Beginnings

A kind reader requested a sampling of my early work, pre-Stone Soup. Digging around, I found a few photocopies to scan, so I apologize if the quality is a bit sub-par. But we are talking ancient history here.

If you don't know my origin story, I began cartooning as creative therapy shortly after a divorce, when I was a working mom of two young girls. The stress of making ends meet, managing my dear daughters and their school, daycare and my own work schedule, left me a bit drained and overwhelmed. And of course feeling guilty about all I couldn't do. Cartooning was a perfect outlet, one I could afford, among other things.

My first comic strip was called "Patience and Sarah", and it appeared in one alternative weekly, The Willamette Valley Observer. Eventually it spread to a few other small papers, not making me much money but giving me hope for a career doing something I loved. Cartooning was the only thing I'd ever done where time vanished... I'd work late into the night with no sense of time spent, totally losing myself.

Here are four of the earliest samples. Clearly, I had a lot to learn about cartooning... but the ideas were solid.

You can see the origins of Joan and Holly here. This strip featured a mom named Patience with her one daughter, Sarah. I began it in 1980.

Hooked on cartooning, I did whatever I could to get paid for more. I illustrated computer manuals in 1982-84, the very early days of personal computing. I did greeting cards, I illustrated employee training manuals, sold cartoons to parenting magazines and publishers of parenting books. Here are a couple samples:

If you have no idea what this is about... well, you see, you used to take a regular corded phone and place it in a modem that had a cradle for the phone to actually sit in, and transmit and receive the signal. Really. I'm not kidding.

And then, of course, there is a classic "second wave of feminism" cartoon, published originally as a cartoon in a magazine, later as a greeting card:

This one is from 1989. I think in many places in the world it would still be considered very very contemporary. Such is the status of women worldwide. Here, however, we've all made great leaps forward, right?

There you have it, the tender early days.

Comments

[Sally]

Thanks, Jan.
I have all the Stone Soup books and have enjoyed watching the characters evolve. It is one of my favorites. But I owe you an apology. When Stone Soup first appeared in the Atlanta paper, it replaced Calvin and Hobbes. I was NOT happy with it and did not expect much. I'm so glad I was wrong.

[Jan Eliot]

Hi Sally,
Well, no apologies needed. Stone Soup was lucky enough to hit the market when Calvin & Hobbes retired and opened up a lot of space for new features. But you are not the only one who did not see my strip as a "replacement", which it wasn't. Those are big shoes to fill!

I'm so glad you've become a fan. Thanks for reading and commenting! And by the way, I STILL miss C&H.

[david loveland]

thanks for posting some of your earlier work. i just recently started reading stone soup and was hooked right away. i had to rush out and get all the books. when i found your blog i added it to my favorites list so that i can check on it daily. i watched the video several times and still i'm blown away by how awesome of a cartoonist you are. i hope that one day i will have the honor of meeting you.
thank you for the time and effort you put into creating stone soup.

your friend and fan,
david

[Jan Eliot]

Hi David,
Thanks for your kind words. I love cartooning and it is a real joy to be thought of as "awesome". I'm always trying to measure up to the cartoonists I admire, like Watterson and McManus and Borgman and Coverly... I forget to give myself credit for what I've accomplished in cartooning over the last 25+ years.

Thanks for reading and being a fan! You made my day.