All remaining shirts are 50% off! A mere $9! Surely that is a price you can say “Kerplah!” to! (C’mon. Honestly. Who writes that?)
So head on over to the Sheldon Store and grab the last shirts with honor.
Today *IS* a good day to shop!
(Seriously: I’m a massive dork.)
There are three ways to read Sheldon: The website, RSS, or by e-mail. The number of folks who read by e-mail are by far the smallest group (RSS is growin’ like wildfire) but watching that e-mail number grow brings an inordinate amount of joy to this cartoonist. It’s very Pavlovian. 🙂
Do you have someone in your life who would enjoy gettin’ Sheldon in their inbox? Tell them to sign up here…and convert a friend into a new Sheldonista!
Example A: After my post about the original art being taken from the booth…I had no less than four librarians come up and offer to pay for it. I of course didn’t take any of them up on their offer — but their supremely kind gesture(s) put in relief what a great group of people librarians are.
Example B: Almost every single librarian Sheldonista at the conference brought another librarian with them to introduce them to Sheldon…which was awesome. I suppose it comes from having a job where you’re constantly helping to connect people to the things they need: Even at a conference, that impulse continues!
I wandered around the massive Anaheim Convention Center for just a bit, and was amazed and the breadth and depth of arcane or rarely-seen services on display. My favorite display? The automatic book-page-turner-thingies-with-auto-scanning. It’s basically a machine…designed to flip pages…and take high-quality, accurate scans…super quickly. It’s the same thing Google is using to scan much of the Western world’s literature. Anyway, watching these machines at work with super-brittle books, I couldn’t help but be impressed at the multiple engineering hurdles that no doubt had to be overcome. It’s like having a robotic hand pick up an egg: Not as easy as it looks.
Other highlights of the show: Exhibiting with Unshelved’s Bill Barnes and his pen-name-weilding partner, Gene Ambaum…with whom the laughter abounded. Around about Sunday, though, I decided that Gene’s pen name was a ridiculous contrivance for a cartoonist, and started calling him “Fakey McGee”. If you’re an Unshelved reader, please drop ol’ “Fake-Name” a line for me and tell him you love his *new* nom de plume. 🙂
Sheldon intern Stephanie made it down to the show on Tuesday, and I’m happy to report she had fun (and had some good interviews with publishers) at this, her first trade show!
When I get a free second in the next few days (…read: probably two weeks from now) I’ll post a photo album from the show to share with everyone.
In the meantime: a huge THANK YOU to all the librarians who came by, said hi, and gave me such a warm welcome! You made this show immensely fun.
And a lot of librarians were excited to hear the news, today, that Sheldon books can be purchased for their branches/districts through Baker & Taylor and through Diamond Books…a new development that makes it easier for libraries to get copies. So that was fun, as well.
There was one bit of bummer news, I’m sorry to say. For the first time ever, someone stole a piece of Sheldon original art from the exhibition booth…and it has me oddly sad. It’s strange, really, that among such a wonderful day, with so many kind words (and more than a few righteous high-fives distributed), that one little theft would bum me out…but c’est la vie, I suppose.
In contrast, the lads from Unshelved have been an absolute blast to exhibit with…and I have to encourage Sheldonistas who haven’t checked out their strip to head on over.
More news and pics to come as the convention continues into Tuesday! And thanks again to everyone who came by! And to everyone who sent friends – and friends of friends – to come by!
It’s a little detail I’ve intentionally not included in the strip. It’s a whole story we’ve only had hints of up to now. Sometimes, the best stories are the ones that take a long time to tell.
So let the guessing begin! Is it “Sheldon McGarry,” “Sheldon Montelban,” “Sheldon Montescue”? Perhaps even “Sheldon M. Dinkle”?
Coincidentally, it might also be fun to note that Gramp and Sheldon don’t share the same last name. Sheldon is Gramp’s grandson via his daughter. A fact I think was hinted at in this strip (fourth panel).
There’s something comforting in reading that e-mail, I think.
I’ll be at the American Library Association conference this weekend, sharing a big ol’ booth with the lads from Unshelved. It’s my first time going to a library conference, so I’m very curious to see how it goes.
We’ll have copies of all the Sheldon books, a dozen or so of the last “How To Make Webcomics” copies, original comic strip art at $25 off, free sketches, generous allotments of high-fives, a sneak-peek at the next book, and information on how you can order books for your branch or district.
So make plans to come by…and I’ll see you there!
So the first blog post was a warm up, and I hope this one isn’t nearly as cheeky as the last one, although if it’s cheesy I apologize and again reiterate that I’m being sincere.
I’ve always dreamed of being a writer. I didn’t know what kind of publication or what type of writing, but I liked the idea of sitting at a desk, looking out onto the ocean and writing all day. And at times I scribble, but I never took the initiative to get it off paper and into print, let alone someone else’s hands. One day my grandpa asked me to share with him what I’ve written. I refused and then took a second to laugh at myself. How can I claim to be a future writer when I’ve never shared anything I’ve written?
Which brings me to my internship. People have dreams, and they have talents that complement those dreams, but too many times fear and perhaps even laziness tends to hinder their ability to create. Dave shared with me his story of how he created Sheldon; of his move from a safe corporate job toward trying to make a living off of what he really loved to do. Eventually, he had to take that leap. Although Dave has been teaching me the ways of his business, I can’t imagine what it was like eight years ago for him. Starting a self-owned publishing company that is now on its 7th book; attempting to master Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Quickbooks; and 10,000 other programs; learning to deal with quirks of day-to-day business…and all because he just wanted to draw some comics! I asked Dave how he figured it all out, how he had the drive to continue trying to create what is now a smooth business process, and he responded, “…I guess I just did. When you really, really want something, you figure out a way”.
With that in mind, whatever your dream is, just start doing it, even in its simplest form. And then when you feel more confident, share. The artist always just wants to create art, but sometimes they have to power through the kinks behind the business to make it successful. If we quit trying to share our art because of technological difficulties, or shyness, or business difficulties, or because we couldn’t find the email address to our local newspaper, or because we didn’t know what to say to that band manager or gallery owner… then we’ll never show our art to the world. To create art is great, to take the time and energy to share it, despite how hard that may be, is even more “awesome sauce”.
Sheldon, as you know, is available to readers all over the world via the site, RSS, and daily e-mail delivery… and all totally free! And one of the things that keeps all those 2-million-monthly pageviews free are site sponsors like Star Pirates.
So show ’em some love, and try their free, online, browser-based game.
People, people, people! Hasn’t science taught us anything??? Can’t we say conclusively that a North American lizard weighs exactly 2.4 Central American bananas?
(Also, I think it’s fair to say the bananas were sittin’ still, while Flaco was his typical jiggly self.)
