For all those students sad about school startin’ back up, here’s some good news: Pure Ducky Goodness, the first Sheldon collection, is ON SALE all this week, at just 10 bucks!
Good time to pick up a copy for the student in your life. Especially if that student is you…and especially if what you’re studying is awesomeness.
Regarding that strip: I wanted to address some concerns that are repeated across dozens of e-mails, if that’s OK:
– First off: Lots of you have asked if there could be specific navigation on the site just for these sci-fi strips. This is a great idea, but it’s trickier than it sounds, based on the way this site is structured.
– Secondly, a lot of you have written in either loving the blue or disliking the blue…mainly for reasons of screen legibility. Legibility is a fair concern: Especially on older laptops with (fading) screens, or older eyeballs with (fading) vision, blues can be tricky. Personally, I love the *idea* of the blue, and am still tinkering with a finding a blue that’ll give me a great variegation of tones, and yet still allow for sharp, 1-color printing in the (eventual) book.
– Thirdly, I have a longer-term goal of developing a second site solely for this sci-fi strip, where it will appear once a week like the marvelous strip Charles Christopher. But, two things are conspiring against me at the moment, before I can build the site. 1.) A title. Clearing a strip title through both the USPTO and a (concise) URL is proving to be tricky (as I remember well from my Mattel days). 2.) Time. I have a few things on my plate before I have time to design a new site. The spirit is willing, but the calendar is weak.
So! The short answers are: Specific Navigation? Probably not. Blue? Yes, but with modifications. New Site? Yes, but no time soon.
In the meantime, thanks again for the feedback on the new strip! I really appreciate it!
Species: Veetan
Homeworld: Veeta
Size: Average 1.9 m tall, 160 kg
Color & Markings: A physically imposing species by any standard, the Veetans vary most notably in the size, coloration, and distribution of their head and arm crests. Dress and beard styles vary widely, and change according to fashion.
Reproduction & Development: Emperor Pablo I famously remarked that the Veetans have a “Zen Optimism” in their everyday life, finding great joy in even the simplest of things, despite (or perhaps because of) being born into an existence of relative hardship. Veetans live very short lifespans of 15-25 years, suffer chronic leg and hip pains, have recurring digestive troubles… yet remain unflaggingly cheerful throughout their lives. Reproducing during one of only three mating periods in their life, Veetans raise their children communally, with a socially reinforced tendency towards self-sacrifice for the greater good. Following a childhood of 2-to-3-years, adolescent Veetans strike out alone to discover and experience as much of life as they can. Traditionally, this would’ve meant a decades-long “walkabout” from their home village, before settling down for their final years. But since the introduction of interstellar travel to Veeta, this tendency to explore has translated into a species of interplanetary wanderers and knowledge-seekers.
Diet: Omnivorous.
Lifespan: 15-25 years.
Language: Hundreds of regional dialects are spoken across the planet, but share the same written format.
Social Structure: Veetans’ traditional social structures have almost completely disappeared following 100 years of assimilation into the Empire’s norms. (For a description of traditional social structures in pre-Empire Veetan life, see: Yu, Han “Veeta, Before the Alliance,” Imprimátur del Imperio, 2345.) With their intense curiosity and a willingness to dive into any task, Veetans have found countless successes as imperial scientists, administrators, and engineers. However, Veetans rarely (if ever) serve in military roles, as they are firm pacifists. This is, in part, attributable to their short lifespans: Veetans believe that conflict wastes life’s preciously rare opportunities. (Nevertheless, Veetans are incredibly strong — as Veeta has a radius similar to Earth’s, but with 119% the mass — and Veetans have been known to fight with incredible force when pressed.)
Intelligence Rating: Extensively tested. November/Oscar range.
Interaction with Humans: Following the famed “first alien contact” in 2273, Veetans have always found a peaceable co-existence and camaraderie with humans: First, in the Veetan/Human Alliance, and continuing as part of the greater Empire. They are now firmly rooted in the day-to-day functioning of the Empire: Notably, there are 23 million Veetans on Earth itself, as of the last Imperial Census.
But hoo-doggy: You hit some weird piece of cartilage or something with your teeth, and you get a big ol’ shiver up your spine. And for the briefest of seconds, vegetarianism starts looking like a wonderful, wonderful option.
1.) IF YOU’RE A STUDENT: Write a letter to your newspaper’s Features Editor and/or the Managing Editor. You can usually find their names and e-mail address in the “Contact Us” link of the newspaper’s website. Tell them why you love “Sheldon”, and why it’s a good fit for your paper. Mention that it’s free, that it already runs in college papers in the US/Canada/Ireland, and that it’s been appearing online (daily!) for 10 years. Not so good with words? Allow me! Just click THIS LINK for an easy-to-complete e-mail!
2.) IF YOU’RE AN EDITOR: Just grab THIS PDF, fill it out, and e-mail me the scanned, signed document via your *school* e-mail account (e.g., “.edu,” “.ac.uk,” etc.)
Also, I should mention: The free use of Sheldon is offered to colleges only, and not for private/public groups, newsletters, or for elementary/High School levels. Thanks!
2.) Sheldonista Jim W. writes in with a funny line: “Loved the Medieval theme this past week. With a nod to Monty Python, I sense a book in the future: “The Knights Who Say Squeee.”
3.) I’ll be a special guest at the upcoming Long Beach Comic-Con, Oct. 2-4th at the waterfront Long Beach Convention Center. More info later in the week, but wanted to plant that date in your schedule in the meantime.
First, the secret you must take to your grave: The empire can never know the origin of the drive. The drive is the foundation of our power, the center from which all authority flows. If we lose control of the drive, we lose the empire, and we slide back to the starving days that haunted humanity.
Second, the secret within the secret. And Pablo, it is something I have never even told your father. But you have a wisdom about you that he lacks. An insight. And I think this bit of knowledge will serve you well when it comes time for you to rule:
Pablo, I do not know how it works.
Oh, of course, I could reverse engineer it. I could scale it up and scale it down. I could even vary the materials and sometimes get results. But as to how it works, I do not know. I have stared at it for 58 years, and I feel I understand it less and less. It is beyond me.
But with the hope that it won’t remain beyond you, let me give you my best guess. Or, at least, my best imagery.
Take a coin, and slide it across a long tablecloth at a low velocity. It would take hours to make it across the table. Now, take the tablecloth and pinch it up in the middle. The coin maintains the same low velocity, but makes much further ground across the cloth. That, I believe, is how the drive works, Pablo. We skirt across the crests of pinched space.
– Emperor Conrado I, in a letter to his oldest grandson. (Unpublished. Held in the Biblioteca Privada de La Familia.)
One, I want to thank everyone who’s supported Sheldon by picking up the new book. All the Sheldon archives, RSS feeds, daily e-mail deliveries are free…and the one thing that keeps all that going is your support when you pick up a book. So thank you for that! Especially now, when times are tight all over the world…you have no idea what that support means to one lil’ cartoonist.
Two, I wanted to remind you that whoever’s lucky enough to order the LAST Artist Edition will get this special drawing inside their book, featuring the whole cast:
(Click HERE for a larger pic.)
Like all the Artist Edition books, it’s drawn in archival, lightfast ink…so it’ll last and last.
1.) If you’ve already started your collection, you can grab just the book.
2.) If you want to pick up all six Sheldon collections, including this Artist Edition, you can do that, too!
3.) And if you want all 6 collections, including this Artist Edition, plus the pug collection, that’s found here.
*Thankfully, Brad Guigar was paying attention. I believe his fancy life-management tool is referred to as “a calendar”.
– (I’m just noticing, though, that my blogging engine is having trouble with Spanish characters…so hopefully they’re showing up all right for you as you read this.)
– Our true “story-story” should begin in about two weeks, after we’re done with this prologue.
