Review by Frank Plowright

Chris Onstad was not only an early adopter of the webcomic format to produce stories, but was a rarity for sticking with the form to produce a decade’s worth of work from 2001. You’re likely to recognise his style, and it’s equally likely you’ve been sent a link to one of his funny strips, something about the ideas and language hitting exactly the right note.

The Great Outdoor Fight is a 2006 sequence centred on Ray Smuckles, once a musician, whose success was predicated on having sold his soul to the devil. He learns his father once won an annual organised mass brawl and decides to enter himself. Onstad’s introductory pages are hilariously faked as legitimate articles detailing the event’s history, objections to it, and outcomes. The first strips, though, concern marketing the idea of fake testicles for a cellphone. The ridiculous prospect is explored for targetted markets, before moving into the idea of Ray avoiding explanations to his mother. It serves as a good indicator of Onstad’s satire and sense of humour.

The drawing is kept simple, with animals acting as people, which is fine as it’s only a vehicle for Onstad’s ideas. Well before Gavin and Stacey he was rephrasing common terms to great effect, and his writing is immensely quotable, whether pastiching marketing nonsense, serving up original insults or defining something perfectly in a way you’ve never considered. Just the names of other fight contestants are great: Ron Stipes, Fauntleroy Brown, Pine Box Pyrell, the Schweitz Triplets… Onstad takes the joke further at the book’s end by listing all previous winners and profiling some of them.

As daft as everything is, you’ll nonetheless become caught up in Ray’s attempts to emulate his father’s legendary 1970s tournament win and the ridiculous techniques applied, yet The Great Outdoor Fight never slips into the ease of wrestling pastiche. Can Ray continue the family legend, and what happens afterwards?

While the humour on show represents Achewood, a relatively large regular cast is reduced to just Ron and Beef and fleshed out by new introductions as so little is set in the town for which the strip is named. It’s a marmite strip. For everyone whose funny bone it tickles, there are others who draw a blank at Onstad’s scattershot observations of life and weird character interactions. Buy into it, and The Great Outdoor Fight is great, the only downside being Dark Horse for some reason omitting Onstad’s uniquely skewed titles for individual strips.

Worst Song, Played On Ugliest Guitar is a second collection, but of much earlier material.