Regarding comic #2047: Yup, I know that Ben Burtt did the voices of R2-D2 and WALL-E. Didn’t realize I knew that until I finished writing the comic and went to work on the title. My old Bantha Tracks knowledge bubbles deep below the surface of my conscious mind.

Perhaps you saw the new Pixar movie WALL•E this weekend? Perhaps now people will stop laughing at me when I explain that I was more upset about the death of my helpful, friendly Roomba than most pet deaths.

Robots are noble creatures worthy of respect! They have beautiful little fixations and neuroses that help us all live better lives. I dare say that in all arenas other than digestibility, I prefer them to living animals.

So much of this film felt like an adorable extended remix of the original Star Wars R2-D2 meets the Jawas sequence which then segued into a love letter to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Wouldn’t have believed you could remix elements of those two films into something perfect, but they did.

This is definitely my favorite Pixar movie and the first one I wanted to see on my own. (the rest were someone else’s idea) Yeah, I’m that one guy who thought the Incredibles *could* have been good if it wasn’t written like it was above the silly notion of super-heroes. Previous favorite was Ratatouille.

I loved the silent sequences and was floored by some of the concepts they managed to get across without words. More movies like this, please!

It didn’t hurt that the two most prominent speaking parts in the film were from two of my favorite actors: Fred Willard and Jeff Garlin. A world where Fred is President and Jeff is Captain Kirk is a world I’d like to live in.

This might be the movie to cure my irrational hatred of 3D animation.

As of mid-August, DS is ending its run in newspapers and going back to being web-only! Why? Because I’m an optimist, I opted out.

Gary and I are doing a full Q & A on the subject on Fleen today. The short answer is here on DS.

In the meantime, long story short: This is my decision, I wasn’t fired, I don’t regret it and I’m not gonna blame anyone. No dissing Garfield. I am “crazy amounts of” looking forward to being my own CEO again. There will be nary a bump in schedule for the main webcomic.

I wanted to tell you folks this last week, but wouldn’t be around to talk about it because Mer and I got to speak at Google AKA the land of free food and robotic toilets. Finally seeing Silicon Valley was like discovering my true heritage was that of space royalty. The Goog should have video up soon for those of you who wanna see it.

“You wouldn’t like me when I’m hopeful.”

The threat of millions of Gen Xers considering voting un-ironically.

Garfield, Fiery Furnaces, Snoopy and the end of $10.99 classic shirts beneath the cut…

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Can you believe that there are 15 free episodes of Freakangels already? Today’s has sleeping girls in their underpants in it, so keep that in mind if you’re at work.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever named Pete’s vegan pal on camera before. Tell me or show me why I should name her after you or someone you know! (I reserve the right to make a pun of it)

Due to the holiday weekend and the “hey, will you save me a shirt because my payday is not until…” emails I’ve been getting, the Planet Lunch shirt is getting a stay of execution until 6/15. I’ll be back with the remaining PDF ebooks this weekend as well!

Feel better soon, Twitter. I’m not mad at you. If you wanna share usernames with other DS readers to have someone to talk to, feel free right here. (I’m rstevens)

I’ll totally be your best friend if you vote for this strip on Reddit.

(Previously, in I heart Twitter)

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Please forgive this indulgence, but now we know what happens when a cartoonist watches Keith Olbermann while listening to gangsta rap.

It was super fun to play with old skool 1-bit black and white dithering for a change. Mac Classic 4 Lyfe.

Edit: Moved this strip here because it felt weird having a comic without my characters in the archives. This is definitely more blog material!

We Are Not All Jerks.