of seeing it melt the plastic bag it came in

Achewood

And if you ain’t got discontents, here’s a bunch to choose from!

Ryan Boyle

Oh wow. My day job is to speak and write about markets and risks. I have been Cornelius in that bottom center panel. I want to add that to my email signature.

Tom P

They have not. I told gmail to get right with it. It's possible this is a blip as part of the generally accepted business model of "ruin everything and then sell it to Xi Jinping" that is popular lately. I will report back if the afternoon (my time) article encounters the same issue.

Achewood

I thank you. As does President Jinping.

Tom P

While it is not its greatest evil, one of its evils is that now all the insane people are forming a souplike homogenate rather than allowing for the emergence of outsider art.

Jenn

From Cornelius's lips to everyone's ears (Siri, do bears have lips?)

Achewood

I hadn't considered this. Say more.

Brian Horstead

You drew that soft boiled egg cup real well

Achewood

You know I'm spending too long on something when I mix the line weights

Achewood

SIRI: Here you go! Playing Barenaked Ladies, on Spotify.

Julie (HiDeeHoGal)

I have an afternoon cheese and fruit plate being ruined by Teodor's trash take. I'm with Lyle, but you probably knew that.

NuclearNerves

this whole comic was a riot but the bit that actually got me was everyone looking so ashamed when getting scolded. They can tell when they’re being knuckleheads.

Achewood

I wasn’t sure where t fell on the dystopian communist state idea, but felt sure he’d be blinded by the promise of free money.

Achewood

Toast soldiers all *just so*

Tom P

back when I was a chile and it had only recently been Morning in America, there was a lot of outsider art, often drawing on conspiracies. I remember the "Schwa World Operations Manual" which I bought in a remainders bin once. Very interesting. I still have the card in my wallet. Nowadays, however, any fool can plug into Youtube (as well as there being multiple cable networks devoted to the aggressive homogenization of the diverse beauty of the United States into a uniform extruded Yokel-Flavored Product to be contested against the Godless Libs) and as such they all just kind of start blurring together. There's no friction to keep people from not just going up to HitlrLovr1488's page and hearing the story of "Their Struggle" instead of having to build their own view of the heavens from the Bible, some science textbooks, and whatever painting materials they can buy at the general store. They have taken the Space Brothers from us. You can even see this with Lyle, I reckon. One day he might start talking with a Southern accent and *never know why*.

Distant Egg Song

The GlyphoState is, regrettably, a pretty good term, and I'm shocked that I haven't seen it Facebook comment sections.

Kriegsaffe No. 9

My town has a Philly cheesesteak place that also sells skateboards, sunglasses, chargers, and vapes. It's pretty good cheesesteak.

A. Hamster

AI and Large Language Models are basically like buttholes: things go in, but you don’t know where/when/how they come out

Bruce Wright

Typo Uno and French T 55 FTW, bay-bee

Achewood

Dang, I got to reconsider my received understanding of buttholes

Achewood

I made sure to timestamp it on X, the cultural record of our lives

Achewood

Thank you! So happy you enjoyed it. This one took a while.

Achewood

Damn, all that's missing is a little countertop stand holding Busted: The Mugshot Weekly

A. Hamster

I learned so much about buttholes after befriending an ER nurse. Maybe a little too much?

Zen Window

I don't know that I would ever tire of Connie being the ejection seat handle by which a plot thread is extricated through the canopy glass of story.

Oppido

It's an Agree With Lyle Friday. (I also agree with Lyle.)

Oppido

Believe a REALM of dumb things, Teodor.

Phineas X. Jones

Whenever two dudes who are sudden experts at like global oil production infrastructure are shouting at each other on bluesky I'm just going to imagine it's Beef and Lyle

Douglas Wykstra

I'm sure it's tiring to see readers discuss the viral potential of specific panels in what is a rich and involved tapestry of a story, but I'm having difficulty imagining to which posts on BlueSky I *wouldn't* wish to reply with panel 11.

Douglas Wykstra

This reply inspired a Proustian reverie of time spent contemplating Micron pen sets, deciding which one I would use to draw my next line.

lake

Who are some of your literary influences, Onstad?

kdusjjdhxksj

My distaste for Teodor grows ever so slightly (it was pretty big)

GruntyGinMan

The reason why Lyle drinks is because he sees the world for how it really is

Professor Hazard

It has been so long since I've occasioned to apologize to an elder and offered to take my nonsense outside

Nate

The audacity to bring this kind of energy to the afternoon egg region of their shared space. Unreal.

2scrogz

Teodor's one of the naive folks that thinks an AI owned and built by tech oligarchs is going to come up with BENEVOLENT resource distribution schemes, and I have a bridge to nowhere to sell him.

2scrogz

Naming my next punk band side-project "Suckboots of the Glyphostate," but it is kind of a mouthful. Of boot.

Achewood

ChatGPT is that how constitution works

Achewood

It's all fine and good eating European flours until you walk around with your mouth open when someone's mowing any public grass

Bruce Wright

only artisanal grass in this nabe

Achewood

Everyone on Bluesky is a bot with those five-toe-pocket shoes. I firmly believe this.

Achewood

Eh, what were we gonna do, watch 100 million men slowly walk back to America, get intercepted by Lonis Edison, and turned into drinking turpentine for stranded sailors?

Achewood

I wonder if the main nurse class at nurse college is "getting the lightbulb out unbroken"

Achewood

Don't worry, it will be run by people who were elected by people who couldn't get elected to run a microwave

A. Hamster

It is! But part of that class is bedside manner, specifically being nice about it when the same guy shows up the next month with another lightbulb up his butt.

Achewood

all saving the 005 for that special time when you draw a lady's eyes

Achewood

So the idea is, "I'm pretty crazy! But this other crazy guy beat me to my specific craziness, so I'll just watch him as he follows his dream of calling his ex from every Popeye's in America."

Achewood

In that crazy scenario, he is slowly getting close to the Popeye's nearest her house.

Achewood

I mean, the dude has all day

Achewood

I am of the firm opinion that all of Bluesky should just be replaced with that one panel. No features, tools, or signup.

Achewood

You can hear the tears coming from the tent in the back yard.

Achewood

In this strip he represents the lazy non-starter everywhere. Just like every other strip he's in.

Achewood

We don't know where Roast Beef got those proper manners from but they do run strong within him. His mama was a scuz and his gramma was insane.

Achewood

At one point I wondered if anybody would find it odd that Cornelius was eating his afternoon egg at Ray's house. I guess the lesson here is that one should assume they are always very close to ruining a gentleman's afternoon egg, and shouldn't go acting like they know everything.

Achewood

Gothic arch windows on that man's bus

Achewood

Your band uniform could be Under Armour t-shirts with the American flag on the sleeve, and golf shorts, and Under Armour shoes with white short socks. Under Armour ball cap. Five men like that, on stage, ready to share their message. Terrifying.

Professor Hazard

I think he must have gotten them from Sondra!

kdusjjdhxksj

I identify to some degree, but "maybe the computer guys will just see reason" is one of those ideas that makes you want to slap an adult

Jeff Norman

The Smuckle Plug is melting in the arse All the polymers are breaking down... (back in the lab, a SCIENTIST shouts): I'LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAIN!

Jeff Norman

"Woad" is a verb that deserves to be far less rare.

Chris Barrios

Wake up babe, a new achemote just dropped

Oppido

I guess it can be inferred here that Connie never took the plu(n)g(e) himself. Or perhaps he did, and his natural quasi-Britishness was just so potent that Mexican magical realism couldn't overtake it.

Nate

I've never concerned myself much with who lives where, when, and how. Achewood is an amorphous space full of ambiguously shaped buildings and potential shared spaces and roommate situations that doesn't need to be thoroughly dissected.

lake

Nice. I was wondering about Wodehouse.

Achewood

And then there’s wode, meaning mad or senseless, like a berserker worth woad on his face. Wode and woad, all you need to terrorize a hamlet

Achewood

He’s not the sort of chap given to anal hysterics.

Achewood

Oh, Wodehouse is probably the most present in the Achewood work. Just look at the Waterbury arc, or Mr. Bear's blog. I'd started writing Cornelius before I really dug into Wodehouse, but Wodehouse dovetailed and energized the character.

Achewood

Is an achemote the smallest theoretical unit of achewood

Achewood

That's occasionally how I (unwittingly) treat it. I have only so many drawings of couches and chairs and I can forget which live where. Of course, if Cornelius was eating his afternoon egg at Pat's house, people would rightfully call bullshit.

Chris Barrios

In a way! Back when we had forums, and we obsessively wondered what would happen to Phillipe at the transfer station or who would win the great outdoor fight, we would clip frames or speech bubbles and use them as emotes. We called them achemotes. WhoKnowsMan.jpg and the like.

FactWino

Lyle, the Cassandra of Achewood

GruntyGinMan

RB will be happy to hear of that

FactWino

Damn, you’re already on a first name basis with him?

FactWino

That’s Mrs. Smuckles, ma’am to you, Professor.

Professor Hazard

Of course... I have no reason to refer to her so casually... [FURTIVE LOOKS]

Achewood

yeah, it's a mixed blessing / blended curse that we can't do images in these comments. There's an Achewood discord as part of Patreon, but I have zero personal time and energy for also managing that, so good luck to anyone who dips in there. I imagine it's mostly troll bots rage-baiting Tesla cyborgs.

Achewood

Yeah, it's been a twenty-five year burden that Beef is the only one charged with knowing the future but being disregarded cause he po' and feebly

Achewood

Prez J is a huge achehead. I don't know how he has the time for running China, given how prolific he is in the Achewood fanfic community. He just did this hilarious piece about Philippe starting a little business selling pork ribs and Cokes.

Achewood

Protocol requires she forgive you, but not forget your breach of the code of gracious decency.

Tom P

I assume he reacted to Ultra Peanut the way that a lot of Mexican folks reacted to Speedy Gonzales.

lake

Ray has a little Bertie Wooster to him

Nate

The ambiguity only extends so far. Some people clearly don't live in the main zone because they are insufferable and the main zone would not survive their constant presence (Todd for instance, but shockingly not Lyle)

Achewood

I mean, Lyle’s going to show up no matter what anybody else prefers. But Todd…Like all Todd-type beings, they know they’ve got a pretty short shelf life in any given context

buster branton

Lyle is correct. Cornelius won’t have to live in the future so he can stuff it.

Achewood

It's hard to say. Connie might be like ninety or a hundred years old at this point, far outside the assumed lifespan of a teddy bear.

Daniel Stewart

"Cognitive dilettante" future vision of my headstone