About wtfe²

wtfe² collects comics about the strange job of building software and introduces them in English and Japanese. The name is short for "What The F*** Engineer", or, on a polite day, "WTF, Engineer?". The ² is for the two languages every page is written in.

Two ways in

Some creators publish under a Creative Commons license that allows adaptation for non-commercial use: xkcd (CC BY-NC 2.5), TurnOff.us (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), Browserling Comics (CC BY-NC 4.0) and Abstruse Goose (CC BY-NC 3.0 US). Bonkers World is CC BY-NC-ND, but its author explicitly allows translations as long as the credit and a link sit next to the drawing and the signature stays. Selected strips from these five are shown here with Japanese lettering.

Everyone else either reserves their rights, asks to be contacted first, or allows reuse without allowing adaptation, so their comics are not copied here. The sites page describes each site, quotes its reuse terms, and links to strips worth starting with.

How the Japanese lettering is made

Every piece of lettering in a strip is recorded with its position in the image. A build script erases that lettering from a copy of the art: an ink stroke that lies entirely inside the lettering's box is erased, and a stroke that leaves the box (a balloon outline, a speech tail, a flowchart diamond) is kept. The Japanese text is then set over the cleaned image as real text, so it stays sharp at any size and can be switched off to compare with the original.

The English page of each strip shows the original image, unmodified. The Japanese page is an adaptation, and it carries the same license as the original.

Not commercial

Every comic here is licensed for non-commercial use only, so the site carries no ads, sponsorships or affiliate links.

Corrections and takedowns

If you made one of these comics and want it changed or removed, or you spot a mistranslation, open an issue at github.com/0-draft/wtfe2/issues. Requests from creators are handled first.