Thank you for indulging me in the past few days’ stroll through Tolkien.

Every time I’ve finished Return of the King, I’ve always found mysel wondering about the royal gardener assigned to the new White Tree…just sweatin’ it out, terrified of root rot, etc, etc. So this was a fun little character arc to indulge in.

Everyone else in Gondor all happy ‘n excited that Sauron’s gone…and this one dude just FILLED with anxiety.

You may have heard me mention my love for George McManus’ great pre-War comic strip, “Bringing Up Father”. Apropos of nothing in particular, I thought I’d do an homage in his style, today.

If you’d like to see past homages, you can check out my versions of Krazy Kat, and Goodnight Moon.

This weekend, while giving a talk to the National Cartoonist Society, I had a realization onstage: My scifi comic strip DRIVE might end up being the thing I’m most proud of, career-wise. Even moreso than Sheldon or the feature film I’m making, DRIVE just generates such joy in me. I love working on it, love seeing people’s reactions to it, love seeing that universe take shape.

If you haven’t yet read it, and like Dune/Asimov/Hitchhiker’s Guide…check it out. It might be right up your alley. It’s rapidly becoming the thing I’m most proud of.

PS: At the National Cartoonist Society meeting, this weekend, Jim Davis name-checked me three times during his talk! Oh man, that qualifies as a good weekend, hearing a childhood hero say nice things about you. 🙂

Daisy Bell is, arguably, the MOST adorable song. How many other pop songs from 1892 you see people beltin’ out, still?

First, the good news: I’ve just finished the DRIVE installment for this Thursday. For those that like insider hints, let’s just say it involves a species that sounds like “Smesskans”.

Secondly: I needed to check out a date in the Drive universe, and thought I’d try the Wikipedia entry on the strip…and found it kind of a bummer. It’s missin’ a lot of stuff! So if any of you are into Wikipedia, feel free to go to town on that entry!

I’d love to see you guys flesh it out!

After writing today’s strip, I started doodling out what I wanted Arthur’s spirit-fish to look like. And again and again, I kept sketching out the same type of fish. It took me a second to realize what was happening…but I was sketching out little homage images to one of my favorite comic strips of all time: Sherman’s Lagoon, by Jim Toomey.

It’s a wonderful, sarcastic, joy-filled strip — that’s perfect for kids and adults — and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s just all kinds of wonderful. Sherman’s Lagoon, guys.

Isn’t that just like family? They pop in, stir up all sorts of doubts about your path in life, and zoom right off again. At least they didn’t steal the Machito right out from under Fernando: They seem to have a propensity for that.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Tres Primos. What’s *their* ultimate goal? What was their past that got them to the point they’re at? How did they cross paths with Fernando’s father? And what’s all this about Fernando’s father in the first place? Oh, so many delicious questions.

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Saturday’s was the final installment of the weekly double-dose-of-Drive. I really have to thank the sci fi-lovin’ folks at Star Pirates for the site sponsorship. It was immensely fun to advance the storyline over the past month. And it’s a high compliment to have a company love the strip enough that they’d want to support the site to see more.

If you enjoyed the extra Drive installments, you can thank Star Pirates by trying out their free, in-browser space MMO. In the game, you’re a Star Pirate trying to eke out a living mining asteroids, raiding other players’ ships for cargo, or teaming up for fleet-on-fleet combat! You can even play as La Familia…which I think is prit-ty rad.

For years now, you guys have been asking me to offer prints of Sheldon strips. And now, I finally can!

Just enter in the date of the comic-print you’d like, HERE, using YYMMDD format, and you’re good to go!

…Don’t know the date of the strip you want? Search for the strip, HERE, using key words or punchlines.

We’re in our last week of our double-dose-of-Drive, and I can’t thank the folks at
Star Pirates enough. I’ve been knee-deep in finishing the documentary these last few months…but have been missing Drive immensely. So to have them give me the nudge to do two Drives a week has been really fun. (As was drawing that crowd scene on Slaughter. I especially like the big fella with the knife!)*

…and I can’t wait for you guys to see the strip later in the week!

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*Edited to note: In glancing over the image again, I think they ALL have a knife.

We’re now in week 3 of the double-dose-of-Drive, and it feels right. Feels good. Feels strong.

I hope you guys are enjoying it, too!

Sponsor Shout-out: A huge “thank you” again to the folks behind Star Pirates for sponsoring this month of strips It’s been so fun to really dive back into the story. If you’re a Drive reader and haven’t yet checked out their free, browser-based space MMo — check it out!