stonesoup

Cartoonist John Callahan ...

John Callahan died this weekend. He was Oregon's most outrageous, courageous, honest cartoonist... and he was a quadriplegic. Some of his best humor, darkest and funniest, was about being a quad. Paralyzed at 21 (basically, from alcohol and fast cars) he continued his hurtle towards death even from his wheelchair, until he took up cartooning.

Known for his bawdy, no-holds-barred cartoons, he often offended. He didn't care. No topic, or disability, was off limits. He was raw, and smart, and had nothing to lose. His fans were many and loyal. 

A couple of years ago he called me, and I drove to Portland to a Starbucks that was near his apartment in the Northwest Neighborhood. During the 2 hours we spent together there was a constant stream of admirers who stopped to tell him how much they loved his work. His ruddy complexion, bright orange hair and of course, wheelchair, made him quite recognizable. He was a local hero.

We met because he had an idea for a syndicated comic strip and wanted me to read it. The strip featured a male quadriplegic who lives at the mercy of a sometimes petty and vindictive caregiver. The caregiver, if insulted or feeling taken for granted, has been known to retaliate against the helpless quad by, among other things, dressing him in a women's clothes. The joke? The quad is mad because the shoes and pumps don't match.

Many of you may know of John Callahan, but if you don't, honor him with a read of one of his books. "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot" is a classic... and both a cartoon collection and his autobiography. "Digesting the Child Within" is a title I wish I'd thought of. 

 

Or search for the animated documentary that chronicles his life from car accident to cartooning, "Tales From The Crip". It's stunning. Or find his CDs... yes, he sings. "Purple Winos In The Rain" and "Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel". 

I can't do him justice, but there's more online. This link takes you to a Willamette Week Editorial. Willamette Week, an alternative weekly in Portland, published him for years, knew him well, and CAN do him justice.

Bye, John. So glad I knew you, if only a bit.

Ya Gotta Love Summer

Life is quiet in a summertime way right now... less email and computer time, more swimming. The most common question a cartoonist is asked — "Where Do You Get Your Ideas?"— can be answered by these photos from my summer so far. My family and friends continue to thoroughly inspire my upcoming cartoons.

The Stone family (aka Johanna and Alec) will make it to the beach this year...

    

You'll see Max (aka Asa) snorkeling with Alix in her magic baby pool...

   

You'll see Val swinging across this scene in August...a classic Oregon swimming hole. And it's just 40 minutes from my studio to ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

 

Happy Summer everyone! Now go outside.
  
 
 

 

My Cartoonist Studio Page is Up...

A new, extremely fun site called The Cartoonist Studio.com debuted a few weeks ago, offering a bird's eye view into the studios of 8 amazing cartoonists— Greg Evans, Rick Kirkman, Jerry Scott, Tom Batiuk, Dave Coverly, Peter Guren, Jeff Keane and Mike Luckovich. Once the gang of eight designed the site and established their pages, they invited a few more of us to join them. Greg Evans contacted me while I was in Australia, and this week I have been so thrilled to be included with Tom Richmond and Chuck Ayers, Brian Crane in "phase 2" ( see my page ).

This site offers a unique, intimate view of the studio of each cartoonist. If you ever wondered what lived in our closets, or under our desks, or just how messy and scattered we were, or weren't... you can see for yourself.

The site is still evolving and will include a store for our original artwork and sketches, and whatever else we want to offer (in my case, books, of which there are currently seven, with two more in the works).

Check it out! Who knows what secrets you'll uncover as you roll around the cartooning hideout...

 
 

Stone Soup Merchandise Supports Habitat for Humanity

This month, my syndicate is doing a very cool thing ... promoting products with the Stone Soup artwork I've produced for Habitat and donating the proceeds, with matching funds, to Habitat for Humanity.

    

You can read the full article about the evolution of my relationship with Habitat For Humanity at http://blogs.gocomics.com/    

Or, here's the short version ...

 
 

"This month we at GoComics would like to celebrate the spirit of the work that Jan has done and the countless lives that have been changed by Habitat for Humanity. With Jan’s assistance we’ve created limited edition merchandise to benefit the non-profit housing organization. The entire profit from the sale of this merchandise from June 5 – 30, 2010 will benefit Habit for Humanity. In addition, our parent company, Andrews McMeel Universal, will be matching 100% of the donation.

So even if you can’t roll up your sleeves and swing a hammer, you can still help eliminate poverty housing and homelessness through your actions.

To check out the items available for purchase, click here.

To see Jan’s recent interview in “Habitat World Magazine”, click here."

__________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Andrews McMeel Universal for their efforts in making this happen.

We are all...

 

My Favorite Event in Cartoon Land

(NOTE: I lifted the conference information below from The Daily Cartoonist  (dailycartoonist.com). If you are interested in the world of cartooning, especially newspaper cartoons (but not limited to that) I'd highly recommend a subscription to Alan Gardner's free daily newsletter. Concise, thorough, informative, fun.)

In October I will be one of the speakers at the Festival of Cartoon Art. One of the things that's great about this festival is that the size is limited. It's intimate and devoted to the art of my profession. They have the most amazing archive of cartoon art in existence. And the good librarians of the Cartoon Research Library run a conference that's a complete delight, and a bargain.

So here you go...

Mark your calendars and register early. Space is limited to 275 participants.

Registration for the 2010 Festival of Cartoon Art organized by The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will open on June 1, 2010. The Festival, which is a celebration of cartoons and comics, will take place October 14-17. Online registration, along with a complete schedule of all Festival events, is now available at the new 2010 Festival website.

The registration fee will be $125, with an early bird discount of $20 (must register by August 1, 2010). Members of the National Cartoonists Society and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists will be able to register at the reduced rate of $100 (early bird discount will also apply). The registration fee for students and senior citizens aged 65 and over will be $25 (ID will be required; early bird discount will not apply).

This is the tenth triennial Festival organized by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (formerly the Cartoon Research Library). An academic symposium will once again kick-off the Festival events. Humor, Play and Indentity: Academic Perspectives will take place on Thursday, October 14 at the Ohio Union and will end with a keynote address on George Herriman by author Michal Tisserand. That evening, all Festival participants are invited to celebrate the 100th birthday of Krazy Kat at a special exhibition reception and birthday party.

Creators scheduled to present at the Festival on Friday, October 15 and Saturday, October 16 areSteve Breen, Roz Chast, Tony Cochran, Jan Eliot, Matt Groening and Tom Gammill, Dave Kellett,Paul Levitz, Dan Piraro, Jen Sorensen, James Sturm, and Gene Luen Yang. The Festival will also feature a special tribute panel to Jay Kennedy, the late Editor in Chief of King Features Syndicate. Kennedy was a collector and scholar who bequeathed his extraordinary collection of underground comics to the library. Panelists include Brendan Burford, Bill Griffith, Matt Groening, and Patrick McDonnell.

In addition to these events, Wexner Residency Award Recipient Art Spiegelman will give a special presentation on Sunday, October 17.

Two cartoon exhibitions will be on display during the Festival. Ireland of the Dispatch, a retrospective of the work of Billy Ireland, will be held in the Exhibition Gallery of the spectacular and newly-renovated Thompson Library. Scenes of My Infint-hood: Celebrating the Birth of Krazy Kat will be exhibited in the Cartoon Library & Museum Reading Room Gallery.

The 2010 Festival is co-sponsored by the Wexner Center for the Arts. It is also made possible by the generous support of the National Cartoonists Society Foundation, King Features Syndicate, the Milton Caniff Endowment, the Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel Endowment, United Features Syndicate and Mary F. Gau and Kevin Wolf. Thursday’s Academic Perspectives symposium is co-sponsored by Project Narrative of The Ohio State University Department of English and the Popular Culture Program of the College of Arts and Sciences. Thursday night’s exhibition reception will be co-sponsored by the Great Lakes Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society.

Laughs Down Under

Five or six years ago I had the luck of being at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It's a loud, raucous, drunken comedy festival that has been the proving ground of many great comics. 

One of the acts at the Fringe that year was called "Puppetry of the Penis". It did not involve actual puppets... but, well, special parts of anatomy doing "puppety" things. Really. This now infamous act migrated to the Fringe from Australia.

But Australians seemed so mild-mannered and sweet... like Canadians! Ok, ok, their founding mothers and fathers were convicted criminals — Australia was a penal colony. OUR founding mothers and fathers were Puritans. Hence our fear of straight talk about sex etc., and their comfort with it. 

I just returned from the Melbourne Comedy Festival. First, Melbourne is an amazing city, sort of a cross between Paris and San Francisco. European, with little cafes and great architecture and public transportation, but laid back, relaxed and English-speaking. I even saw a little tie-dye.

The Comedy Festival is HUGE. 397 acts. More stages than I could count or find. Your preferred show sold out? Here's what's on during the next three hours:

 

The central point is the Town Hall, and Melbourne was lively all day and all night in the blocks surrounding it.

Looks glamorous, right? Pretty lights, the rush of the crowd...

Standup comedy is one of the most grueling art forms, and comics have all my respect. The glamorous life of a comic can be found here, with the arrow (made from the comic's own handbills) pointing the way:

   (yes, Dr.Brown apparently performs in the nude. Those wacky Aussies!)

And once you've found it, the stage, looking a bit like something that might be in a fraternity basement, welcomes you. Now go on! Be really really funny!

 

I saw a guy who calls his show Birdmania (and himself Birdman) do an entire act around a refrigerator (full size, on stage) wearing a denim jacket. He ended his show with a Cher homage. The Melbourne Age called it a happy, endearing, mess. It was. But it was also amazingly creative and dang brave.
 

My favorite performer, whose humor I completely related to, was Celia Pacquola. Her show was sold out every night, so we had to wait until our last day of comedy to see her.  It was worth it. 

Flying Solos combined self-deprecating humor with video footage of Celia's mom (known as MOM), who learned to fly a plane solo (subsequently giving her the courage to start a new life), and video footage of the comic pledging to learn, and then sweating to learn, and finally learning, the 22-second piano solo from the Pointer Sisters' I'm So Excited. She couldn't play the piano or read music before the quest, but hey, it's not a quest if it's easy. All interspersed with truly original jokes, stories, nerdy dancing and great audience rapport. An inspiring, well-written, amazing hour.

Of course I searched the local art scene...From an amazing, and sometimes eerie, show of extremely lifelike creations (down to body hair) by Australian sculptor Ron Mueck:

         
   
 
 

And from in and around Melbourne... such a great city:

 

 
  

 
  
 

I loved the graffiti...

I love this sentiment... only the "why?' is graffiti...

 

Melbourne has a laughter club? A cartoonists dream...
 

 

 

 
 

And OF COURSE, the Koala...

 

...the bush...

 

 

up in Cairns, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef...

 

 

...the sea (and me)...

Finally, I can't resist yet another comment on what's happening to my beloved newspapers. I brought back a copy of the "Australian", one of 3 dailies that come out in Melbourne. Here it is compared to my local paper...

 

 

Fan Mail

I'm just home from a trip to Australia. I went to the Melbourne Int'l Comedy Festival. More on that later.

 Meanwhile, I'm going through the mail that piled up in my absence... and found this. 
 

I love it when fans are clear and to the point. Don't worry! She'll be BAAAAAACK!

Sincerely, Stone Soup

Stone Soup, the Lisbon Version

Yesterday I opened the PO box to find a package from Lisbon. I have a publisher there, Editorial Bizancio. Luis Alves and his wife discovered my work on line years ago when they were starting a new book publishing company. I was their first comic collection... since then they also publish Baby Blues and Zits book collections for the Portugal market.

Stone Soup drew their eye because it translates literally... Sopa de Pedra, which is the national dish of Portugal. The fairy tale for which my strip is named is part of their culture, making how that relates to my cast of characters an easy jump for them. Besides... family life is family life, and the (barely) controlled chaos of the Stone Soup family is familiar territory to parents around the world.

"Estado de Sitio" translates into "State of Siege." This cover art is from a cartoon where Joan is saying "The children are winning". I think it's a great title, and maybe Luis should pick my book titles from now on. 

If you are wondering why you've never seen this book cover or title in English... Editorial Bizancio chose to publish the 5th book collection, "Not So Picture Perfect", in two parts (it's a substantial 320 pages).

It's really fun to look through a translation of the strip. The dialogue is interesting to peruse... here's Val and Phil running late for a movie— 

 
 

And then there are the sound effects, like CRASH! —

And finally, even though I don't speak Portuguese, I think I know what this means:

 
 
Speaking of book titles... 

readers have been asking if there's another Stone Soup collection in the works. The answer is yes... in fact, there are two. The first will be officially released in January, but hopefully available for order in the fall, before Christmas. The second will be a June release. Book publishers everywhere are struggling, but Four Panel Press, with it's singular focus (me) and devoted founder (M.S.) marches on. I am truly blessed.

Title ideas anyone?

2010 Festival of Cartoon Art

I received one of the best invitations in cartooning... to speak at the Festival of Cartoon Art, sponsored every three years by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University in Columbus. The dates are October 14-17.

This is my favorite cartoonist gathering because it is limited to 275 people, it's extremely well run, and it's more of a conference than a party (although...wherever cartoonists gather...)  Great cartoonists talking about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it.

 

The Festival will celebrate Krazy Kat's 100 Birthday and a tribute to the late Jay Kennedy, former Editor-In-Chief of King Features who bequeathed his collection of underground comic books to the Cartoon Library and Museum.

This year's speakers include:

• Steve Breen
• Brendan Burford
• Roz Chast
• Tony Cochran
• Jan Eliot
• Bill Griffith
• Matt Groening and Tom Gammill
• Dave Kellett
• Paul Levitz
• Patrick McDonnell
• Dan Piraro
• Jen Sorensen
• Art Speigleman
• James Sturm
• Gene Luen Yang

For more info...

Festival of Cartoon Art

Shoutout and back... Craig Ferguson!

Because I love Craig Ferguson, and I love his theme song... I found a way to get both of them into my strip on Sunday. Since my strip runs daily in LA, but not yet on Sunday, I wasn't sure if he'd see it... but wooo hoooo..!!  Check it out. 

  
 

Craig Ferguson's Shoutout to Stone Soup

See the strip and comments from viewers...