I missed it by three days.
I was poking around the back-end of the Sheldon site, today, and noticed that we’re on Sheldon strip #2,503. That ain’t too shabby!
Seems like an awful lot of strips, looking back on them. Assuming it takes me 2.5 hours each to ideate, draw, cleanup and post, that’s 260 SOLID days of cartooning. Lordy Lord!
Anyway, what I really wanted to do, after looking at that number, was thank you guys for everything you’ve given me over the years. I doubt if I would’ve made it past a few hundred strips without your kind words via e-mail, forum posts, and in-person convention high-fives. (I’m including the low-fives, as well, just for statistical reasons.)
Every day, I get e-mails from one-to-two dozen Sheldonistas, all over the world. You send in kind words, links, funny stories, pictures, or how today’s strip reflected your mood for the day. And I have to tell you…that’s an amazing gift. The kind of gift that feeds an artist’s soul. It’s the reason why a cartoonist does what they do.
So thank you, my friends, for helping make 2,500 strips possible! Here’s to 2,500 more!
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Postscript: Quick! Someone who’s good at calendar-math: If today is #2,503, what date will we hit 3,000 at a seven-strips-a-week rate? My liberal-arts brain tried to figure it out, but came up with May 5th, 1973…and I know that ain’t right. 🙂 [Edited to note: Almost instantly by e-mail, Twitter, and posts, folks let me know it’s July 12, 2010!]
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Post-to-the-Postscript: How many of you have read through the entire archive of 2,500?