I really enjoyed the “Anatomy” strips, a while back, so this week we’ll have five new ones to add to the mix.

As you may remember: My eventual goal is to bring them all together for a fun little book. So I’ll do a week here, give it a few months, do another week…and I think by Spring we’ll be good to go.

RELATED: Still working on a title. I hate naming books…

“Know Your Animals”
“Animals: Revealed”
“Anatomy of Animals”
“(Real) Anatomy of (Fake) Animals”
“Graze Anatomy”
“Animals 101”
“Modern Animals”

…BUHHHHHHHHHHH

Over the weekend, I was signing in Las Vegas, and I happened to sketch this little guy: DANNY ZINGO…SHAKESPEARE’S LITERARY AGENT.

It cracked me up. So throughout the rest of the roadtrip, my friend (and Stripped co-director) Fred Schroeder and I pitched on all sorts of notes and angles and stupid career suggestions that Zingo would have for Shakespeare. And it turned into a week of strips.

So with huge thanks to Fred for co-writing this week of strips, I hope you enjoy Danny Zingo.

ZIIIIINGO!

Dylan Meconis’ TALES OF THE DRIVE story, “Your Distant Homeland,” has completed, and I couldn’t be happier that that was our first guest story. It’s such a note-perfect story for Nosh, and fills in the background of his heart so lovingly. I really love it.

Each time a story ends, I’ll be moving around the archives so that the story can be read without interruption. So Dylan’s story now begins HERE.

——–

As you know, with all the TALES OF THE DRIVE artists, I’ve specifically told them I don’t want to give them notes, edit them, nitpick them, or tell them what they need to write. My philosophy is: Pick people who create incredible work, and trust them to do wonderful things in the DRIVE universe. And it’s worked so wonderfully here: Dylan created a delightful story — one that I never, ever would’ve written — and yet one that fits better than anything I ever could have written. I’m so pleased our first TALES OF THE DRIVE story came from her.

If you’re of a kind heart to do so, drop her a line on Twitter and let her know what you thought of the story:

TWITTER: @dmeconis

Or drop her a line on her “Contact” form: http://www.dylanmeconis.com/contact/

ALSO: Check out her work!

– Family Man

– Outfoxed (Eisner-nominated short story)

– Bite Me!

And on Monday: Christopher Hastings’ story “Cute Things” begins!

I’m super excited to announce another artist in our “Tales of the Drive” series: Eisner-winning artist Ryan North (Squirrel Girl, Dinosaur Comics, Adventure Time) will be writing the story of how the Veetans beat the Tesskans in a story he calls:

THAT TIME THE VEETANS DEFEATED THE TESSKANS FOREVER

It’s going to be so awesome. I’m excited.

In the meantime, make sure you check our Ryan’s current work:

– Squirrel Girl (here it is on Amazon)
– Dinosaur Comics
– Follow him on The Twitters

Now, when you support Sheldon on Patreon, you get TWO free e-books: “Coffee: It’s What’s For Dinner,” and, for the first-and-only-time as an e-book, “Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos”!

It’s my way of thanking you for directly supporting art you love.

WANT TO BE A PATRON OF THE ARTS, AND GET FREE E-BOOKS? Head on over to Patreon, and pledge a buck a month! [ https://www.patreon.com/sheldoncomics?ty=h ]

I really wanna bring back the free-to-listen-to DRIVE podcast, answering readers’ questions that they’ve left on our voicemail — about the strip, the characters, the story, or anything DRIVE-related!

We’re less than $250 away from that goal on Patreon, so we’re going to record our first “test” episode: And we need your questions!

Call 1(650) 550-VINN — free VOIP calls are fine by us — and leave any question you’d like about DRIVE.

Thanks!

(And if you waant to help the podcast get here faster? Become a DRIVE “Patron of the Arts” here, for a buck or two a month on Patreon!)

For fun, thought I’d share the timeline of the story so far!

I think I got everything… but if there are any dates mentioned/implied in the strip that I’ve left out, do let me know!

—-

1870 First Veetan ships begin venturing into space
1980 Renegade pre-Maker’s ship has catastrophic accident and begins drifting through space
2081 Veetan ship comes into contact with a Continuum ship. No conflict noted.
2258 Conrado finds the Continuum ship in Spain
2273 First human contact with Veetans. Establishment of the Veetan/Human alliance.
2289 Emperor Pablo (“the Great”) dies
2290 Emperor Osvaldo begins his reign. Jinyiwei established. Nuevo Chile banned from the Empire.
2291 First human contact with Tesskans/Fillipods. There are skirmishes in and around Tesskil, but it mostly ends there for the Empire… as it will take Tesskans 80 years to get to Earth.
2331 First human contact with The Vinn
2332-2334 Human-Vinn War. Ends in unstated armistice, with the introduction of the Daisy Cutter weapon into the war.
2350 “The Rebellion” begins in Las Hermanitas (the three outer colonies)
2365 The Tres Primos begin their campaign against the Empire
2379 The first Tesskan near-light-drive ships begin entering human space
2380-2383 Human-Tesskan War. Ends one week after the Veetans entered the war.
2384 First Imperial contact with the Continuum
2384 Machito re-christened as a military scout ship
2386 Taneel takes command of the huge battle cruiser Sevillana. She is promoted from Captain to Ship-of-the-line Captain (capitán de navío)
2392-2398 Nosh stuck in Moscow
2398-9 Nosh joins Captain Taneel’s crew
2400 Fernando joins Captain Taneel’s crew
2401 Emperor Manuel Jose Cruz murdered. Nosh taken into custody. Captain Taneel relieved of command of Sevillana. Skitter wakes up in prison.

The drivecomic.com site just had a minor refresh of links/navigation: If you notice anything broken as you click around, please let me know! Thanks!

I wanted to take a second to thank the 344 readers who have supported Sheldon on Patreon.

Your financial support has already allowed me to take 3 of the existing 4 advertising slots off the site — which is great. Plus, you’re directly supporting art you enjoy, which is a wonderful and kind thing to do. So thank you, one and all!

And if you’ve enjoyed Sheldon over the years, please consider becoming a patron of the arts, and support the strip HERE!

Here’s the video to explain Patreon:

I just wanted to thank the 622 DRIVE readers who have supported the story over at Patreon. Your financial support of art you enjoy has allowed us to take all advertising off the site, to start the “Tales of the Drive” stories, and most importantly, allowed me to devote a ton more energy and time to the strip.

So thank you! You are awesome!

And if you’re a fan of the story, as well, and would like to support the strip at $0.25 or $0.50 — that little bit goes a long way, when combined with other readers!

(https://www.patreon.com/drive)