Month: September 2008

After having fun with the tagline contest (…that winner will be announced on Wednesday!), we’re jumping right in to our first-ever Caption Contest! Just fill in Arthur’s voice bubble with the knock-down funniest punchline you can think of — and you’ll win a shirt, a book, and some original art!

Here’s how it’ll go down…..

Thems the Rules:

– Everyone gets only three entries. So! I’d recommend not going-to-town and posting all three right away. Maybe take an hour, a day, a few days…and let it stew in your noggin’. You’d be surprised how jokes can transmogrify when you give them time to percolate.

– Entries have to be posted below. My poor inbox already gets clobbered, so please don’t e-mail them to me. Plus, sharing your ideas publicly is half the fun. It’s cool to see what other people come up with. (And to see who beat you to the punch!)

– Keep it clean! It’s a family-friendly comic!

– Remember that brevity is very often the soul of wit: Not only does the joke *have* to fit in Arthur’s voice bubble…I can tell you from experience that the shorter joke is often the better option.

– Have fun with it!

– But seriously: Only three entries per person. 🙂

Thems the Winnin’s:

– You have until October 10th to get your caption(s) posted.

– After that, I’ll pick my 10-15 favorites, post them in the forum for your feedback/comments, and then I’ll pick the final winner a few days later.

– The winner will get a free Sheldon book and shirt of their choice…along with the original art from the contest WITH their caption written in! Blam-o!

Just a public shout-out to my friends at Google: I just used Google Transit for the first time, to figure out how to get from the Baltimore airport to my hotel, tomorrow, using public transportation…and it was super slick.

Nice work, Google-folk — they may be takin’ away your super-subsidized daycare, but they ain’t takin’ away your creativity!

Baltimorians! Baltimorites! Baltimoroccans! People who live in Baltimore…!

This Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be at Baltimore Comic-Con along with my fellow Halfpixel cartoonists Brad, Scott and Kris.

I’ll be giving out the Super-Limited Commemorative Baltimore High-Fives that we special-ordered, along with everything you see here:

Two special things to note:

1.) If you were hoping to buy a Sheldon Original Art at the special convention price of $25-off, PLEASE E-MAIL ME with the specific one you want, to make sure I bring that one along.

2.) Also! We have 15 of the Artist Decision Tree posters left over from San Diego Comic-Con…so I’ll be bringing those along as well. Snag yours early!

Mere DAYS after we started our tagline contest, we’re now ready to proceed to the Finalist Round. I’ve narrowed down our 300+ entries to 15 Finalists. But before I pick the winner and send them their Sheldon Original Art, I wanted to put it up for public comment and see which one(s) you guys were leaning towards. So cast your vote, below! And a huge thank you to all who participated. I hope you had fun coming up with taglines!

(And if you want to re-read ALL of the entries, you can go here.)

1.) The Manatee Shirts will be shipping out on Tuesday/Wednesday. Huzzah! All orders which had contained a Manatee shirt will be going out then.

2.) Due to some shortages on American Apparel’s larges and mediums, we had to change the color of the shirt from “Heather Black” to “Black”. Here’s the revised color:

…If anyone had purchased the shirt specifically for the Heather Black look, and would like to change/cancel your order let me know. We’ll happily fix what needs fixin’! 🙂

3.) Because we switched to true-Black as a color, I’m happy to say we can now also offer 3XLs! So, for everyone who had asked for a larger size, here you go!

For you PvP fans out there, I wanted to share an image of Scott’s new resin-cast of Scratch Fury:

It’s available now over at the PvP Store!

ON A RELATED NOTE: I totally want to do one of these of Arthur or Flaco…or maybe Flaco/Arthur/Oso in cowboy mode. But the trick for me is getting the characters *juuuuust right* in full 3-D. If a Sheldonista out there is really good at 3-D renders, drop me a line!

This is the kind of ridiculous pseudo-story that’s fun to link to…if for no other reason than to talk about good name-construction. Specifically, what I’ll call the Cryptozoological Name-Construction System.

Basically, it breaks down like this: (Semi-Remote Nation or Region) + (Seemingly Harmless Animal) + (The Word “Fanged” or “Blood” or “Man-Killer” or “Deathmonger”).

Feel free to try it at home:

– “The North-Bolivian Fanged Rabbit”

– “The Lithuanian Blood Parrot”

– “The Nova Scotian Deathmonger Goose”

– “The Welsh Hooked-Claw Badger”

…feel free to submit your own, below! But be forewarned: You’ll be hard-pressed to beat “The Lithuanian Blood Parrot”. I’m proud of that one.

I’m behind on putting the photos up from the Pugs Book-Launch Party, but I wanted to take a sec to thank all those who came out and showed their support: Thanks to you, we ended up giving $150 to SPCA Los Angeles, which was great!

Dipping into the inbox for a minute, I thought I’d share two pics with you:

Sheldonista Erika C. sent in this awesome pic of her pug Boris as Darth Vader. I love the look on Boris’ face: I genuinely can’t tell if he’s acting tough for the role, or if it’s just that he can’t imagine a worse indignity than wearing this costume. Probably a little from Column A and a little from Column B. 🙂

Sheldonista Ryan P. sent in some pics of the recent framing of his Sheldon Original Art:

I thought I’d share this one with you since the double-matted black-and-white look is a particularly nice look around a cartoon. So for all of you who have a Sheldon Original but haven’t yet framed it up — it’s a good look to keep in mind.

Thanks, as always, for all the pics you guys send in!

I am so excited to announce this: The Savannah College of Art & Design has invited my buddy Scott Kurtz and I down for an awesome engagement. On Monday, October 13th, we’ll be visiting various art classes to give spot lectures, critiques, and some hands-on instruction on the creation of sequential art and comics.

Then, on Tuesday, October 14th at 8 PM, we’ll be giving a free public talk at SCAD’s 1,100-seat Trustees Theater on the art and business of Webcomics (…and more broadly, how all visual artists can build their career online).

Seriously: You have got to look at this theater…..

…What an amazing venue! And Scotty and I are pretty fun public speakers, so it should make for a good night all around.

After the talk, we’ll of course be signing and sketching in copies of “How to Make Webcomics”, as well as PvP books and Sheldon books.

Come on out if you’re within drivin’ distance — I almost never get to go to the South, so I hope a lot of Southern Sheldonistas will come out and say “hi”!

(Scott put together that fantastic promo poster, featuring Savannah’s Forsythe Park Fountain. Check out a full-shot of his fantastic background drawing.)