Sheldon reader Bob F. e-mailed me with this pic, today:

Dear Dave —
I am 52 today.
Came downstairs this morning to find this next to the coffee machine, courtesy of my son John.
Made my day. Happy birthday to me!

Happy B-day, Bob!

The comic convention season is startin’ up, muchachos, and I have some cool conventions coming up in the next few weeks. So let’s talk about them! More importantly, let’s meet up at them, and exchange suitably hip high-fives!

SEATTLE: Emerald City Comicon!

Emerald City is pretty much my favorite convention all year. And Seattle — and Seattlites — are a special kind of awesome. Looking at my server logs, there’s an inordinately huge “Sheldon” readership in that part of the world, so this convention is like coming home, for me. I love it: You gotta come.

When: March 13-14
Where: Wash. State Conv. Center
Booth: 102
Exhibiting With: Halfpixel! Kris, Brad, and Scott.
Link: ECCC show site

CALGARY: Calgary Comic Expo!

Anytime I talk to someone about the Calgary show, they have nothing but awesome things to say about it. And it’s growing and growing every year. But, the SINGLE GREATEST THING about this show? It’ll be my first appearance in Canada ever! Ever! And who knows how often I’ll be able to get up there..so you best come out and say “hi”!

When: April 24-25
Where: Roundup Centre
Booth: (Don’t know yet!)
Exhibiting With: Halfpixel! Kris, and Brad
Link: Calgary show site

Note: With huge apologies, I had to cancel my San Francisco Wondercon appearance due to two family-schedule conflicts! I’m incredibly sorry about that: Next year, I’ll be there! Promise!

Sheldonista Mindy S. wrote in regarding the recent Awesome-Off strips (ONE, TWO, THREE):

My sister insisted that I email you and tell you we had a “spontaneous awesome-off” in her kitchen the other night and my ankle “popped”…..into place! I had had a limp for a few days and I’ve been HEALED by the awesome-off!

I love it — thanks, Mindy!

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.