Jan Eliot, the creator of Stone Soup, has announced that she is retiring the daily comic strip that she created in 1995. She will continue to syndicate the Sunday version of the strip.
Jan writes:
For 20 years, I have held the most wonderful job in the world ? making a living in art, creating a daily comic strip that I?m privileged to see published in newspapers. As someone who grew up fascinated by newspaper and magazine cartoons, it is hard to explain the private thrill I get seeing my strip on the funny page, hearing someone comment about it, receiving fan mail. But with this wonderful job comes the pressure of daily deadlines. It may seem like a small task, creating one cartoon a day, but it is herculean in many ways. The pressure to be good enough, funny enough, to create interesting-enough drawings, live up to the standards of great cartoonists I admire and share the comics page with is not a small thing.
Jan cites wanting to relieve the pressure of daily deadlines so she could concentrate on other projects as her reason for making this decision. The final Stone Soup daily will run October 17.
I congratulate Jan for a wonderful 20 year daily run with Stone Soup. Looking forward to continuing to enjoy Stone Soup on Sundays.
Jan, You are good enough, you are funny enough and gosh darn it, people like you!!!! Big hugs. Mike
I had a professor at my college tell a general art class that cartoons were NOT art and cartoonists were NOT artists – I countered with a simple observation that, if cartooning was so easy, why was the rejection rate 99.999% for comic strips? By that measure, Brain Surgery is an easier path…
Congrats on a superlative run!
Wonderful strip, fabulous woman, and a great run. Cheers to you, my friend, and happy travels!
I had the pleasure of meeting Jan for the first time this past weekend at the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning and she is so delightful! Her spotlight talk was fantastic and made me want to go and read all the Stone Soup episodes I’ve missed!
So I guess Jan Eliot is cutting back to Sunday Stone Soup strips like Bill Amend did with Fox Trot starting in 2007.
My local paper, The Minneapolis StarTribune, carries the Sunday page – glad to hear it won’t be going away anytime soon.
Sad news for the daily comic page, but more reason to not miss the Sunday edition…..
I am going to miss your daily comic strips. I have enjoyed reading each one. Good to hear we still have Sundays! Congratulations on your semi retirement!!
A bummer but a great run. I’ll guess I’ll just have to go back to the archives. Congrats Jan!
I hope there’s a lot of daily replacements for Stone Soup by next month.
I am still awaiting when Darby Conley will end the first run Sunday/rerun mode daily Get Fuzzy strip and when Garry Trudeau will end the first run Sunday/rerun mode Doonesbury strip.
I’m sorry but I just don’t understand how an art form survives on re-runs. It makes no sense in any other media I know other than one that’s given up. (Hats off and well done to Ms. Eliot.)
Congratulations to Jan on a great daily run. I was a news journalist for 26 years and well understand the effects of constant deadlines. “Stone Soup” was a daily read for me for years and I’ll miss the fun, but look forward to Sundays.
Mike,
I still laugh at Seinfeld reruns.
Jan, your great heart has always shined through your lines. Thanks for twenty years of hitting such high standards. Stone Soup has been a gift.
Me too Steve. I’m a sucker for retro tv but it’s TV and tv is an almost limitless medium. See Samberg’s hilarious opening Emmy’s bit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQKOBzINo-Y
It’s harder to crack into comics pages than it is to crack out of an upstate NY jail and from an admittedly selfish standpoint dead white guys (Richard Thompsons phrase not mine) and re-runs make it a fools errand to try.
I mean to take nothing away from this congratulatory post and the tremendous 20 yr. accomplishment of Jan Eliot by pointing this out. But my guess is she knows the odds too.