Jesus jet-skiing Christ.

Yesterday I blacked out my website and posted an animated GIF that explains what SOPA is and why it's bad. I've found the best way to get anyone to listen to me is to keep my messages insanely concise and saturate them with poop jokes and farm animals. My expectation was that I'd get some laughs from my readers and maybe get featured on a few oddball humor sites.

Instead, the animated GIF received coverage from CNN, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, The Guardian, Mashable, Business Insider, MSNBC, and a bumload of other mainstream news sources. It was also trending worldwide on Twitter and according to Tweetmeme it was one of the most tweeted links on earth yesterday.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm fairly certain getting koala lovemaking on CNN is the highlight of my career and I wanted to share the moment with you.

Why else am I telling you this? Because of the combined efforts of some of the internet's biggest players as well as countless awesome underdogs, you could tentatively say that the protests were a success. 18 senators backed off from the bill, 4.5 million people signed a petition, and anyone who used the internet yesterday for more than five seconds is now well aware of what SOPA is and how to stop it.

And as a comic artist, yesterday was one of the most exciting days of my career. I got to put Oprah on a jet ski and make a small difference in the world. I'm so excited about all this I might just go shampoo my toe hair.

Thank you internet. Thank you for all the tweets, reblogs, and shares.

Yesterday, you gave me a raging brainboner so large and so mighty that it could be seen from space.

-The Oatmeal

As you may have noticed I haven't put up much new material for the past six weeks other than a few quick comics, doodles, and rants. This is because I've been working on my new book which was due to deliver to my publisher today, January 6th. Originally it was due back in June but I needed more time with it and I didn't want to rush the humor. I finally finished the book two days ago and was so excited I ate a bunch of jellybeans and then threw them up on my neighbor's windshield!

The new book has a buttasstonload of new material (in fact it's primarily all new material). Although it's done, the publishing process takes quite a bit of time so it won't be out until October. I'm genuinely excited about what's inside and I wish I could release it tomorrow. For now I'm keeping the title and theme a secret.

Now that the book is done I have to get to work on the Oatmeal app. I've outsourced the development but I'm designing it myself, so although it'll take up some of my time it won't be nearly as time-consuming as writing a book. In the meantime you can expect lots of new comics.

Hugs and chainsaws,

-The Oatmeal

Ever since Aliens Avatar squatted its bloated, blue, Na'vi ass on American cinema, every film that comes out with some semblance of special effects has "3D" pasted on top of it.

Most people know the drill by now: you go to a 3D movie, pay a little extra, chuckle at how stupid everyone looks wearing those glasses, and the film starts. For the first two minutes, it's impressive. Stuff pops out of the screen and it's pretty neat. For the remaining 118 minutes, however, you either forget you're watching a 3D movie or simply stop giving a shit.

And it only really works once:

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"But it makes the characters and environments more believable!"

Was Yoda in the original Star Wars not a believable character? Or what about Gollum in Lord of the Rings? Or how about the Skeksis in The Dark Crystal?

"But we want more money! -Movie Theaters"

If theaters want more money they should just charge more for popcorn and soda.
We'll eat that tasty shit no matter how much the prices soar; it's like crude oil for our faces.

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"It's the future of cinema"

You remember those Magic Eye books from the 1990s? The ones where you'd look at them, relax your eyes, and a 3D picture would pop out? Saying that 3D movies are the future of cinema is like saying that Magic Eye books were the future of literature.

It's like having a fog machine installed in the theater that activates every time something scary happens, or spraying clouds of glitter at the audience every time a nipple is visible on the screen.

You know when I'd go see another 3D movie? When it's one that features two solid hours of watching the Na'vi get barbecued by flamethrowers while I eat my $19.99 bucket of popcorn which is also coincidentally flavored like barbecued Na'vi. Unless that happens you can count me the fuck out. I'll go watch Up without being subjected to the filmmaker's equivalent of a Photoshop lens flare.