Not getting your daily Sheldon e-mail in your GMail inbox?
Solution: Go into your Spam/Junk/Filtered folders, find a Sheldon e-mail and label it as “Not Spam”, and that should take care of it. The problem is on GMail’s end, unfortunately.
This happens from time-to-time on the bigger mail systems like Yahoo, GMail, or in corporate/government systems: Because their spam algorithms are shared across users, when something flags the Sheldon deliveries as “spam” in their system, then suddenly it’s spam for everyone using that system. It’s annoying…but not having aggressive, shared spam filters would probably be more annoying in life.
So! If and when you don’t get your Sheldon daily e-mail, check your computer-based or server-based spam filters. 99.99% of the time, that’s the problem.
(Also: If there are Gmail or Yahoo engineers who’d like to offer up a more permanent solution, that’d be awesome.)
Long-time readers know I’ve been looking for a site where Sheldonistas could give honest, independent feedback on the books they got in the Sheldon Store. We tried Yelp for a while, but Yelp is designed for brick-and-mortar stores…so it didn’t really work.
But! Yesterday, a kind librarian reader pointed me to a site called “Good Reads”. It’s a social network built around books and book lovers. I went to check it out, and there were already 80 reviews for Sheldon books in their system! So let’s try it out: If you’re already on Good Reads, swing by the Sheldon book page and rate the books you own.
So far, “Pugs” is in the lead, with a 4.57 out of 5 points!
Just for fun, I’m curious to see what type of voices you “hear” when you read Sheldon. Low and heavy voices? High and squeeky?
Let’s list ’em out: If you had to create an imaginary cast of voices from actors and voice-actors, who would be cast to speak as Sheldon, Gramp, Arthur, Dante and Flaco?
(Cleverest response for Flaco wins an internet high-five. For example: Casting Henry Kissinger for Flaco’s squees. That sort of thing.)
Just a reminder: The sale on “Pure Ducky Goodness”, the first Sheldon book, ends Friday! Grab your copy on the cheap and start your Sheldon collection. Future-You will thank Present-You! And Present-You will have the satisfaction of knowing that Future-You will be even more awesome than Present-You. (Past-You, however, will be jealous of Present- and Future-You for all the cool stuff they get to do.)
I found out about two recent media mentions yesterday from Forbes magazine and Syracuse’s Post-Standard. Click through to read the full stories….or skim over some tidbits, below:
(By Jeff Kapalka)
Are you a dog lover?
If you are, or know somebody who is, Dave Kellett’s got a book for you. It’s called “Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos,” and it’s a themed collection of strips from his on-line epic, “Sheldon.”
I’ve talked about “Sheldon” in the past. It’s the best newspaper comic strip that doesn’t run in any newspapers.
It deals with your average 10-year-old billionaire and his grandfather and his talking duck. He also has a dog. A pug named Oso. This book offers the best strips dealing with the cute canine, from his origins as a special Christmas gift, to Oso’s incredible odyssey in the “Little Lost Pug” story arc.
The strips range from the cute and cuddly to the weird and zany. (I once had a pug, myself, name of Bandit. Bandit was less a dog, and more of a hassock with Marty Feldman eyes, but he could charm the ladies. I can attest to the accuracy of Kellett’s observation. When he says that the average pug’s spine is composed of kiwi strawberry Jello squares, I believe him.)
The book is available on his Web site, www.sheldoncomics.com. It’s a great tribute to the mighty pug, and a neat intro to the “Sheldon” strip.
(By Helaine Olen and Kiri Blakeley)
In the happiest marriages, husbands and wives talk through their differences and work hard to sustain what brought them together–romance, passion, interest in each other–by making time to be together. Happy dual-career couples do all this and take it a step further, cheering each other’s job success and sometimes even giving each other a push.
When Gloria Calderon Kellett and Dave Kellett married in 2001, she had hopes of becoming a television writer and he had a cartooning hobby he dreamed of one day turning into a career. The Los Angeles couple decided that Dave would keep his paid position as a toy designer for Mattel ( MAT – news – people ) while Gloria pursued her dream, and then switch. “The idea was that one of us would hold down a steady job while the other took a creative risk,” says Dave, 35.
Their plan worked. Within three years, Gloria found writing success. Dave has since quit to work on his Internet comic strip, Sheldon, and now earns an amount equal to his former salary.
Still, he might never have left the corporate grind had it not been for his wife.
“I had to convince him to do it. He was like, ‘Are you really sure?'” says Gloria, 33. “I said to him, ‘Look, we had an agreement.'”
….Both articles are very kind. An internet high-five to the journalists behind both!
Regarding the Forbes article: The way we tried to plan it out, after we got married, was akin to two cliff-climbers sharing a safety line. One of us would always be anchored as firmly as possible to the cliff wall while the other one stretched and experimented and took the risk(s). Then, the risk-taker would anchor down, allowing the other one to clamor on ahead in their own risk-taking. It’s a simple metaphor, but it helped us give shape to a household where two artists were both chasing their dreams.
Because, like every adult ever warned you about, the artist’s life can have some terrifying financial periods in it — some lasting for years and years and years. And trying to balance that against the creative risks and career choices you need can be…scary. As two artists, this was the only way that worked for us.
Anyway, ‘nough about that.
But! Speaking of my wife! …If you live in the Netherlands, one of her plays is going up June 5th and 6th (…in Amsterdam? I’m assuming? I actually can’t tell). Gloria has nothing to do with the staging, but I can vouch that the writing is fantastico!
If you missed it over the weekend, have a look at Sunday’s strip about the children’s classic, Goodnight Moon. That book is a masterpiece of helping little ones to sleep, but there’s room in there for a little good-natured ribbing. (I hope.)
Strips like that are fun to do. It’s an interesting experiment to adapt your style to another artist’s look and techniques. It’s not unlike trying to fake a spoken accent, I suppose. The last time I tried it for Sheldon was with the George Herriman masterpiece Krazy Kat — and that was similarly fun to do.
Sheldonista Joshua H. sends in these two pics from Maryland. He tells me he passes the sign all the time, and finally snapped a few pics to share with you. Thanks, Joshua!
(Note: It’s possible that I’ve been snookered into advertising someone’s insurance agency on the Sheldon site. But, I figure if someone went through the trouble of reprogramming their sign with some Sheldon-oriented cleverness…let’s send ’em some bidness.)
A lot of new readers have discovered Sheldon these last few months, which is awesome. To help those folks start their Sheldon book collection on the cheap, Ye Olde Sheldonne Store is having a sale:
Pure Ducky Goodness, the first Sheldon book, is only $10 until May 15th! You save $5!
That’s 136 pages of Sheldon awesomeness for just 10 smackers. Or, look at it this way: That’s like trading 10 pieces of paper for 136 pieces of funnier paper. There is no scenario in which that’s not a good trade.
In the days following the LA Festival of Books, a few Sheldonistas sent in some great pics…and I thought I’d share them with you.
First up! Do you remember this awesome sculpt by Sheldonista Jeremy P:
Well guess who showed up at the Festival with a gift in tow!
Jeremy, I can’t thank you enough: That sculpt is amazing — and sits proudly right above my computer.
Next up, a pic from Sheldonista Jeff H. Jeff’s a Notre Dame alum, and asked for Flaco as the Fighting Irish leprechaun. It took me a minute to figure it out, but the final result came out pretty funny:
Thanks to everyone who came out — and keep those photos comin’!
