Salon has a lengthy chat with Chris Onstad of Achewood. The popular webcomic has spawned a cookbook of all things

Cooking and eating have become pervasive themes in the strip. Do you worry that some percentage of your readership just has no interest in what you’re talking about when you get into vegan substitutions or molecular gastronomy?

I do not and cannot care. I have to write about what interests me the most. If I don’t write about what interests me, it’s not going to interest anyone else. And you know, it’s the same thing — oftentimes I’ll sit here, and I’ll be writing a strip, and I’ll make a reference to a uniquely American thing and I’ll go, Oh, well, I’ve got a lot of readers in the United Kingdom and Australia, and they’re not going to get it. But then I think: But you know what? I watch and adore British comedies and oftentimes I don’t get the references, but I can appreciate the completeness and the honesty of it. So I try not to dumb it down, and I try not to think for other people.