CSotD: Writing what you know
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Normally, I would bristle at an Irish drinking joke, except that there's no suggestion of overindulgence in today's Stone Soup and, rather to the contrary, the point is that Evie appreciates good beer.
Evie appreciates a lot of things, to the continual consternation of those who keep expecting her to act her age.
Whatever that means.
Jan Eliot has always kept an undercurrent of social justice running through Stone Soup, which, after all, is about two sisters who find themselves in tough circumstances and cooperate to make the most of what they have. So, while she frets over making her Habitat for Humanity support "too preachy," the message doesn't clash with the usual concerns of her characters.
Except that it goes outside the circle of their own problems. Usually, as when they dealt with the issue of health insurance, it's something happening to them. When the grandmother in the strip first took off to build houses — I think that trip was to Uganda — it was about someone else. It was about feeling that you have enough and it's time to give something back.
And it was about an "old woman" finding a boyfriend, but, hey, it's a comic strip. And yet this still played into the hands of the overriding social justice theme, since it allowed Eliot to riff on the topic of people thinking old people can't be in love.
The first Habitat trip sent the two girls out to California for what they thought would be time on the beach with an aunt, but which turned out to be working on a Habitat project. Not as realistic as the Evie trips since, but a chance to more directly address the concept of being grateful for what you have and of the need to give back, since kids can easily be a little blind to all that.
In another strip, all that might come across as "too preachy." In Stone Soup, it's just part of the normal landscape, like the unremarkable fact that the main character is in a long-term interracial relationship, which has only inspired commentary from fans when the colorizers forget to colorize the colored guy.
Other than that, it's a so-what, since the underlying values of the strip are assumed. Of course you let your teenage nephew move in with you, if things are going badly for him with his parents. That's what people do. That's one more ingredient added to the stone and the water to improve the soup.
That's why the strip is called "Stone Soup." Duh.
Here's a profile of Jan that I did several years ago, in which she said, "I had 10 years of pretty hard times, divorced and raising two girls in a depressed economy. I struggled quite a bit to get by; I held nine jobs in 10 years, and the longest of those was two years, but I was never fired. It was almost 100 percent because of cornpanies folding or downsizing or moving out of town. It was hard, but I had a lot of friends in Ihe same boat, and we did a lot to support each other, and that was where the stone soup aspect came In.''
She also told me, though it didn't get into the story, that some of that stone soup included bartering, so that, if you knew what dentist to visit, or what mechanic to drop in on, you could see some of her artwork hanging on the walls.
Which brings us to Habitat, because, without being "too preachy," there's some payback happening here, and it's not just that, like many cartoonists, Eliot has adopted a cause to which she diverts a week or two of supportive strips.
If you go to her blog, you can (scroll down a little) and see a lot more, and it's good stuff. Here's a sample pic I stole from her, which was taken recently in Haiti and of which she writes: "This group included an MIT grad, a director of a large corporate foundation, former Peace Corps and Americorps volunteers, skilled and unskilled people alike. I'm guessing the average age was close to 50. The world is full of need, but rather than being overwhelmed by it, they each just pitch in where they can."
Jan is in the back row, with the blue ball cap.
Let me be clear. I do not think that "Stone Soup" is a better strip because its creator often pushes back from the drawing board to actually go out and do good things.
You ought not to judge a work by how you feel about the creator, whether it's because the creator only has one arm or fled from tyranny or cured cancer or is your child. The work has to stand on its own.
But, assuming the work is good to begin with, knowing the story behind the story can enhance your enjoyment of it, and that's true whether the story is by Beatrix Potter or Fyodor Dostoevsky or Harriet Beecher Stowe or just some cartoonist up in Oregon.
Though that Stowe woman was, y'know, a little too preachy.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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