More news to share on the 5-day, 125,000-people mega-event:

I’ll be giving two panel talks on Friday, with four cartoonists who are surprisingly good at public speaking (…this is not, generally, the rule among my species. Most are timid forest creatures).

Come check out the talks, if’n you get the chance!

3:00-4:00 An Introduction to Webcomics: The single largest explosion of new comics talent in history is happening online. Did you know that there are over 18,000 webcomics? Some of them have millions of readers. Most of these comics are free. Is this news to you? Then come and find out what you’ve been missing from Phil Foglio (moderator and writer/artist Girl Genius), Brad Guigar (Evil, Inc.), Dave Kellett (Sheldon), Scott Kurtz (PVP), and Kris Straub (Starslip Crisis). Room 3

6:00-7:00 How To Make Webcomics: Live!: The four authors of Image Comics’ breakout book How to Make Webcomics present a live version of their popular weekly podcast. Scott Kurtz (PvP), Dave Kellett (Sheldon), Kris Straub (Starslip Crisis), and Brad Guigar(Evil Inc) discuss some of the core issues in webcomics: making money and building communities. Room 8

CORRECTED!

Important note for everyone going to San Diego: You may think to look for me in the “Webcomics” area, but this year I’m gonna be in the Indie Press area, at the Halfpixel booth, #2107.

(Halfpixel, as you may remember, is the umbrella name of I and my “How To Make Webcomics” co-authors.)

E-mail that booth number to yourself, write it down, put it in your phone…whatever helps you to remember. Because if you’re like me, you’re going to enter that massive convention hall and forget your middle name.

So! Once again: booth number 2107.

2107. 2107. 2107.

I’ll be exhibiting all five days at the Halfpixel booth, which is number #2107.

🙂

Do you remember this Sheldon strip? It’s one of my favorites of all time, and ended up being one of the most talked-about strips the comic has ever had… with links from all over.

Well, in fun news, I put together a special, re-imagined poster that will only be available at San Diego Comic-Con. Here’s how it came out:

And here are two closer shots…

We’ll only be printing up 100 of them, so come get yours early in the show (along with the new book)! …only at the Image Comics booth!

(And keep your eyes peeled in the next week for San Diego-exclusive Sheldon t-shirts. I think you’ll get a squee out of them.)

It’s awesome-time, my friends.

I’m really excited to announce the next book collection in the Sheldon-verse: Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos. It’s a special collection of every pug strip that ever appeared in “Sheldon”…plus some extra pug-related stuff only found in this book. Essentially, it’s a collection custom-made for dog-lovers…or for people who love dog-lovers…or for people who have to live next door to dog-lovers. Perhaps even for the dogs themselves. 🙂

Let me show you a bit of it. Here’s a shot of the cover and the title page:

In addition to all the collected strips, there’s sort of a book-within-a-book: An expanded, reformatted version of Oso’s recent stand-alone adventure, “Little Lost Pug,” with some added stuff not seen online:

The book will be premiering at San Diego Comic-Con, and will be available online one week later in the Sheldon Store.

Then, in mid-August, we’ll be having the big book-launch party in Beverly Hills. Aaaaaand, as of right now, it looks like the free drinks will be sponsored by Coppola Wines! Not too shabby!

Also, just because it’s a ridiculous picture, I thought I’d share this shot of me and the little tornado who inspired this book: Our family pug Payaso. About five minutes after this photo was taken, I believe he had shredded another couch pillow. Such is the joy of pugs.

I’m in the process of editing the “How Sheldon Is Created” video, and have hit a substantial roadblock…so I thought I’d ask for help.

Does iMovie ’08 have a way to change the duration, such that a section of video can run at 2x, 3x, or (any) increased speed? The old version of iMovie used to have that…but we’re hard-pressed to find that functionality in the new version. After 2-3 hours of looking online through tutorials and FAQ, I thought I’d ask Sheldonistas.

Anyone have a suggestion?

To the Sheldonistas joinin’ me in celebrating the Fourth of July, I hope you and your families have a wonderful day.

Perhaps it’s better to have Arthur say it…

After a long and glory-filled presence in the Sheldon Store, we’re bidding goodbye to the “What Would A Klingon Do? ” t-shirts…as they head off into Sto-vo-kor. (I’m such a huge dork for even writing “Sto-vo-Kor”).

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.)

I missed it! We had our 3,000th person sign up for e-mail delivery, yesterday. Neat!

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!

My first American Library Association Conference has come and gone…and I had a blast. As an occupation, there is no friendlier group of folks than librarians.

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.

The ALA convention has been pretty awesome-sauce, so far, I have to admit. I’m kind of amazed at how it stacks up even with San Diego Comic-Con…in terms of Sheldonistas present. We had so, so many awesome people come by the booth (#2577, by the way!), I was kind of overwhelmed! I never would’ve guessed there were as many librarian readers as there are!

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!