Do you enjoy reading in-depth articles about cartoonists that were originally written in other languages…and which were then put through Google’s Translation services? If so, head on over here for guaranteed good times.

Here’s two particularly fun machine translations to note from the article:

1.) “But life, just as the school’s cafeteria, do not always serve you the pattie requested.”
2.) “Like millions of other people, Gloria and Dave were able to sacrifice their childhood dreams on the altar of the mortgage account to the supermarket.”

Based on the fact that there are 45 comments below the article, I can only assume that it sounds better before the language algorithms went to work on it. Ahh, machine translation: You’re so close, and still so, so far. 🙂

[EDITED TO ADD: For those asking, here’s the English version of the strip they asked us to make to accompany the article.

One of the most fun things I’ve done, in recent weeks, has been to draw “Baby Admiral Ackbar”. What a great, great character design Ackbar was. I could watch an entire movie with that dude.

Also! Just for fun, why not watch this.

Hey! It’s Saturday! That means it’s time for our sci-fi series, “Drive”.

Here are the full archives in order:

#1, #2, Text Entry: Continuum, #3, Text Entry: Secrets, #4, Text Entry: Veetans, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, Text Entry: Memos, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22, #23, #24, #25, #26.

Hope you’re enjoying ’em!

Who knows why I ended up doing two strips relating to poetry this week — ’tis the odd stirrings of the Muse, I suppose. But it makes me think it might be fun to have a “Sheldon Poetry Week” one of these days. (Not unlike the “Artist Week” we had all those many moons ago.)

Anyway, to rectify my loving jab at e.e. cummings, today, I thought I’d share one of my favorite poems of his:

l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

Do you guys remember this strip, where Arthur pitches Flaco on the “best Venn diagram ever”?

Well, Sheldon reader Doug sent me this riff on that idea…which I found pretty awesome:

Because he was intentionally drawn with a lighter ink stroke, I thought I’d give you a close-up of Larry in today’s strip.

Also: It’s entirely possible that this is Larry’s second appearance in the strip. (I can’t find the strip, but there’s one where Arthur’s explaining flight to Flaco, when Larry bonks right in front of them. Know the one I’m talking about? Link to it, below, if you do!)

Edited to add: Sheldon forum user “LizardKirk” found Larry’s earlier appearance. Thanks!

Today’s strip isn’t the first time Arthur’s written a “helpful” letter to God. Here are some earlier ones — 1, 2, and 3 — with this one being my favorite.

A few dozen of you e-mailed and tweeted me, today, to share this patented “Amazing Banana Secret”*…which I hadn’t heard before:

Apparently, apes, gorillas and monkeys peel bananas from the bottom-up, not from the stem-down…as it takes care of the the string cheese problem aaaand the weird GI-tract nub in one fell swoop.

Thank you all for sharin’ that! I been doin’ it wrong all these years.

*PS: If I may quote from Dave Barry, doesn’t “Amazing Banana Secret” sound like a punk-rock band name?

There’s nothing more satisfying, as a cartoonist, than taking one of the most compact, powerful and breath-taking poems written in the English language…and making it a cartoon about kids and video games.

I think, in my heart of hearts, that’s what Dylan Thomas always intended, really.

here’s here’s another blast from the past… techno addiction