Jan Eliot is the creator of the internationally syndicated cartoon strip Stone Soup. Stone Soup appears daily in over 200 newspapers throughout the United States and in 6 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Stone Soup also has a large online readership.
2009 marks 14 years of syndication for Stone Soup. There are seven Stone Soup cartoon collections in print, the latest titled This Might Not Be Pretty, a full-color collection from Four Panel Press and distributed by AtlasBooks Distribution. Stone Soup books are also published in Portugal by Editorial Bizancio, Lisbon.
Jan Eliot started cartooning when she was a young divorced mother trying to raise two daughters, work full-time, make ends meet and still have a little fun. Drawing from her own experiences, Jan tried to reflect real life and real situations, with empathy for anyone with too little time, money or patience. Her first comic strip, Patience and Sarah, began as a weekly feature in the Willamette Valley Observer in 1980. Patience and Sarah ran for 3 years, and was reprinted in many parenting magazines and books in the years following. During this time Eliot also created greeting cards for Maineline Press and Marcel Schurman. In 1990 Sister City, her second comic endeavor, was launched in the Eugene Register Guard. It ran weekly for 5 years, until the strip was picked up by Universal Press Syndicate and retitled Stone Soup. Stone Soup launched nationally as a daily comic strip November 20, 1995.
There are only about 250 comic strips in syndication in the United States, and approximately 12 of those are done by women.
Exhibitions
Eliot’s cartoons have been exhibited in the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa; The San Francisco Museum of Cartoon Art, where her work is part of the permanent collection; and in 2002 Portugal at B.D. Amadora, an International Cartoon Exhibition held annually in Lisbon. Recently the Library of Congress acquired 16 Stone Soup cartoons for their permanent collection in Washington, DC.
Charitable Efforts
Eliot’s characters are licensed by Habitat for Humanity International, and are used to promote the Women’s Build program, Girls’ Build, and Operation Home Delivery, Habitat’s Katrina rebuild effort. In 2005 Eliot served on the Talbot’s Foundation Scholarship Board. The “Stone Soup Day of Fame”, an auction item that puts the winner’s name in the strip, has raised over $60,000 for charities.
Education
Southern Illinois University art department 1968 - 1970
University of Oregon Honors College 1977. Independent Scholar — English and Women’s Studies
Awards
2009 “Women Who Make A Difference” Award, International Women’s Forum, Miami Conference
2005 “College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Fellow Award”, University of Oregon
2001 “Best Book “ B.D Amadora International Cartoon Exhibition, Lisbon, Portugal
Personal
Eliot works from her home studio in Eugene, Oregon. Her two daughters are grown and have families of their own, and still manage to provide material for the strip.
