I don’t normally mention stuff from our Webcomics Weekly podcast on Sheldon, since that podcast is geared to/for/about cartoonists… but this jumped out at me, so I thought I’d mention it to here:

This month, the digital-postage company Endicia is sponsoring that show, and they put together a pretty sweet starter kit for Webcomics Weekly listeners. I’ll be honest: I wish this pack existed a 18 months ago when *I* started using Endicia. If you were thinking about trying Endicia for your office, it’s a great starter.

While working on the Olympic storyline, I started doing a pencil sketch of a triumphant Flaco that turned into something verrrry different. Quite honestly…it turned into something a little more awesome than what I intended to draw. So much so, that I decided to take that rough pencil sketch and ink it up as a finished piece.

Because the final product ended up being a pretty cool piece of frame-able art, I thought I’d put it up on eBay for the Sheldonista who might like it. I’m starting the bidding at one penny, just because I never know what to ask for these things. So if you think you’d like a little extra awesomeness in your life, head on over and throw your hat in the ring.

It’s 13 inches of art on a 14-inch piece of Vellum Bristol cardstock, drawn using archival inks.

The wait is over! Regular and Artist Edition copies of Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos are now available in the Sheldon Store!

It looks like there are about 93 Artist Editions left — so if you hop to it, you should be able to snag a remaining copy pretty easy.

Aaaaand, if you’re just starting your Sheldon collection, there’s even a reduced-price bundle pack with all 5 books .

(Our one request: Please double-check your shipping address before completing your order! Lots of times, folks have moved since they last made a purchase, but they haven’t updated their address with Paypal. Thanks!)

Good news! The “Pugs” book is going on sale Wednesday night in the Sheldon Store. Hooray!

As a cartoonist, there’s nothing that’s more stress-inducing, but ultimately more satisfying, than going through the process of creating a new book. It’s so permanent. So concrete. And it takes so many months of work before you can hold the final product in your hands.

And because my perfectionist streak kicks in on these, I always want the final books to exceed expectations in terms of materials and look and feel. I want people to get their book and go “Snap-a-doo… this IS nice! Dave wasn’t lyin’.”

Thankfully, I’ve been very proud of how the Sheldon books have turned out thus far — and “Pugs” is no exception. I couldn’t be happier with how it came out.

There’s a financial aspect to it, too, that I don’t talk about much: When you pick up a book, it lets us keep up the free RSS feed, the free strip deliveries by e-mail, and the free website. It’s a unique kind of artistic exchange: Give away as much as you can for free, and see if a tiny percentage of readers will find enough joy in it that they’ll buy a book. It’s certainly not the business model that Wal*Mart uses…but as an artist, I find it very satisfying. Give your art away for free, and see what happens.

But back to the book itself: This is the first “theme” book, collecting all the pug-related strips that Sheldon has ever produced. Frankly, it’s a pretty perfect book if you’re a dog-lover, or love a dog-lover, or love to love your unlovable dog-lover. It features an expanded version of the “Little Lost Pug” storyline, with some added tidbits not seen online. And because all the strips in the book are larger and clearer than what you read online, you’ll see fun little details you may have missed the first time around.

So head on over to the store and get yours while the gettin’s good! And thanks!

Submitted without comment by Sheldonista Adam P. on his wedding day:

For new Sheldon readers who might be unfamiliar with it… they’re pointing to the Glornak sticker.

Also: Adam, you are a far cooler man than I could ever be, just for flashin’ them white shoes. You are “smoove” with a “v”.

Sheldonista Tim G. sent along a cool link for reading big blocks of text amazingly quickly: Spreeder.com.

The basic idea is “Rapid Serial Visual Presentation”: It keeps your eyes comparatively at rest at a central focal point, and sequentially displays the words at a rapid-fire clip.

Try it out: Copy and paste a big block of news, literature, or homework in there…and see how fast you can plow through it. I read some looooong articles in 2-3 minutes!

Interesting thing to note: I tried Spreeder on a long bit of “comedy” text. Doesn’t work at all — you lose all sense of timing and pacing. But for factual, dryer text…works like a charm.

Interesting (nerdy) thing to note: Am I the only one to remember that rapid serial visual presentation is how the Bene Gesserit used to send communiques in Frank Herbert’s “God Emperor of Dune”?

In awesome news, my wife ended up winning the Alma Award tonight, for “Outstanding Writing for a Television Series”!

The best part? About two minutes before they announced the winner, I turned to her and said, “Oh, hey, did you write up a speech in case you win?” And she said “Oh heck no. I’m up against the Ugly Betty head writer.”

And when she did win, and recovered from the shock of it, she then proceeded to give the funniest off-the-cuff acceptance speech I’ve ever heard. She’s pretty awesome, that one.

I’m so happy to see the reactions to the Sheldon Process Video. It looks like the video’s been named a Vimeo Staff Pick, which is pretty cool. The little video is 13 minutes long, and has been viewed about 10,000 times….so, using my Advanced, Liberal Arts Major Math Skills, that roughly works out to 5 billion hours of video-watching. I’m pretty sure my math is solid there.

And thank you, to everyone, who e-mailed my buddy Dave Scales to thank him for editing the video. Remember: For every e-mail you send him, that’s one less beer I’m going to owe him at some point.

Can I have a proud husband moment for a minute? My wife Gloria was nominated for an Alma Award for an episode she wrote of “How I Met Your Mother”. Nice.

We’re going to the award-show taping tomorrow night. My preferred activity while I’m there? I’m gonna try to talk to Edward James Olmos ALL NIGHT about “Battlestar Galactica”.

**Cut to me getting nowhere near Edward James Olmos, and quietly nursing a mojito over in a corner.**

School is starting soon, which unfortunately means the end of my internship here at “Sheldon”.

To round off the summer, I went to the “Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos” book-launch party. I felt so LA sitting there in that swanky lounge with low lighting. Except instead of it being exclusive and pretentious, there was an incredible warmth present. It was so exciting to see and meet the readers that came out. I’ve noticed the dynamic between Dave and his fans is an interesting one. People aren’t necessarily infatuated or weird: The interaction seemed like it was among friends.

Dave’s family was present as well. I especially liked Dave’s mom, who recognized me immediately from across the room to mouth to me “I’ve read your blog!” That was so cute.

The book party was definitely a fun night, especially to celebrate the final product when I had seen the book in all its earlier forms. Meeting new people and drinking “The Pugly” were fabulous ways to end the night.

I can not even begin to say how thankful I am for this experience over the past three months. It’s been an incredible summer and I’m leaving with more knowledge and experience than I had before. To all the Sheldonistas: Thank you for welcoming me into the comic world with open arms, I hope to visit it often. And a huge thanks to Dave, who has shown me that the “best things in life are squee!”