3,000 strips! That’s a pretty good feelin’, right there.

I can’t thank you guys enough for reading the strip, these past eleven years. Thank you for the e-mails and the kind words; the high-fives and hugs at conventions; and all the support you’ve shown through the Sheldon Store. It’s never lost on me what a blessing my job is — that I get to make people laugh for a living. So thank you! Thank you for making this strip possible!

AAAAAND IT’S CONTEST TIME!
Want to win a free piece of Sheldon Original Art from the archives? Be the first one to *correctly name or identify* all the characters in the 3,000th strip, and you’ll get your pick of any strip in the archive! Here’s what you do:

1.) Download the entry form, either as a Word document or as a Rich Text Format file.
2.) Type out the correct name of each character next to the appropriate number (as seen in the outlined comic image, below). If you’re entry form lists “33” characters, just disregard that, with apologies. It should be “32”. (I’m on the road in SD, and can’t fix it.)
3.) Get super stumped at the random characters that appeared in only one strip, and curse my name a little bit.
4.) E-mail me the completed entry form. Make sure your e-mail has the subject heading “3000th Strip Contest!”.
5.) Be the first e-mail submitted with all the characters correctly named/identified….and WIN!

EDITED TO NOTE: We have a winner! Congrats to Aaron Smith, who nailed it in record time of 1:45 after the strip posted.

So I s’pose I can just list the names, now:

1.) Ed McMammoth
2.) Master Control Program
3.) Mr. T
4.) Tom Bombadil
5.) Baby Admiral Ackbar
6.) The Duck
7.) Dilly Duck (a la Krazy Kat)
8.) Comic Sans
9.) Adam the A-Bomb (from the Crotchley Labs strips)
10.) Larry the Idiot Bird)
11.) Einstein
12.) Coco the Mime, member of the crime-fighting team, Academie Francaise
13.) Tron
14.) Torvak: Vulcan Party Planner
15.) Alfred Lord Tennyson
16.) George Lucas
17.) Dante
18.) Jeannie the Girl Scout
19.) Mr. Flahco (a la Krazy Kat)
20.) Arthur, from the future, with hair plants
21.) Li’l Baby Duck
22.) The Troubler
23.) Chuck Norris
24.) Gramp
25.) JRR Tolkien (drunk)
26.) Flaco
27.) The Living Embodiment of Wikipedia
28.) Dave Kellett
29.) Zod
30.) The Laughing Buddha
31.) The “Hush” lady from “Goodnight Moon”
32.) Oso

ORIGINAL ART FOR THE 3,000th STRIP
If you’re interested, the original art for the 3,000th strip is up for grabs.

The artwork for this comic was, to put it mildly a tad more labor intensive than the usual. It was a maaaaaarathon, drawing this puppy. It ended up being the biggest inked piece I’ve ever done, coming in at 13″x10″. Most amazingly, there is not a single blemish or mistake on the entire piece…despite there being a ga-jillion different characters on it.

So! Rather than let it go to the Sheldonista who got to the site first at 12:05 in the morning…I thought I’d put the original art up on eBay. You can check it out HERE.

I’m starting the bidding at $0.01, because I’d rather leave it up to you guys to decide what it’s worth.

(Reposting this, for those attending San Diego Comic-Con this week…)

San Diego Comic-Con is here, and I want to share three things with attendees:

1.) First up: The Sheldon guide to the show. Click HERE for a big, printable version you can take with you.

2.) All Sheldon original art is 20% off at the show. But! You have to e-mail me now to tell me which strips you want me to bring. Do it now before you forget!

3.) This year, we’ll have five items new to the show: The Literature book, the Drive book, the “Coffee: Circle of Life” print, the “Fantasy Football vs D&D” print, and an exclusive Sheldon/Dante print only available in San Diego to the first 50 takers.

We’ll also have the other 8 books, all the prints, buttons, Glornak stickers, and FREE SKETCHES for everybody.

Here are the two books premiering at the show:

And here are the three prints — the last of which is the San Diego exclusive:

The last print will be numbered “# of 50”, signed, and can feature any sketch you’d like added to it.

So! Booth #1228! Print out the Sheldon guide, above! And e-mail me right away if you wanted a specific piece of original art!

Rad!

Just a heads up: Next week Drive goes on hiatus while I’m in San Diego. But in two weeks: We Drive it up again, my friends…we Drive it up again.

JULY 15th, LOS ANGELES, 7-9PM:

Tonight, my friends! Tonight I’m signing with an incredibly talented roster of cartoonists: Meredith Gran, David Malki, Jorge Cham, R Stevens and Zach Weiner aaaaand myself will be signing, sketching and selling books at Secret Headquarters — possibly the coolest comic book shop I’ve ever seen.

I will have advance copies of the “Literature” book on hand, too, so folks who come out get first crack at it! Woooo!

(…..woooo!)

San Diego Comic-Con is almost here, and I want to share three things with Sheldon attendees:

1.) First up: The Sheldon guide to the show. Click HERE for a big, printable version you can take with you.

2.) All Sheldon original art is 20% off at the show. But! You have to e-mail me now to tell me which strips you want me to bring. Do it now before you forget!

3.) This year, we’ll have five items new to the show: The Literature book, the Drive book, the “Coffee: Circle of Life” print, the “Fantasy Football vs D&D” print, and an exclusive Sheldon/Dante print only available in San Diego to the first 50 takers.

We’ll also have the other 8 books, all the prints, buttons, Glornak stickers, and FREE SKETCHES for everybody.

Here are the two books premiering at the show:

And here are the three prints — the last of which is the San Diego exclusive:

The last print will be numbered “# of 50”, signed, and can feature any sketch you’d like added to it.

So! Booth #1228! Print out the Sheldon guide, above! And e-mail me right away if you wanted a specific piece of original art!

Rad!

It’s Saturday, which means it’s time for our Saturday Sci-Fi Featurette, “Drive”.

For those wishing to read the whole story straight through, you can head over to the temporary Drive site to go through it.

The eventual “full” Drive website will have a breakdown of the story thus far, and what we know about the characters, and all that..but if anyone wants to start a Drive Wikipedia entry in the interim, I’m happy to point to that. It’ll be a nice stop-gap until we can get the full website goin’.

EDITED TO ADD: Rad! Looks like it’s been started! Feel free to add to the Wikipedia entry here.

By happenstance, I recently stumbled on what turns out to be greatest gym workout song ever, Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (especially from about 1:30, on). If there was ever a song that was designed for runnin’ or liftin’ weights or doin’ the EFX machine, this is it. And it got me thinking, “What other awesome workout songs are out there that I’ve never come across?”

So I put it to you, friends: What are the best, most inspiring/energetic/manic songs out there for working out?

Let us tackle this task together: Let Us Build The Greatest Workout Mixtape EVER.

(Post your best suggestions below: The lesser-known the song, the better.)

JULY 15th, LOS ANGELES, 7-9PM: Meredith Gran, David Malki ‘n myself will be signing, sketching and selling books at Secret Headquarters — possibly the coolest comic book shop I’ve ever seen.

Aaaaaand…I’m pretty sure I’ll have advance copies of the “Literature” book for those that come out! Raaaaaaad.

There are two changes to the 2010 appearance schedule, so let’s take a second to review what’s coming up:

WEST COAST:
San Diego: San Diego Comic-Con, July 22-25
Long Beach, CA: Long Beach Comicon, Oct. 29-31

EAST COAST:
Bethesda, MD: SPX, Sept. 11-12
Easthampton, MA: NEWW, Nov. 6-7

MIDWEST:
Columbus, OH: Festival of Cartoon Art, Oct. 14-17

New Yorkers: Note that I’ve decided against going to New York Comic-Con this year, as my October schedule is already packed. But! Expect to see me out there next year.

Hey! In fun news, July 24th will bring with it the 3,000th Sheldon strip! That’s pretty cool right there: THREE THOUSAND STRIPS!

And, in the kind of awesome coincidence that you could never plan, that day will also be the first day of San Diego Comic-Con!

So let me put it to you guys: How should we celebrate it? What should we do? Comment below and chime in!