stonesoup

A Little Help From Your Friends

I'm often asked how I got started in cartooning. The answer is long and includes things like needing a cheap creative outlet and cheap therapy. My path to syndication was a bit long and involved day jobs in graphic design, bookmobile driving, car sales, and more graphic design.

But one very important part of this story, and my success, is my friend Valerie J. Brooks. When I first had the idea to flesh out the comic strip that eventually became Stone Soup, I already had a big, demanding life. I worked full time, was newly married and had daughters in college. I didn't have a lot of spare time. So I knew that in order to move the strip from a "great idea" to actual cartoons I needed some sort of deadline.

Without a publisher, where does a deadline come from? That's where Val comes in. We had just met, but as it happened, she was quitting her job to make the leap to full-time writer. She did not have a publisher either. So we agreed to meet for lunch once a week, not to critique each other's efforts, but to simply say... "What have you gotten done?"

Just knowing that someone would be waiting on Thursdays to hear what I'd been working on created enough pressure to get me to do the work. Many weeks it was a slog, believe me, because with no concrete reward in sight it's hard to stay motivated.

Over the years we because very close friends. We helped each other through all kinds of barriers to creativity (family troubles, feeling discouraged, money woes) and slowly began to build a body or work for ourselves.

I convinced a local paper to publish my strip weekly during our first year of lunches. It took another 5 years to get the strip syndicated. Val wrote short stories that were published and worked on her first novel, then her second... and now she's begun a third. Her novels are still waiting for their time to be in print, but her second novel is with a very promising agent and I have high hopes for her.

Every year, in January, we set goals for the year. It helps us focus, visualize... and I think there is something to "putting it out there". In 1994 I set the goal of becoming a full-time cartoonist "or else", and wrote in bold letters "This is my year". Turns out, it was.

So, my advice for anyone who's trying to make a dream come true is — find your buddy. Val and I have been meeting for lunch, encouragement and sympathy for 20 years now. That we are involved in different creative pursuits works to our benefit... we aren't in competition, we don't presume to know what the other should be doing. It's all about emotional support. I couldn't have done it without her. 

And yes, I named my main character after her, and yes, she has red hair. Think good thoughts about her novel "Vincible", which is currently circulating with potential publishers. I'm really hoping this is HER year.

Atlanta Comics Poll

Stone Soup just placed third in the Atlanta Journal Constitution comics poll, behind Zits and Baby Blues. Heady company. Two great strips by really nice cartoonists (Jim Borgman, Jerry Scott, Rick Kirkman) with whom I am very honored to share space on the funny pages.

Stone Soup will begin a trial run in the LA Times on Monday. It's a 5-week trial, a very nice amount of time for me to try to win over the readers. If you live in LA, or know people there, perhaps you or they can follow Stone Soup for the next bit and comment to the paper. Reader input matters! The Times is asking for input online, I believe at this address:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/

Thanks to all my loyal fans. I'd love to add the LA Times to my list, and you can help make it happen!

Happy Winter,

Jan

Jane Grant, New Yorker Magazine, Women Cartoonists

Since my last entry, 2 minutes ago, mentions Jane Grant and the New Yorker magazine, I'd like to mention a wonderful, funny, important book.

Funny Ladies by Liza Donnelly chronicles the history of women cartoonists at the New Yorker. It's a great book, coffee-tableish, full of very funny cartoons. Ms. Donnelly is a great writer who knows her stuff. It's too late for me to say it would be a great Christmas or Hanukkah gift, but hey... your friends and family all have birthdays, right?

A great read for anyone interested in the history of a great magazine.The earliest cartoons were the most outrageous. Those flapper-era women knew how to ZING.

Back in the Studio After Holidays and Snow Storms...

I have been away and out of touch, but returned to the studio today to find a lot of great posts. Thanks to Txgirl and Patricia and others for their comments.

Txgirl asked a question about the last names of my characters... Val and Joan have the same last name, Stone. Val is a widow and Joan is divorced and remarried, so how did this happen?

Val and Joan are both "Lucy Stoners". Lucy Stone was a feminist from the 1800s, and she and her husband attempted to challenge the marriage laws of the day. Their two main issues were inheritance (women didn't get any) and maiden names. Lucy Stone believed that a woman should be able to keep her maiden name in marriage.

This practice was again promoted by Jane Grant, a co-founder of the New Yorker magazine. She created the "Lucy Stone Society" in New York in the 1920s, an organization to encourage women to keep their maiden names in marriage, as a way of asserting their independence. A woman who kept her maiden name was dubbed a "Lucy Stoner".

So, the family name is "Stone" in Stone Soup, and both women have kept it. When Joan had a baby last year, I finally had the opportunity to include the name Lucy Stone in my strip by naming her daughter "Luci Stone Weinstein".

Which brings me to another point, Wally Weinstein (Joan's husband) and the Hanukkah strip. Every year when I do a Hanukkah cartoon I receive mail about some incorrectness... different spellings of the word, numbers of candles, etc. Thanks for the details, I'll probably get it exactly to everyone's liking in 10 or 20 years. I can't always guarantee that the number of candles will be right on the given day of publication... and I have to spell it "Hanukkah", because that is the "AP approved spelling". But the spirit of it is to honor Hanukkah in the middle of all the Christmas celebrations, since I have readers in both faiths. I am, however, not Jewish, and rely on research and Jewish friends to affirm the cartoon's contents.

Don't get me wrong, I love hearing from readers about the small details. It means you are reading my work... and paying attention... and for that I am very, very grateful.

Happy New Year.