One of the things I DID notice while I was trying to account for the latest spike in site visits was that we were getting a small amount of hits off international Googles translating us into a different language. Do a search from one of the Google international sites (google.it, google.fr, &c.) and look for a link in the "Translate this Page" spot you may have seen pulling up non-English results on the ol' DOTcom... and be AMAZED! Even tho' this IS just a rehashing of the old babelfish.altavista.com (Babelfish) trickey, it's still pretty snazzy. Even just our index page can have surprising results (such as seeing an attempt at making sense of "Dexley's Midnight Jogger" by translating it into Italian):
Click Here (translate.google.com) (Italian, via google.it)
Click Here (translate.google.com) (Spanish, via google.es)
Click Here (translate.google.com) (German, via google.de)
Click Here (translate.google.com) (Portugeuse, via google.pt)
Click Here (translate.google.com) (French, via google.fr)
Google's list of languages (including some very odd choices) can be found here (services.google.com).
Man, I always knew that Google ruled, but this just proves it even more!
SD2: April, Year 3; what's the point to the Career mode, anyhow? FF7: Disc 1; 4h into game; en route to the next reactor FF8: Disc 2; 14h into game; Infiltrating the Missle Base.
The german translator really does pretty well -- I'm suprised! It even usually guesses pretty well about trying for the user names. Mostly. :-) Several particular favourite attempts: Mildes Irres Mannered Raumfahrer Spiff Der 5. Reiter Mikrophon Sweetser ( :-) It tried! ) NettocKerbe Slasher
And, the ever popular, context sensitive Mitternachtrttler Dexleys or Rttler Midnight Dexleys
Originally posted by emmaSeveral particular favourite attempts: Raumfahrer Spiff
Quick bit of trivia from the C&H 10th anniversary book (this is Watterson speaking):
Spaceman Spiff - Spaceman Spiff predates Calvin and Hobbes by over a decade. I trace Spiff back to a comic strip I drew for high school German class, called Raumfahrer Rolf. It was a pretty silly two-page comic in which the protagonist got eaten by a monster at the end, but it was written in some sort of German, and that was what counted. I reworked the character in college, calling him "Spaceman Mort," but the strip was conceived as a fairly elaborate, continuing project and that didn't seem like the best use of my academic time, so I never published it.
A year or so after college, the newly christened Spaceman Spiff was my first strip submission to newspaper syndicates. Spiff was a diminutive loudmouth, not like Calvin, albeit with a Chaplin mustache, flying goggles, and a cigar. He had a dimwitted assistant named Fragile, and they roamed through space in a dirigible. For obvious reasons, the syndicates rejected it. Years later, when I came up with Calvin, I finally had the opportunity to bring Spiff back.
The page is still there, you just don't have a link to it in your profile anymore: http://the-w.com/referrals.php/profile= With the user id number plugged in at the end. For example, mine would be: http://the-w.com/referrals.