This past weekend, I had the absolute time of my life at the New England Webcomics Weekend in Easthampton, MA. I want to give a huge, group high-five to everyone who came out, from points as far as the west coast, the south, northern Canada, and even Europe. It’s an exciting time for independent, creator-owned Webcomics.

The whole event was organized and run by Webcomics creators — spearheaded by the very talented Meredith Gran. There’s an ever-increasing group of photos from the weekend at the Flickr photo pool which paint a fuller picture of the weekend, but I’ll share a few of my favorites here…

On Saturday, I was amazed to see just how packed the place could get. For a solid 3-4 hours that morning, I was talking *non-stop* to Sheldon fans and new readers. This never happens at conventions: It literally was non-stop. Usually there are ebbs and flows that allow for breaks, but this was different: The energy and excitement was palpable. Check out this one shot, and you’ll see what I mean. You can’t even see ONE of the webcomic creators lining the walls…it’s just a madhouse of folks:

I was happy to give out sketches to readers new and old. One Sheldonista asked for a self-portrait (which I’m always loathe to draw), but in this case I was happy with the final result. It was a pretty accurate portrayal:

But what made this show so singularly wonderful was the sheer critical mass of talent in one room of the world’s best webcartoonists. In dozens of informal talks over the weekend, I was able to talk shop with every artist I’ve ever admired online. Here’s a shot that represents what I mean: 8 of us just sitting at a Starbucks tradin’ tips & tricks.

(In the shot: David Malki, Kris Straub, Brad Guigar, Bill and Gene, Scott Kurtz, & Jorge Cham)

Overall, the weekend was just an amazing gathering of readers and creators….one I hope and expect will continue in the years ahead. But all that is for another day. For now, let me just give a huge “thank you” to everyone who made the trek from points near and far. You guys made it an extraordinary weekend.

If you’re coming to Webcomics Weekend this weekend in Easthampton, MA…and were hoping to snag a Sheldon Original Art at the convention price of $25 off, please e-mail me to make sure I bring the one you were interested in! Thanks!

Since this is “Pug Week”, there’s probably no better time to offer up some Original Art from the book “Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos”. Specifically, two separate pieces that are perfect for framing side-by-side, with a third piece of bonus art thrown in for good measure! You can check them out, here.

To see a larger version of the image below, just click **HERE**. Then, if you’re interested, head on over to throw your hat in the ring! (We’ve started the bidding at 10 cents.)

– We still haven’t nailed down the hard-and-fast date of when Sheldon first went online, but thanks to the efforst of many in the comments of this post, we’ve reached the theoretical limit of *how far back we can look* using archive.org.

– The problem, as these Sheldonistas soon found, was that I didn’t *date* the strips when they first went up. They were titled “Sheld1.gif”, “Sheld2.gif”, etc.

– Compounding that problem, I was literally learning how the internet worked in 1998, using Microsoft Word (Ha!) to update my site. What that means is, even though the first strip might’ve been first put up in, say, November, that entire page was probably updated 5-10 ten times over the school year, as I learned how to make link graphics, or changed my background, or tinkered with fonts, etc, etc. And if archive.org first captured pages in Spring/Summer of ’09, it would’ve captured only the most recent update.

– As our capable researchers discovered, it looks like that most recent update was done in June, 1999. (But tellingly, other random pages in the site were last modified in May, 1999.)

– On other fronts: The University of Kent has written back with apologies, saying they deleted the data from those student accounts almost a decade ago. So no luck on that front. Additionally, no reader from ’98-’99 has presented themselves, nor do my I own paper records show anything.

– What does this all mean? It means we probably will never know, exactly, when that first Sheldon strip went online. I have a memory of it being in Fall, 1998…but there’s no way to prove or disprove that.

– My final thought on it? In my own mind, I’ll continue thinking the strip first went online in Fall, 1998, with the knowledge that the first provable, actually *archived* pages of the site weren’t captured until May and June 1999.

– And, as is always true of Wikipedia, the Sheldon page over there will probably randomly list May 9, 1974 or Novembruary 33, 1864 as the launch date. Ah, Wikipedia, how I love you.

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– I want to thank the Sheldonistas who added to our search. You guys found archive.org pages in minutes that I’ve been looking for for years! And for those who really aided in the search, I’d like to mail a little humble “thank you”. Drop me an e-mail if your username is zoster_i, carolcapp, asrailight, appleseed, Schandlich, sheepster, lee_oades, Ghlitch, Erimore, Sullosar, Maestro, tovias, argon, dooby, IanNeufeld, aussiesteve, frzndaqiri…or if you were one of the two-dozen Sheldonistas who e-mailed in their thoughts. I can’t thank all of you with the personalized high-five I’d like, but a little mailed “thank you” will have to do.

You remember our Sheldon intern from last summer, of course: Stephanie was a fantastic presence at conventions, book launches, in the studio, and in her blog entries for the site.

Well, we couldn’t be happier for Steph, today…’cause she just got into USC’s prestigious Annenberg grad school! She’ll be studying broadcast and new-media journalism, which has been her long-held goal. Congratulations, Steph, on a placement well-earned, and best of luck in the years ahead!

I’ve had no less than three e-mails, this past week, from husbands who gave their wife a Sheldon Original Art for their “paper” anniversary, and my first thought was: “Hey! That’s pretty cool!”

My second thought was: “Man, as far as husbands go, I have NO IDEA what’s on that list of anniversary gifts.”

My assumption is that the list was put together specifically to remind husbands that, not only did they forget their anniversary, they further forgot what *specific thing* they were supposed to get that year. So! to be helpful, I’ve put together the first ten on the list PURELY FROM MEMORY, to help other husbands out there:

Year 1: Paper. Year 2: Copper Pots. Year 3: Selection of Bulgarian Shoes. Year 4: A Small Marmot. Year 5: Radial Tires (and/or snow chains, if needed). Year 6: Gift Certificate to Chuck E. Cheese. Year 7: New Keyboard. Year 8: Jewelry that you picked up at the last minute by walking past the case at Macy’s and going “That’ll do.” Year 9: Selection of Tropical Fish. Year 10: Entire “Where’s Waldo” book collection, including the very rare last book: “HE’S RIGHT THERE.”

So there you go! Help from one husband to many others! Congratulations on your anniversary!

Librarians! Researchers! Savvy readers! I need your help finding this answer: When did Sheldon first go online?

TWICE, this month, I’ve had a journalist ask me when “Sheldon” went online, and I had to hedge my answer…’cause I honestly don’t know. I had to tell the nice lady from Forbes it was “Fall of 1998…or, um, thereabouts”, because I can’t find any official answer in web archives.

So let’s put the patented WISDOM OF CROWDS to use, and see if thousands of heads are smarter than one!

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When did the first Sheldon strip appear online?

WHAT WE DO KNOW:

1.) Sheldon didn’t start out on “davekellett.com” (archived page from ’99) or on “sheldoncomics.com” (archived page from ’00).

2.) It actually started out a year earlier — somewhere in the Fall/Winter of 1998/99 — while I was studying WWII cartoons at the University of Kent, Canterbury England.

3.) That student webpage, as far as I can remember, was “http://www.ukc.ac.uk/php/djk3”, or perhaps “http://www.ukc.ac.uk/djk3”. Kent, however, has long-since deleted that student page, and changed their own URL to “kent.ac.uk”.

4.) If we can find *any* archived page from that student site, we’ll know the start-date, since the “First Strip” link will exist in hand-coded html.

WHAT WE NEED TO FIND OUT:

1.) While archive.org captured the latter two sites in ’99, it didn’t capture the (obscure) student site of mine in late ’98. Is there any web archive that was active in late ’98 or early ’99?

2.) Might there be a UK-based or university-based archive of student sites from that era?

3.) Is there even one (!) Sheldon reader who’s been following the strip the entire time, and would have some personal record of when it first came online?

4.) Is there some other resource that the search-savvy among us might know?

Figuring out the start-date is so important to me, that I’d like to offer this up to the person who finds *the* definitive date: I’m offering ANY Sheldon Original Art in the archives, plus the entire 6-book Sheldon collection, plus a Sheldon t-shirt of your choosing, plus a personalized sketch of your favorite character! It’s the least I can do, since you’d be doing me such a huge kindness.

…THANKS, ALL!

I had to share this with you.

Sheldonista Jeremy P. absolutely bowled me over with pics of an Arthur sculpt he made. They make me smile in a way few things do. Probably because — and I’m being honest with you, here — whenever *I* try to create a 360-degree view of Arthur, I fail.

But! Along comes Jeremy, producing what in my mind is an absolutely spot-on, 3-D Arthur. With a wonderfully goofy, Arthur-esque facial expression, no less! Jeremy, you nailed it.

Jeremy says that if he has time, he’ll tackle Flaco next. If you do, Jeremy, I’d love to see the pics. ‘Cause these made my week!

To give Sheldon Store customers a little somethin’ extra with their purchase, starting today every store order comes with 8 free wallpapers! With a purchase as small as one bumper sticker, you get all 8 designs:

All 8 designs are available in these resolutions:

800X600 1024X768 1152X864 1280X1024 1280X800 1400X1050

1440×900 1600X1200 1680X1050 1920X1200 iPhone-Sized

…And, it’s super easy for us to add a design — so if there’s a wallpaper you’d like to see, let us know!

Sheldon reader Brandon sent in this photo of he and his pug Roxie “reading through the archives of our favorite comic”.

It’s a great pic…and I believe Brandon when he say he was enjoying the archives. But closer inspection shows that Roxie was less than impressed….