I wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention that voting for the 2010 Eisner Awards is now open. Specifically I wanted to let you know because one of my best buds is up for an award this year and I find him to be very deserving. So I wanted to pass this on to my readership, and ask that those of you eligible to vote please do so. And also, to vote for Dave Kellett.

Yeppers, Sheldon has been nominated for an Eisner Award! Our very own Webcomics Weekly co-host is an honored nominee this year. And I would hate for him to walk away empty handed so I am campaigning EARNESTLY for him.

Are you eligible to vote? Are you a webcomics/print creator, graphic-novel librarian, editor or comics educator? Then yes, absolutely! Sheldon’s “Literature” book was nominated in the Best Humor category (category 8), and I’d appreciate your support! Register to vote, or login here to vote!

Also! Dave is giving out free PDF copies of the nominated book, for you to review before you vote. Download your review copy (11.5 MB, PDF format) here!

I’ve been getting a lot of emails and twitter compliments on the artwork over the last couple of days. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to pass on a kind word or compliment. It fuels me, honestly. But before you guys start complimenting me TOO much, I wanted to make sure everyone knows that I’m borrowing heavily for this story arc. I am surrounded by books of pulp adventure comics from the 40’s and 50’s. I’m propped up by a lot of artistic crutches here.

I’m fascinated by the artwork of the great adventure strips from the 40s. And I’m jealous of the modern masters who are able to truly understand this style and emulate it today. Chris Samnee, Steve Lieber and others really know their stuff. I don’t. I want to draw this way, but I’m still learning. And that’s what this week’s strips is really all about for me. Learning. We get so busy that we kind of learn publicly these days. I experiment live with each day’s strip. I don’t sit and sketch for hours every day. The strip is what I get to draw. So I learn as I go. And you guys get to watch. Probably not the best process, but that’s what’s working right now. So let’s not rock the boat too much.

I am really proud of the last panel of Tuesday’s strip though. That LOLbat was all me (and you can tell because my spot blacks are off on his body). But I was really proud of that when I finished it. And it felt good because maybe some of this is actually sinking in.