Sheldonista Kathy M. just e-mailed me with a reminder: Since it’s Fall, that means it’s the Sheldon anniversary: 12 years of the strip online!

Neat!

Attention, Pasadena! This Friday night I’m a guest at the big ol’ Pasadena Art Night, which takes place in all the big cultural building around the city.

The young David Malki and I will both be signin’, sketchin’, sellin’, and sayin’ “hi” to readers…from 6-10PM in the cool 1920’s room in the Central Library. Come on out! Bring the kids! Bring the cat!*

*Provided the cat likes cultural events, and gettin’ cool, free sketches from cartoonists.

Hot buttered ham! All this week, save $15 on the Sheldon 3-pack of books!

The 3-pack combines books 1, 2, and 3 — three books that would otherwise cost you $45 –and this week it’s just $30 for all of ’em. Plus there’s even a cheap, bundled shippin’ fee for gettin’ them all at once, so you’re saving there, too.

Another way of looking at it: That’s 408 pages of Sheldony goodness for just 30 smackers!

Along with today’s installment of DRIVE, I thought I’d give you an update on the new website for the comic.

The site’s design is all done, as are all the assets…and now it’s just a matter of applying all the coding (for archive navigation, etc., etc.) and configuring all the backend stuff. This part of the process is always sorta Murphy’s Law, but we’re gettin’ super close. No guarantees, but I think it’s just a few weeks away. 

…I’m excited for you guys to start usin’ it: Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

I just found this pic on my hard drive from a year or so ago, and laughed at it again. Forgive me for not remembering the (pictured) Sheldon reader who submitted it, but it’s probably the best use of this Sheldon shirt I’ve ever seen.

As a side note: We should have a contest at some point for the funniest/best use of a Sheldon shirt in a photo. You guys would probably be awesome in a contest like that. The intensity is what cracks me up: Totally sells the moment.

After reading Friday’s strip about “English Fops on the Moon”, Sheldonista James C. sent in news of this awesomely ridiculous movie from 1964: First Men on the Moon, about a moon mission from Queen Victoria’s England.

I love it.

Nebraska, know that today’s strip is done with love. And I don’t just say that to avoid the inevitable deluge of pro-husking e-mails. I say it because it’s true.

All of us, no matter the background, no matter the region, have a *cough* less-than-stellar *cough* team name in our life.

My High School mascot, for example? The “Dons”.

C’mon.

How weak-sauce is that? Basically, we were named for wealthy Spanish landowners of significance. Kind of a tough name to get pumped about: “Go, pseudo-royal-blooded-landowners, go!”

So let’s hear it: Who’s had the worst team name out there? (And University of California Santa Barbara Banana Slugs…you don’t count: You choose that name willingly.)

EDITED TO NOTE: Thanks to the kind, gentle, timid e-mails of 10,000 UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz alums, I am kindly, gently, timidly reminded that it is UCSC, not UCSB, with the “Banana Slugs” mascot.

You would think that I, having graduated from UCSD, would know that…. but alas, I am at long last revealed to be a moron. 🙂

1.) Sheldonista Jessica sent in this pic, saying “Another satisfied ninja sporting his awesome birthday shirt.” I love it, Jessica!

2.) There was a very kind write-up of DRIVE in the Syracuse Post-Standard (or, on the newspaper’s website, anyway). A doff of the cap to Jeff Kapalka for the kind article!

3.) My travel schedule, over the next 6-7 weeks, has me going to Columbus, Ohio to speak at Ohio State’s big Festival of Cartoon Art… to Savannah, to lecture and teach at SCAD’s excellent sequential art department… and to Easthampton, MA to take part in the New England Webcomics Weekend.

Because of a big film project that I’m working on (more on that, later), I don’t know how much time I’ll have for reader meet-ups and socializin’ in Columbus and Savannah, which bums me out. But I’d hate to travel all that way and not see you guys…so I’ll try to work something out as things get closer. In Savannah, at the very least, we should be able to organize a night-time meetup. Ohio might be trickier.

When I showed off her Sheldon collection a few blog posts ago, I thought Stacey was the clear winner…hands down. But Sheldon reader Melissa A. just e-mailed me with a pic of her own Sheldon collection, and daaaaang:

For those playing along at home, I see:
– All 7 Sheldon collections
– The Drive book
– The Pugs and Literature collections
– How To Make Webcomics
– My college collection, “A Well Balanced Meal” (It’s rare: There were only like 2-3,000 of those ever made…like 15 years ago.)
– A Sheldon Sunday-sized original art
– A Sheldon daily-sized original art
– A poster
– A “Lucky Duck” t-shirt
– Sheldon buttons
– Aaaand a personalized sketch, it looks like! probably from a convention, I’d imagine.

Lordy Lord, Melissa! Lordy Lord!

Got this got note from Sheldonista Stacey M., and was kinda floored by her accompanying photo:

Hi Dave —

Wanted to send a ‘thank you’…my Artist’s Editions of “Literature” and “Drive” arrived today to much excitement [I may or may not have been compulsively refreshing the shipping status page once I saw it had shipped]. You should have heard the “squee!” when I saw I had number 2 of “Literature”…thank you!!

With these two latest, I now have all 11 of your books in my collection [plus two originals and two sketches you did for me [way-back-when at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco]. I’ve attached a picture I took for myself and for insurance purposes…my Kellett Collection, all in one place.

Thanks, Stacey! This is pretty dang cool!