From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sheldon (webcomic)
Sheldon (webcomic)
Sheldon a pug-riding cowboy. In daily life, Arthur is often found
sitting on lampshades for no other reason than to keep
Author(s) Dave Kellett his ducky behind warm. It is known throughout the strip
Website SheldonComics.com that Arthur, for some reason, has a deep hatred for chick-
ens, and a strong desire for pancakes, Shakira, Jessica
Current status / Monday through Friday
Simpson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
schedule
The strip also features a small collection of support-
Launch date Some time in fall of 1998 [1] (Limited ing characters, the principal three which are:
link to early archives) Flaco:
Flaco Thinking he was hatching an abandoned duck
egg, Arthur became father to Flaco, a common North
Sheldon is a daily webcomic created by Dave Kellett. The American lizard. Most storylines have him playing
comedic strip centers on the odd family unit of 10-year second-fiddle to his duck "father", but in one extended
old software billionaire Sheldon, his grandfather plotline, he became a Hollywood producer for CSI. He has
guardian and his talking duck, Arthur. The strip follows also won the Pentathalon in the Olympics, earned a Mex-
a traditional newspaper format of black and white ican pilot’s license, gone to space as a cosmonaut from
Monday-Friday. Baikonur, and dated Betty White in Sao Paolo. Flaco is an-
Kellett’s other webcomic, Drive, previously appeared thropomorphic but doesn’t speak, aside from his charac-
on the Sheldon site each Saturday, but has since been teristic "squee" sound.
moved to a site of its own. Oso:
Oso is Sheldon’s pet pug, a whirlwind of energy. Oso
was given to Sheldon as a Christmas present in 2005. Oso
Characters is mostly shown running around in circles, constantly
barking (or, as it is termed in the strip, "hyping"), and
The strip centres on the unconventional family unit of
acting as "Rex Chestington’s" horse.
Sheldon, Gramp and Arthur. Much humour is character-
Dante:
Dante is one of Sheldon’s human friends, an aspiring
based, often joking at traits such as Sheldon’s geekiness,
artist. Seen extensively in the earlier days of the strip,
Gramp’s old age or Arthur’s over inflated ego.
Dante now only makes occasional appearances. Enjoys
Sheldon:
Sheldon is a ten-year-old kid who earned billions
hanging out with Sheldon and doing regular-10 year-old-
with his own software company: Sheldonsoft. Though his
kid stuff. (as much as that’s possible when your best
huge riches occasionally tempt him into buying some-
friend is one of the biggest, most successful nerds on
thing frivolous like, say, Panama, Sheldon remains pretty
the planet) The two have done everything from making
much a normal kid. A running joke in the strip is the
sandcastles to playing superheroes and villains to re-en-
boy genius often forgets about his company, preferring
acting the British battle with the Spanish Armada. In one
to concern himself with more everyday affairs. Despite
comic, it is shown that he is lactose intolerant.
his wealth and intelligence, Sheldon is generally depicted
Characters and persons from popular culture and real
as an ordinary ten-year old boy.
life also feature. Strips will occasionally feature Kellett
Gramp:
Gramp Sheldon is raised by his grandfather, Gramp, a
himself and his real-world exploits as opposed to the fic-
warm-hearted guy who’s not quite sure what to make of
tional Sheldon universe.
his grandson’s billions. Now retired, Gramp tries to keep
up with the modern world, only to find that the main
challenge of his golden years is fitting into his slacks. Overview
Gramp also struggles with a coffee addiction. Sheldon is generally a light-hearted humour comic, with
Arthur:
Arthur the Duck learned to talk when Sheldon down- much of the humour character-based. Pop-culture refer-
loaded an encyclopedia and some speech-recognition ences are frequent. The comic consists of a mixture of
software into his head and has been part of the family short story arcs and stand-alone strips which, although
unit ever since. Sarcastic and cocky, Arthur is constantly most typically are four-panel strips, vary in size and for-
getting into trouble at home and at the Sheldonsoft of- mat. The strip employs breaking of the fourth wall on oc-
fices. Unlike Sheldon, he’s captivated with the Sheldon- casion with characters speaking "to camera". A narrative
soft billions, and constantly has visions of shopping voice, delivered through captions and other text, is also
sprees at The Sharper Image. Some of Arthur’s alter-egos frequent.
include "The Duck", a superhero, and "Rex Chestington",
1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sheldon (webcomic)
Books / Book reviews which ran in the University of Notre Dame’s student
newspaper The Observer from 1993 to 1996. Kellett later
• Still Got It: The Seventh Sheldon Collection ISBN gave Sheldon his own strip in 1998 as a webcomic, which
978-0-9655060-9-0 ran on djk3.ac.uk first, then davekellett.com, and then
• Living Dangerously With Saturated Fats: The Sixth moved to the Keenspot-hosted sheldoncomics.com in
Sheldon Collection ISBN 978-0-9655060-8-3 2000. In 2001, United Features Syndicate picked the strip
• Nerds On Parade: The Fifth Sheldon Collection ISBN up for online syndication and the strip moved to
978-0-9655060-7-6 comics.com on December 17, 2001. Since this move
• Pugs: God’s Little Weirdos ISBN 978-0-9655060-6-9 meant having all-new readers, the strip was retconned
• A Blizzard of Lizards: The Fourth Sheldon Collection ISBN with revised versions of Keenspot comics.
978-0-9655060-5-2 The strip originally ran Monday through Friday. After
• 62% More Awesome: The Third Sheldon Collection the move from Keenspot to comics.com, the strip ran
• The Good, The Bad & The Pugly: The Second Sheldon Monday to Saturday, until late 2004, when a Sunday fea-
Collection ISBN 978-0-9655060-3-8 ture was added.
• Pure Ducky Goodness: The First Sheldon Collection ISBN On June 22, 2005, Sheldon also joined Blank Label
0-9655060-1-0 Comics, an online co-op of nine cartoonists.
• A Well Balanced Meal: The Very Best of: Four Food Groups On November 6, 2006, Kellett moved the strip from
of the Apocalypse ISBN 0-9655060-0-2 comics.com to the independently hosted sheldon-
Book Reviews comics.com where it ran seven days a week. According to
• Syracuse Post-Standard blog entry from Nov. 11, 2006, the new site logged 2.5 mil-
• Syracuse Post-Standard lion pageviews in the first five days of operation.
• Notre Dame Magazine On November 1, 2007, Kellett left Blank Label Comics
• Fleen.com and joined with Scott Kurtz of PvP, Kris Straub of Starslip
• Websnark.com Crisis, and Brad Guigar of Evil Inc. to form a new web-
comics collective, Halfpixel.com.
Media appearances In 2009 Kellett started a new, sci-fi motivated comic
titled ’Drive’ (updated on Thursdays) and since appropri-
• London Daily Telegraph ately the same time reduced the update schedule of Shel-
• Houston Chronicle don to five comics a week, Monday through Friday.
• Wizard
• Fleen, part 1, part 2, and part 3.
• The Costco Connection References
• UCSD Guardian [1] Blog post: Followup: When did Sheldon go online?
• Andertoons.com
• Phi Kappa Phi Forum
TV Appearances
External links
• CBS’ "How I Met Your Mother" • Official Sheldon site
• Creator’s website
Strip History • Sheldon forum
The character Sheldon first appeared in a minor role in
Kellett’s comic strip Four Food Groups of the Apocalypse,
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_(webcomic)"
Categories: 1990s webcomics, 2000s webcomics
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