I’ve you’ll indulge me in reminiscing, I wanted to link you to one of my favorite Christmas storylines from the Sheldon archives. It has a particularly wonderful moment in it regarding Sheldon and his parents. If you have a minute, open the below links in tabs and have a read through this little story-arc.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19.

I’ve been amazed to see the high volume of international orders for A Blizzard of Lizards. Then it hit me: The U.S. Dollar is getting pummeled on foreign currency exchanges these days…of course the orders are pouring in.

Check out, for example, how little it would cost you to buy and ship one Sheldon book using…

The Canadian Dollar (CAD)

The Pound (GBP) (…I was really amazed at this one. Just 13 quid!?!)

The Euro (EUR)

The Australian Dollar (AUD)

We ship overseas using Global Priority Mail, and to Canada using Air Mail, so most orders should get to their destination within 7 days. But, in the hopes of getting all your orders there in time for Christmas, we’re asking that all international orders be placed by Monday, Dec. 10.

We’ll get all those orders out the same day — whisking them to your door as you laugh at how little money you spent.

In the post below, I completely forgot to mention the process of choosing your free book. Sorry about that!

After you order your Original Art, forward me the order confirmation e-mail ([email protected]), letting me know which book you’d prefer…and fwazoo!….free awesome book for you!

Hey, that rhymed.

In panel 3 of today’s strip, Gramp says “…I’ll send them down a shoot of 2 x 4’s.” This, as 5,243 people have kindly pointed out to me, is incorrect. It should read “chute.”

In my original script, Gramp was going to say “I’ll just shoot ’em down these 2 x 4’s,” but I changed it up as I was inking the text…and didn’t notice my error. I’ll incorporate that fix into the strip.

All of this, of course, proves the old truism:

“Homonyms: They’re Mother Nature’s little S.O.B.’s.”

For everyone who’s planning on getting some Sheldon Original Art as a Christmas gift for a loved one (or to treat themselves!), here’s some fun news:

Between now and Christmas, any purchase of Sheldon Original Art comes with a free book of your choice! Grab your favorite strip, and get a little extra sum-sum!

To snag the Original Art for your favorite strip, just navigate to it in the archives, then click the blue “Buy Today’s Original Art” button directly underneath the comic. Then — wazam — the artwork and a free book are yours!

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Totally unrelated followup for folks who saw the “season ender” of Heroes: Isn’t it ridiculously weird to watch the writers try to desperately wrap up 10-episodes-worth of storylines in one show? It was like Dostoyevsky getting halfway through “Brothers Karamazov” and saying “You know what…this book is starting to run too long. Let’s just have all the brothers grab a beer together and wrap it up with a joke. There’s too much angst over their dad.”

Hey, if you’re looking for a good Christmas tune, check out James Taylor’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. Awesome stuff.

Once they’re sold out, I always seem to get 50 e-mails from folks bummed that they missed their chance, so here’s one last warning: there are just 10 Artist Editions left over at the store!

Don’t be the person who e-mails me a week from now, saying they were vacationing in Bolivia, and are only now noticing that they missed their chance! Get yours today!!

(…a surprising number of Sheldon readers vacation in Bolivia.) 🙂

I’m happy to report that the book is now available to all Sheldonistas in the store!

After opening up the super-secret sale to Sheldon newsletter subscribers yesterday, there are just 73 Artist’s Editions left, so get ’em while they’re hot.

We already shipped out a few hundred of the orders yesterday…but you want to know the coolest part? One Sheldonista just e-mailed me to say he got his book already. BAM. A 1-day turnaround. That’s how we roll at the Sheldon store. 🙂

(…I actually have no idea how it got there that fast. Martin must live in California. Or, it’s possible the US Postal Service is goin’ ALL OUT this year to win the award for “Best Pseudo-Independent Business Which is Half-Independent and Half-Reliant on Federal Subsidies”. It’s an easy award to win, by the way: They only have to compete against Amtrak.)

Anywho, head on over to the Sheldon Store, and treat yourself to some awesomeness!

I’ve been firing up the ol’ Charlie Brown Christmas album today, and wow — what a fantastic piece of music.

The fact that the network fought Schulz on the use of Vince Guaraldi’s jazz astounds me: that album really is beautiful.

…plus, I always think of the dopey dance moves at the end of the TV special. Pigpen had the moves.

Good news on the book front: The new collection is in, and they look awesome! The cover on this book is the coolest lookin’ one yet….it really turned out great. I can’t wait ’til you see it.

Since the books arrived, I’ve been crack-a-lackin’ on putting drawings in 250 of them. And you know what that means: It’s time to open up orders for the limited-number Artist’s Editions!

On Monday, between 12:30 and 2:30 PM EST, we’ll be sending out the secret e-mail to Sheldon-by-Email and Newsletter subscribers, giving them the hidden store link. They’ll get first crack to grab a copy. Then, on late Tuesday, the Artist Editions be available to everyone else in the store.

Just a head’s up to American Sheldonistas: if you’re ordering books for Christmas, I wouldn’t recommend opting for Media Mail…as that can take 14 days or so. Go for Priority Mail.

In other news: the Glornak stickers will be available to ship Dec. 11th, so I’m putting them up for sale as well! Any U.S. Priority Mail orders that includes a Glornak sticker will go out then. Or, if you want to 100% ensure that your books/t-shirts/buttons are mailed out earlier than that, just place a separate order for Glornak. The separate sticker shipment will be free. Easy peasy!