An interesting note from Sheldon reader Doug regarding “dead as a doornail”:

Want to know what that phrase means? Ask your friendly neighborhood blacksmith. I’ve been doing living history for years at a reconstructed 1820s military fort. The doors to my quarters are made from thick planks held together by cross and diagonal planks. These are secured by large square handmade nails. Doornails to be exact. The article is correct concerning the way the nails are bent. They are then actually driven back into the surface of the door (buried) so that nothing remains to catch clothing, fingers, etc. Thus the nail was referred to as dead. Until the late 1800s nail were all handmade by blacksmiths, one at a time. So it wasn’t unusual for old nails to be salvaged, heated, straightened, and used again. But the technique used to set doornails rendered them both immobile and forever after unusable. This information was all imparted to me by our blacksmith one day while I was watching him make nails. Ain’t history cool!

Thanks, Doug — that is pretty neat.

Also, thanks to the 58 people who e-mailed me to let me know that my *snif* long-cherished origin story for “saved by the bell” was *snif* incorrect. It’s NOT connected to the Black Plague.

“Learning! It’s not just for students anymore!”™

Growing up, my folks always encouraged us to learn by looking up any word or phrase we didn’t understand. There was always a nearby dictionary, bible, and encyclopedia at the Kellett house, ready to solve arguments over word usage or phraseology. As I’ve aged, that’s an impulse that’s served me well. But it’s transmuted into a weird interest in word and phrase origins.

Today’s use of “dead as a doornail” got me wondering how old that phrase is. Turns out, it’s from the 14th Century! If you’re interested, here’s a good description exploring the possible origins of the phrase.

(Want another good one? Look up the origin of the phrase “saved by the bell” from the Black Plague days. That’ll leave you terrified for a while.)

You probably know by now that the original art for each day’s comic can be purchased using the blue “Buy Today’s Original Art” button under the strip. And I’m sure you already know about the Sheldon Store where you can pick up book collections. But today I’m trying something I haven’t done before: putting an original piece of art up on eBay…

You can check it out HERE. It’s one of the best drawings I’ve ever had with these three, and that’s no joke. It looked good in the “Pugly” book, on page 100…but the original artwork looks awesome on 12″ paper. I’m starting the bidding at $0.01, because I’d rather leave it up to you to decide what it’s worth. But if you’re a fan of these three — and a lot of you are — check it out and drop in a bid.

You may want to read this two-week story arc from a year back, where Sheldon and Arthur go to the “Lame Sci-Fi Characters & Sidekicks Convention”.

It’s all the Sleestaks, Ewoks, Tom Bombadil, and original Cylons you could ever ask for…all standing side-by-side.

This is my favorite one from that storyline, I think.

For those attending, here’s a quick map showing the location of the Blank Label Comics booth, #306.

Overall directions to the Qwest Field Event Center can be found here.

I am really excited to be travelling up to Seattle this weekend for Emerald City Comic-Con.

I’ve already had a dozen or so folks drop me a line to say they’re coming out specifically to say hi, which is great. Were you among them? If so, we are now bestest of friends.

This convention looks like it’s going to be pretty awesome. Webcomics in the house include Sheldon, PvP, Penny Arcade, Starslip, Schlock Mercenary, Real Life, Unshelved and Evil Inc.

I’ll be in booth #306 with the Blank Label Comics guys…signing stuff, selling books and originals, and generally being Mr. Funtime Goodlaughs. [Important note, though: I’ll only be there Saturday, so make sure you come out then.]

To offer extra enticement, Sheldon original comic strips will be on sale for $25 off. So if you were thinking about getting one — now’s you’re chance. (Have a specific one you want? I’d strongly recommend you e-mail me to make sure I bring that one with me.)

See you at Emerald City Comic-Con!

For those following along, here are the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 previous installments of our Saturday-only storyline.

…the three-month point!

I didn’t expect it to stretch out this long, but I’m havin’ fun with it.

Usually, when reporters write about webcomics, it comes off as “Bang! Zoom! Comics on the Web?!?” Coming from the print world, they have no clue how people are making a living online.

But Time magazine actually wrote a fairly insightful article on the future of comic strips. Check it out

.

Growing up, my pop was a fantastic handyman around the house. Sure, he was a brilliant surgeon and doctor, but that never kept him from the get-yer-hands-dirty kind of work. He’d hang drywall, or build fences, or swap out water heaters, or change tires, or re-roof a house…or any honest bit of work he could get his hands on. And I always loved and admired him for that.

But the amazing thing was that, for a brilliant guy, his toolbox — heck, his whole dang garage — was a mess. You could never find anything in there. And as an anal-retentive kid, it drove me nuts. “Dad,” I’d ask, “do we have a wood chisel I can use?”

“Oh yeah, I have a whole set of chisels. They’re out in the garage.”

Which, of course was a futile statement. You could look, if you chose, but those chisels were lost to the world…by the mere fact that they were in that garage. Archaelogists, way in the future, would find them with delight underneath six boxes of National Geographics, various unused gate hinges, and some Christmas decorations.

Growing up, I always told myself that my garage would be different. My garage would have those hole-peg thingies where all the tools had little white outlines. My garage would let you find the right socket wrench at a glance.

But somewhere along the way, my plans didn’t work out.

Yesterday, as I was building a deck, I realized that my tools had jumbled together. They had taken on the appearance of installation art: stacked in a way to represent man’s inhumanity to man…I guess? It was a beautiful artistic expression, but it was also an absolute mess, and I couldn’t find a dang thing.

Took me thirty minutes to even find my wood chisels.

And that’s when I realized it: the Harry Chapin song “Cats in the Cradle” had come true: my garage had become my father’s garage. My stack of tools had become my dad’s.

And an even bigger realization hit me: I am gonna drive my sons absolutely nuts.

…And I got the biggest, dopiest grin on my face at that. I can’t wait to tell them to go look in the garage. The torch shall be passed, pop!

As I’m toonin’ in the studio today, I get a call from my buddies Bill and Gene over at Unshelved.

After pleasantries were exchanged, they threw down the gauntlet: Would I, they wanted to know, be cartoonist enough to accept a challenge? A week of competition between our two strips, where we’d both have to write six days of material on some everyday, innocuous, uninspiring subject matter? Say…plastic coffee cup lids?

They — confident, bestrident, mocking in their tone — assumed I would not answer the call. But I said to them what I say to you now:

Cry havoc, and unleash the dogs of war!

(Be there! April 2nd! Two strips enter! One strip leaves! Hopefully mine! But maybe not! It’s possible this could prove to be a bad decision on my part!)