Ladies and gentlemen: it is here, finally!

The O-fficial, 2007 San Diego ComicCon Report!

Click the first thumbnail and follow along with the notes!

[EDIT: You’ll also notice, once on the photo album page, that I’ve added links to pics from other Sheldon events….like New York Comic-Con, gallery openings ‘n book parties, and more. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be adding pics to this new, centralized Sheldon photo album….so check back for more stuff.

Also! I want to add photo albums for your Sheldon Fan Art and for past Sheldon TV appearances. So if you have fan-art pics that you’d like to submit (or submitted previously, but have wisely concluded that I’ve misplaced), send them in! Thanks!]

If you’re heading out to the movies this weekend, allow me to humbly suggest one to put on your consideration list: The King of Kong. It is, perhaps, the funniest movie I have seen in five or six years.

I should back up and explain how I heard about this movie. A friend of mine, Joe Manganiello, and I have an not-unusual habit whenever we’re in a play together: backstage, we’re constantly trading movie quotables back and forth. We treat them like an 18th-Century French-Canadian furrier treats beaver pelts…as things of immense value, to be cherished and admired.

Well, last week, as we were wrapping up the run of a breast-cancer benefit play in Hollywood (which I completely forgot to blog about….hey-o, Mr. Forgetful!), Joe started throwing out lines from “King of Kong”. And these quotes were hilarious — BRILLIANTLY hilarious. They were…they were like rare diamonds from the De Beers family vault that no one’s seen in 85 years. That good. And the quotes alone sold it: I wanted to see this movie like few in recent memory.

And, having just come from the film, I can tell you that it does not disappoint. It is, in almost every sense, a perfectly crafted humor documentary. But it’s not just straight humor: it has heart and soul and story and character arcs that read like a Christopher Guest/Ken Burns joint project.

The first 15 minutes are worth the price of admission alone. I laughed out loud at almost every line.

So do yourself a favor: treat yourself to a little King of Kong, which is playing in most independent and arthouse theaters around the country. And take friends that like to laugh — it’ll be infinitely more fun.

As my humble ‘thank you’ to all the Sheldonistas who have been supporting the strip over at the Sheldon Store, I wanted to give a small gift back.

It’s a downloadable wallpaper image for your monitor. Appropriate for the waning days of summer, it looks like this:

I’ve sized it at 1920 pixels wide, so that should give you a good starting point to resize or recrop it to fit your particular monitor. Feel free to download the compressed file, here, and tinker with the image as you see fit! (…And if you’re a Sheldonista that feels like sharin’ your resized wallpapers on the forum, that would be awesome, too!)

Thanks again for all your kind support of the strip. You guys are rad.

As a Notre Dame alum, I took great joy in seeing Michigan lose to 1-AA Appalachian State this past weekend. (Of course, I took less joy in seeing ND lose to Georgia Tech…so let’s keep the focus on Michigan.)

My first question was: who booked this game for Michigan? Am I ign’ant in thinking that no good can come of a highly ranked Michigan playing a 1-AA team? I mean, if you win, no one cares. And if you win, but only by a close margin, everyone hoots and hollers. And if you lose, Lord above. People go nuts with the abuse.

My favorite part of the entire episode? My friend Dave Scales forwarded me this little YouTube gem from Appalachian State University…along with this explanation for the ASU team name, The Yosefs:

“Yosef is the mascot for Appalachian State. The origin of the name Yosef comes from mountain talk for “yourself”, the idea being that if you are a fan, friend or alumnus and have a heart of black and gold, you are Yosef.”

Rad.

In a separate-but-related note: in light of ND’s loss to Georgia Tech, you’ve just been spared a season of blog posts from me about how the Irish are doing this year. Which is probably a good thing, considering how many friends I have that went to USC and UCLA. 🙂

Remember how we recently finished transcribing all 1,955 Sheldon strips? …and how they’re all searchable now, using the archive search feature?

Well, Sheldonista Jennifer R. just pointed out the COOLEST POSSIBLE SEARCH YOU CAN DO with the new feature.

(…and, of course, Jennifer’s search led me to one of my favorite strips ever.)

For those followin’ along — and for those folks who’d like to jump in — I’ll post the previous installments of our Saturday-Only Storyline below. Open all the numbers in new tabs in your browser, and you can read the story like 1-2-3.

I’d like to thank everyone who has written in with kind words about these little side stories. It’s fun to step out of the normal routine and write different kinds of tales…and I’m glad to hear you’ve been enjoying them as well.

(Interestingly enough, this current storyline has made me want to write a 20-to-30-page children’s book with just Flaco and Arthur…but we’ll see…we’ll see…)

In any case, here are the previous installments: 1 , 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Sheldonista Dan M. sent this to me a while back, and I’ve been meaning to share it with you…

1.) Is it possible to truly rock out to 1930’s Bluegrass music? If it is possible, then I HAVE DONE SUCH A THING THIS MORNING.

2.) Yesterday, whilst on one of Los Angeles’ many fine freeways, I had the unique experience of being surrounded by four full-size tractor-trailers while driving 65 mph. One in front of me, one behind me, and one on either side. It felt like I was driving in my own little cave. It also kinda felt like I was gonna die at any moment, but let’s focus on the positive aspects.

3.) I’ve already received a half-dozen e-mails from folks bummed they missed the Artist Editions of 62% More Awesome, but so far only one Sheldonista has started a public appeal for one. If you can help her out, awesome!

[Edit: A few of your e-mails today make me realize I need to clarify: “62% More Awesome” is not sold out..only the limited-number Artist Editions. Copies of “62% More Awesome” are still available in the store. My apologies if I added to the confusion, there.]

Yesterday, Sheldonista Harold B. picked up the last of the 62 More Awesome Artist Editions.

My apologies to all those who didn’t get an Artist Edition before they sold out. I’m never sure how quick these things will go…but I always seem to get an e-mail or two the day after they’re gone, saying, “Awwww dang it, I wanted one.”

For those folks, I should mention that there are still copies of the “Pure Ducky Goodness” Artist Editions available. You can either pick them up by themselves, or in a 3-Pack that includes signed copies of “62%” and “Pugly”.

And, in case I don’t say it enough: THANK YOU to everyone who bought a copy. You make it possible for this li’l artist to keep on cartoonin’ for a living.

In webcomics, there is no middle-man, no big corporate face from which Sheldon bursts forth. It’s just me…and you…and the interweb. So please know that your support makes it possible for new strips to keep on comin’. And that makes you pretty darn rad, in my book.

Thanks for bein’ rad.

I goofed.

I thought I was bein’ all clever with my reference to the Spanish Flu Pandemic from the early-20th century…and then I go and call it the “1911 Spanish Flu”.

As dozens of historians have reminded me by e-mail, it actually reached it’s height in 1918.

And thus, I once again learn that cartooning is the art of making 50,000 people laugh and enjoy themselves…and making 50 people kick into OCD-mode over their particular area of specialization.

🙂