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Roast Beef is entering something of an era. From the peppery 6,493 words of self-exploration he's already written for Man Why You Even Got To Do A Thing #9, the It's The "I'M ME" Issue (Issue #8, The Bitcoin Edition, was famously canceled after one page), to the emergence of radical self-healing we see here, what could be next? A RED shirt? A TED talk? This ain't no Musicals era Beef in some bullshit Sedona Sound Bath Instagram hat. This is the The Work version of Beef.

Witness the many, many outtakes, and the subtly different first draft of this comic, in the B-roll strip that goes live in tier 2 at noon Pacific.

B-Roll Strip

Don't forget — the b-roll / "making-of" version of this strip posts two hours later in Tiers 2 & 3. Upgrade for a month to enjoy this and over 400 other upper-tier Achewood pieces! Or upgrade forever, and find your life vastly more entertained.

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Read All Strips At Once

In case you missed it, I set up a Collection here in the Achewood Patreon called Read All Strips At Once. You can go in there and click straight through the archive, just like we used to in the old days, when the politicians' hair was brown and the burgers were turkey.

Files

Comments

jordan b.

it's a Fuck Yeah Friday.

severecorvid

The Ego Integration Pop-Off will incur at least 3 days of diffuse back pain

Josh Egbert

Man, if Roast Beef can feel okay about himself, maybe we all can.

Distant Egg Song

Hell yeah, Beef. Way to character develop. Also, I think we're at the point where edgy band T-shirts are sufficiently unc-coded that one can wear them as a middle-aged nerdy fellow.

Achewood

That's what I'm saying, man! That's what I'm SAYING! —Ray, all excited

Mystic Eyebrow

Did not expect to be salty eyed over the Beef man today but here we are

Achewood

I tried to jump off a low wall the other day. It was fucked up! That's how I got the idea for that panel.

Achewood

He might have also dribbled the front of his shorts a little when landing

Achewood

beef is in us all salt is in us all we are god's wagyu dogs

Ragnarok Johnson

Frighteningly accurate look into my future when my Harmwrðh shirt arrives tomorrow

Grant Harding

He's come a long way from burying a new shirt in the backyard.

Achewood

Do the little leap on some grass or onto a couch cushion on the carpet, if you are my age

Achewood

He stuck the (emotional) landing

Achewood

I almost had him digging it back up at the end, but may save that for a bigger breakthrough

Achewood

Dude is stone cold DIFFERENTIATED

Achewood

But is it a Flowers For Algernon moment

Song Club with John Krane

in my other tab, I have a "count shrimpula" t-shirt halfway through the checkout process. I was gonna abandon cart, but now I think I'm gonna wear it at people.

Achewood

The good chemicals are biologically expensive

Achewood

Would look great layered under a Volvo of Despair tee!

Daniel M Ford

Love this for our man here. May we all find this kind of self acceptance.

Julie (HiDeeHoGal)

Def time to embrace the unc and auntie within and without. But the band tee I have on today has anime girls on it.

Zen Window

One can simultaneously acknowledge the corniness of a John-Bender-ass arm pump gesture and know the exact feeling that can only be expressed by it. Sadly--beautifully?--they never end with a freeze frame in real life.

Tom P

The powerful liberatory energy of Juneteenth can even free a man bound by the chains of his Circumstances. We will see if he can maintain his liberation, but the first time is always free. He did not even do weed this time.

GH

Something about this word triggered the unwholesomeness center in my brain and thusly all I could think of was the following: https://i.imgur.com/36DOBzp.png

Tom P

To the management - Do you have any plans to release some of the older strips to the original site? It is quite understandable to not want to, "give the game away," but I have encountered my share of old heads who do not Believe that the work has resumed in quality, and there is also a question of Legacy. I believe that releasing the first fifty or so strips around when you reach 190-200 could drive more interest. A yearly liberation, perhaps as a "new year's gift" to the people of the free world. On the other hand, you gotta eat. I just felt moved to ask the question. Achewood is a pretty important literary work, in my own view, and it would be A Shame if a bus impact or stock market crash brought down the house.

GH

(Immediately after posting this I realized it is clearly not a noun and the joke is ruined)

Johnny Deans

Shit yeah! Embrace the okay! It’s pretty goddamned okay! Okay?

Achewood

No man that made my brain autocomplete the puzzle to the point of laughter

Achewood

EATING AN UNCLE WITH THE MOUTH

Achewood

Yeah the weed was making him snore and Molly wouldn't talk to him much over the cereal.

Achewood

ah...the John bender moment. That may have been what was curling around in the dark pools of the subconscious when that panel floated up

Tommy Wingo

Fuck Yeah, nice boost when RB is winning. Thanks Chris. I didn't know I needed this.

Achewood

Are you talking about old heads who haven't read any of the Patreon stuff? There are probably ten or so patreon strips findable for free, esp in the "free samples" collection. And what is meant by "question of legacy"? But yes, by the time the patreon hits a bug number like 200 I think giving 10% to the main site is a very viable idea. Thanks for the suggestion, as I think the best of the Patreon stuff easily equals or bests the best of the original achewood.com set, and should prove that patreon is worth the price of admission.

Achewood

who else has an opinion on this?

Achewood

Being Okay is pretty awesome, given the infinite number of molecules that have to join hands and say yeah

Jay Y

I went to a punk show a couple years back for a band I've followed since the early aughts. It was a lot of dudes in vintage band tees and glasses, some of them thicker around the middle than they might like but otherwise happy to be there. I thought briefly "huh, so this is what it's like to go to shows at my age" and then I eavesdropped on the lead guitar talking about how he just joined AARP. He went on stage still wearing his AARP shirt. And all the bands killed it and it went on until like one in the morning and we were all exhausted but had experienced catharsis. I would recommend a similar experience to Beef.

Tom P

I woke up like 20 minutes ago and the festivities remain in my head, like the confetti of yesterday's parties. By legacy I mean that I look at the strip as a meaningful work in the field of webcomics and the culture of 2001-20XX. Are you setting the planetary conversation, no, but it's got a unique point of view and is old enough to have a graduate degree now. (Sorry.) This is not a problem unique to Achewood. I would agree that things are back in the neighborhood of "the old days." Perhaps there has not been "another Great Outdoor Fight," but why would there be? The gentlemen won. Genghis Khan did not do an "encore" of unifying the Mongol nation again, for old time's sake. He got down to business.

Jenn

YES! BEEF!

Achewood

Thanks Tom, I really value this insight. I've made a note in my General Approaches And Landings file about transferring some Patreon work to the Achewood site. Loose thought: The Great Outdoor Fight enjoyed some traction because it was a big traditional action plot. And its theme of unfathered masculinity searching for definition is archetypal. And it happened completely by accident. The subsequent arcs have probably been less clear, less traditional, and less accessible. But to plan another big archetypal arc just wouldn't work for me.

Achewood

Charlie Brown never kicked the football, but Beef sure can land on three limbs and then go refactor the HELL outta some old Excel macros.

Achewood

high five across the nacho buffet dogg

Achewood

That's fantastic. No notes. What band?

Traedran

Oh, this is timely. I, too, grew up in Circumstances. Hubby says I'm too hard on myself because of the environment I was raised in. I disagree strenuously, but just recently he's hit on the genius idea of telling me to imagine Roast Beef, the character I relate to most, being in my position and having just done whatever I just felt bad about. Then, do I feel comfortable being as mean to Beef as I am to myself? It's helping to curb a lot of my self-punishing behaviours, being told, "But you're Roast Beef." Now Beef comes along and has a discovery like this? I feel this might do a lot for my mental health. Thank you, Mr. Onstad. Thank you, depressed middle cat.

Duncan

I came here to say the same thing. That strip is tattooed on my brain.

Tom P

You can't plan to write the Great American Novel, you just start writing what you like "and selling it by the pound" and sometimes the Great American Novel just HAPPENS

Jay Y

Dillinger Four was the headliner. A local band opened and then Scared of Chaka played a long set in-between. Dude was indefatigable.

NotAnon

My dude took that landing a little hard. Middle age is a bitch

Ryan Boyle

I AM NOT THE GUY WHO SUCKS (over) BUT I STILL GOT DEPRESSION

Achewood

It is a very long road indeed. “Radical self forgiveness to the point of delusion” is a modern technique worth investigating. Godspeed chochacho!

Achewood

Drew upon recent experience jumping off something two curbs high

Pubdoggy

I *think* ive got the Muricaslang correct here; Hell of Glutes in panel 12?

Conor Nelson

Holy shit I need this customized and framed yesterday

GruntyGinMan

Throws code like a spider's ass while off screen Ray is asking Claude to code him a Honda Dual Sport jumping Mt. Everest

Asherdan

Before the VCR goes so dang hard, like harder than hard, like PLATINUM DIAMOND hard.

Achewood

[third side]. BUT THINGS ARE LOOKING UP

Achewood

Man I need a person to print and frame things in the shop, that is beastly slow work

Achewood

That’s why he’s an angel investor!

Pubdoggy

Gosh my cousins over the pond are so loose with language ain’t it?

Achewood

You know Ray had the tape-to-tape dubber so he could distribute that three minutes of Basic Instinct

Dan Gibbins

Absolutely love this for my man Beef. Not Ray, not Pat is a perfectly okay place to be!

Traedran

Perhaps not to delusion, but not feeling a need to apologize for hurting peoples' eyes with my visage would be a good step up.

Jason S

Middle aged man in a Castle Rat t-shirt confirming

Nicholas Williams

I have an Alan Vega shirt that says “BAD TIMES, RIGHT?” in gigantic letters on the back. I wear that shit to the gym and feel all the squares and muscle-teens and Cybertruck drivers just melt with pure terror, all like “damn he is acknowledging a hard truth with that shirt” and I do 45 minutes on the elliptical and go home.

Nicholas Williams

Have you tried to roll down a hill as an adult? I have never felt so sure that I would die.

clorox enema

I went through this exact sequence of thoughts and feelings after ordering the Darlene shirt.

Bungus Bronbo

Bravo, Beef. Knew you had it in you somewhere.

Bruce Wright

Poor Beef. I've come near to fainting like that too.

Holler Wizard

I, a person who loves the little cat Roast Beef, read this wearing my MWYEGTDAT shirt out of doors.

Thunk

IM A GUY THAT FUCKS ... AND I HAVE EXPRESSIONS

Gary Tyrrell

Patreon strips dropped to the main site once a year, like art entering the public domain on January first, is a great idea.

Nicholas Williams

What are we thinking The Band That Eats a Face sounds like? Maybe like an alternate universe California-bred Rudimentary Peni, with the occasional bout of Osees-style motor-choogle?

Mark

Can't wait for the story arc where LLM's destroy his new-found confidence by taking away his identity as a coder.

rickward

You did it (by way of Roast Beef)! You proved F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong! ROAST BEEF is an American whose life has a second act! Or at least a second catchphrase/motto when it’s rare to have a first one. Take THAT, Jazz Age!

A. Hamster

I just stood up and proclaimed “fuck youth, if a kid says six seven or some other bullshit to me, I will sell him to a boomer for his stem cells”

Jay Y

LLM code is a dog's code

Professor Hazard

bless him, give him some of that golden tabloid

2scrogz

My Harmwrðh shirt is far and away the hardest T I own. Straight up Band That Eats A Face type shit. Nobody but fellow Cho's need know the fictitious nature of Final Transit of the Defiler's existence.

2scrogz

The thing about that shirt is, it has been topical and accurate (and thus hard AF) since... *checks notes* ...roughly the Reagan era? At the very least, mid-September 2001.

Achewood

45 minutes on the elliptical means you can endure the most boring sort of hell, way harder than curling a 35 three times and checking for a vein

Achewood

Beef has a thonky badonky; he stores junk in his trunk.

Achewood

It makes him snore, he's trying only to use it when Molly is on girlfriend trips to the coast.

Achewood

Boomers all taking *two* ladles from the adrenochrome bowl at the Hometown Buffet

Achewood

I think the main thing that should be taught in schools is that FSF was a massive-ass drunk and that massive-ass drunks say all kinds of things, especially in wet brain stage when they are most definitely not getting a second act.

Achewood

I wonder if Beef could "vibe code" since he doesn't, generally, vibe

Achewood

As my father is fond of saying, "even a blind pig picks up an acorn once in a while"

Achewood

Sadly, they are a Less Than Jake cover band out of Salt Lake City.

Achewood

oh HELL yes all repping, all telling people what is WHAT

Achewood

STAND ON IT AGNES! [peels out in Galaxie, but then lets off a bit due to gas costs, all being sensible]

Achewood

Jumps gonna get us all, in the end

Achewood

It was in a lymph node that got bumped by a tennis ball Ray was knocking around his foyer.

Achewood

Please print this moment out on an inkjet that is low on ink and is banding

Achewood

I may have been packing that VERY SHIRT when I had the idea for this strip

Achewood

Dude is having a time lately, last night he ordered Domino's *right in front of his own wife* despite everybody knowing that is crazy unhealthy

Tim Hulsizer

Woah, nice one Beef! Best thing about aging is finding peace with myself. This explains why the "I'm the guy who sucks" shirts went by the wayside, and I accept that

Gregory Sheets

Man. I’m far from alone amongst the ‘Cho’s in saying this, but damn if you ain’t make a dude feel seen. I been moving in a similar direction for a little while now, and if Beef can do it… Thanks, Chris.

A. Hamster

And looking all smug about it in their Hunter S. Thompson bucket hats

Tommy Wingo

Those three are named eggs, milk, and minder.

Taylor

Ray has the kind of general contentment with every situation that would lead to you starving to death if you were less lucky/already rich as him, and no one wants to be Pat.

Taylor

That’s like the least hard thing a band can be (the less than Jake one, not the Rudimentary Peni/Osees one, that sounds cool as hell)

Amy Lewis

I spent the weekend pretty offline, so this was just what Doc Andretti ordered on a post-holiday Monday. Beef's little Showbiz-style wink-and-point slays me. Good for you, man. Good for you.

J. Alex

Sometimes, a little bit of Circumstances fall off of him.

Achewood

That's his Tom Cruise, Risky Business move.

Achewood

crustpunks at the corner store all Oh Shit, I Don't Know That One, How Does Elder Know It

Achewood

I bet the next day his Whoop strap told him not to get above zone 2 though.

Achewood

The comedy shirt that destroyed a generation Well, seven people, maybe.

Achewood

Beef is going to have a hell of a summer. Hang on for the ride. I am talking straight up eating a candy bar he bought despite all the conflicts and guilt and discord that arise in the head when a dude has a candy bar in this aware age.

Achewood

Just 'cause you're *from* circumstances doesn't mean you ain't *to* somewhere else.

Amy Lewis

The perfect combination of sass and class for gen Xers