Month: February 2007

I’m excited to announce that Sheldon has joined the Project Wonderful ad network.

As you know, my philosophy with Sheldon is to give away as much as possible for free. Free strips, free RSS, free daily e-mail delivery, free archives, and more.

But all that free stuff relies on your direct support at the Sheldon Store (thank you, by the way), and advertising.

Project Wonderful is a whole new way to advertise. It let’s normal folks like you, or businesses big and small, advertise cheaply through a bidding process. You don’t have to buy some unnecessarily large block of time, or pay for advertising without knowing the number of pageviews or visitors.

Here’s the Project Wonderful tower ad. —————->

See the little price at the bottom? That’s all you pay to advertise on Sheldon for a day!

I think it’s great, as it gives other small businesses the chance to advertise in a way they might not normally be able to.

Thanks, Project Wonderful!

Forgive me if I’m slow to reply to your e-mails or forum posts this week: I’m moving office, to the new Sheldon studio.

You know how it is…you set up the computer, but can’t find the mouse. So you dig through three boxes to find the mouse, only to realize that you don’t have a chair. So you move the three recently moved boxes OFF your chair, only to realize that you’ve misplaced the dang mouse again. Ad infinitum.

Good times.

Anyway, I’ll be stumbling around in the dust bunnies and the barely working internet service for the next few days…so please bear with me.

Also: did I get Sunday’s toon wrong? Is that line not in the book? Have I committed the gravest sin in nerdly life? I hope not! Let me know in the forums if I did.

But be kind if I did…’cause, um, I’m unpacking. And I probably can’t find my mouse.

Clearly, my brain has fixated on
this line from Dune.

We have seen Comrade Steve and Yuri before, have we not? Allow me to direct you to one of my favorite Sheldon strips: featuring our favorite, rarely-appearing astronaut/cosmonaut team.

And, for those following along, here are the 1,2,3,4,5,6 previous installments of our Saturday-only, super-space-extravaganza storyline. The verdict so far? Half of you love it, half of you don’t. I’m enjoyin’ it, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

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Also, congrats to Timothy S. of Buck Creek, IN….you’ve purchased the final Artist’s Edition of the Pugly book. Hopefully the extra-cool sketch you’ll receive inside will make up for the fact that your town sounds uncomfortably like “Butt Crack”.

I joke! I joke! I lived in Indiana for four years! I love the place!

And for everyone else: free U.S. shipping ends Sunday night at Midnight, pacific-standard time! (Make sure you click the option with free shipping when you order.)

Tania from Alaska sent in word of this weird pug story. Make sure you click the “More Photos” link on the right…poor little guy doesn’t know what hit him. Which, in this case, is a playful, 120-pound black wolf….

Sidenote: are Pugs OK with living in Alaska? Everyone I know that owns a pug is terrified of them getting “cold” (which, in California, means 68 degrees F). Are Californians just wussies with their pugs?

Just checked the store inventory, and there are only 5 copies left of the Pugly Artist’s Editions. If you were hoping to get one, this is just fair warning.

Also: I’ve been fascinated for a long time with the “haunted” Winchester Mansion, which relates to today’s strip. It’s just a fascinating tale of money mixing with madness. (There are a few modern-day pop stars for whom this correlates, probably.)

Anyway, read more about it. It’s fascinating.

To celebrate the big move to creating Sheldon full-time, I wanted to do something that says thank you for supporting the strip. So starting today, and continuing through Sunday, all store orders come with free shipping within the U.S.! Order anything you like…your favorite original artwork, a Pure Ducky Goodness book, or one of the last remaining Artist’s Editions of The Good, The Bad & The Pugly…and get free shipping on the house!

(Sorry, international readers…it’s too ‘spensive to offer free shipping around the globe! I still love you, though!)

Also:
Since they’re almost gone…I’d like to offer up something fun. The person that orders the very last copy (#250) of the limited, Artist’s Edition of The Good, The Bad & The Pugly will get an AWESOME sketch. I’ll be spending some solid drawing time on that bad boy…so you won’t be disappointed!

My friends, I have a personal note to share.

After 8 awesome years, Friday was my last day working at Mattel Toys. I gave my notice about five or six weeks ago, and have been in preparations ever since to leave my corporate dream job.

I should probably emphasize those last two words…dream job. Mattel was, by any metric you’d like to use, a dream job. It was fun, it was creative, it was energizing, it was filled with talented people from every field imaginable, it spanned the world in scope and travel, and it tapped into abilities and skillsets I didn’t even know I had. And at the end of the day…what you made…were toys! For kids! To make them happy!

Not too shabby, all things considered.

Eight years ago, I started with the company as a fresh-faced writer, naming toys and creating background stories to help light up kids’ imaginative play. Then I became involved with Mattel’s blue-sky creativity initiative, Project Platypus – eventually helping to run the weeks-long brainstorming programs. And in my last stage at the company, I dove into the pure joy of toy design, working on some truly amazing stuff.

I won’t discuss the details of the work itself (not only because of NDAs, but because I still genuinely love the company and want to see its ideas succeed). But I will tell you the one thing that truly matters: I will miss that place, and those incredibly creative people, very much. For 8 years, it was everything you could ask for in a job.

But now, I’m on to a new job that I have been dreaming about for literally decades: Cartooning. Full-time.

So! Tomorrow: less of me waxing nostalgic for my old rad job…and more of me talking about my new rad job.

For those following along, here are the 1,2,3,4,5 previous installments of our Saturday-only storyline.