I remembered Sparky's early words to me, admonishing me to learn to draw better and avoid obvious ideas. I quit my job to devote myself fully to drawing the best cartoon strip I could, with the most original ideas I could come up with. I wanted Stone Soup to be funny and professional, and I hoped to impress already successful cartoonists like Charles Schulz.

—Cartoonist Jan Eliot speaking about her mentor at the opening of Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle: The Art of Charles Schulz.

Charles Schulz's landmark comic strip, Peanuts, would prove to inspire a generation of cartoonists. One such devotee is Jan Eliot, whose Stone Soup chronicles the exploits of two sisters who are single mothers. In her strip, which debuted in 1995, Eliot explores modern family life with a dose of knowing humor.

Eliot's passion for art was kindled at Southern Illinois University, where, as a student, she specialized in ceramics. Married at 18, Eliot completed just two years of college before giving birth to the first of her two daughters. She later finished her education at the University of Oregon, earning a degree in Women's Studies and English. "Since I write a comic strip, it's interesting that I have half my education in art and half in English," comments Eliot. "It actually fits pretty well." Unfortunately, her marriage was less of a perfect fit, ending after nine years. "I found myself single and trying to figure out how I was going to take care of these girls," she remembers. "Somehow I came up with the idea that I should become a syndicated cartoonist."

The Stone Age

Eliot set off on her quest, writing about what she dubs "the struggles of parenting." After completing just 10 strips, Jan got her work published in a local alternative newsweekly. Encouraged, she attempted to market the strip further; after 18 months, her efforts landed Eliot a total of ten publications that paid a mere $2 to $10 a week. Jan also fell short of realizing her syndication dreams, with an ill-fated offer from a major syndicate in 1982. "It was a very bleak contract with a lot of very stiff copyright clauses," recalls Eliot, "where I would be giving up everything forever. I just couldn't sign it." Brokenhearted, Jan decided to put her cartooning dreams on hold and pursue a career in graphic design. She landed a job working for the classified-ad department of the newspaper which published her strip, and continued cartooning on a part-time basis.

In 1988, Eliot remarried and, with more financial and emotional support, was encouraged to give her dream of cartooning another shot. The artist worked for eight months on a new concept, which included two single-mom siblings and their kids. Shrewdly dubbing the strip Sister City, Eliot quickly sold the concept to the local Eugene, Oregon, paper. ("Eugene is a very strong participant in sister-city programs around the world," Eliot explains.) The weekly spot "was a real gift. They had a circulation of about 80,000, and I had a deadline, forcing me to create new work every week."

The cartoonist soon sent a collection of her work to an editor acquaintance at Universal Press Syndicate (publishers of For Better or For Worse, Cathy, and Doonesbury), who in turn sent back a lengthy rejection letter. "It was clearly from someone who had an interest in what I was doing," remembers Eliot. "So every six months I would bundle up 24 strips and put them in the mail to him. Every six months for four years, he sent me a similar rejection letter."

By 1995, Eliot was even more determined. In a letter to Universal Press, Eliot crowned herself "the Grace Under Fire of the funny pages. I signed the letter 'This is my year.'" Every two weeks, Eliot would contact the syndicate, detailing why they should be interested and reminding them that this was her year. Her words soon proved prophetic: Eliot was finally offered a contract, and the strip launched that November in 25 U.S. newspapers.

Since the strip's debut, Jan has published three books and is pleased to see Stone Soup published in other countries. "It's not huge," notes Eliot. "It's a little hard that it isn't growing the way I'd like it to, but I've also known cartoonists who've had to drop out, because they couldn't even get to [this] level. So I'm very grateful that I actually make a living doing what I do."