In the process of making Stripped, we wanted to create a faux 1950’s instructional video to explain how the business of comics worked in newspapers. That, of course, required some period-appropriate illustrations. So I tried to mimic the famous (and sometimes famously bad) UPA style.
Anyway…I had so much fun drawing that way, that I thought we’d take a little diversionary stroll this week in Sheldon. It’s a super freeing style to draw in: It’s actually taught me a few things, just in trying it out.
1.)
DRIVE will be starting back up again in early September
2.) I have a plan to get rid of the schedule interruptions for DRIVE: Patreon.
As you know, DRIVE continually takes in on the chin, schedule-wise. I love this story so much — it’s my favorite among all my projects — but it’s not really income-earning. So, in the real world of making a living, it takes a back seat to Sheldon and Stripped. But with Patreon, you could genuinely become a patron of the strip. It’s a win-win: I’ll be able to block out the time the strip deserves, and you’ll be getting more and better updates as a result. More details on that in the weeks ahead when I launch the Patreon page: I’ve gotta record the ol’ Patreon video, first!
3.) For the FIRST TIME EVER, I’m coming to Salt Lake City, giving out free sketches at the huge new Comic Con, Sept 4-6! I’ll of course be bringing all the Drive books, Sheldon books, and the Stripped DVDs and posters. But what I’m really bringing? …Is friendship.
I know there’s a lot of Drive readers in and around SLC, so I really really want to ask you to come out! This would be a fun show to come back to year after year, and you can make that happen! Vote with your feet and come say hi! (To sweeten the pot, there’s a FREE SCREENING of my film Stripped for all SLCC attendees, on Saturday at noon.)
For the FIRST TIME EVER, I’m coming to Salt Lake City, giving out free sketches at the huge new Comic Con, Sept 4-6! I’ll of course be bringing all the Sheldon and Drive books/posters, as well as the Stripped DVDs and posters. But what I’m really bringing? …Is friendship.
I know there’s a lot of Sheldon readers in and around SLC, so I really really want to ask you to come out! This would be a fun show to come back to year after year, and you can make that happen! Vote with your feet and come say hi!
To sweeten the pot, there’s a FREE SCREENING of my film Stripped for all SLCC attendees, on Saturday at noon.
Oh! And if you ever had your eye on a Sheldon original, e-mail me the date/description, and I’ll bring it along! I always knock $25 off originals at shows.
The DVD features the full-length documentary (Voted “Best Documentary” at Comic-Con…just sayin’), the full Directors’ Commentary, and a bonus, 83-minute interview with Jim Davis of Garfield. Look, I’m not great on math, but I’m pretty sure that adds up to over a BILLION HOURS of content. Pretty sweet deal!
I thought it’d be fun to show you the elements that make up a Sheldon strip. In Photoshop parlance, these are called “layers”. Here, they’re arrayed on the same page so that you can compare them. In actuality, these are overlaid on one another like transparent animation cells.
The keen-eyed among us may have thought that the “drive” in DRIVE appears similar to an Alcubierre Drive. I say similar because the physics of how the drive in DRIVE works is different in a few key ways. I’d say more, but it might reveal some…story stuff…too soon.
In any case! NASA Advanced Propulsion Lead, Dr. Harold White, proposed an updated version of an Alcubierre Drive at the SpaceVision 2013 conference. It’s a great watch, in and of itself, but I thought you guys might be interested to see the theoretical ship designs proposed around the 40-minute and 42-minute mark. Hmmm. HMMMMMM.
We’ve only gotten hints of the relationship between the Captain and Nosh throughout the strip — but the fact that Nosh feels he owes her multiple “life debts” goes back to the first five or ten strips in the story.
…I’d be curious to see what else folks have ferreted out about that relationship, using only hints from various chronologies or random phrases that have sprinkled their way across the story.
As a series of books, DUNE is almost unrivaled, in my mind. I’ve re-read the series multiple times over my life…and the scope of the story directly inspired my scifi strip, DRIVE.
