Jan Eliot

Jan Eliot began cartooning as a form of self-defense when she was a single mom trying to raise two daughters, stay fully employed, pay the bills and still have a little fun once in a while. She discovered that cartooning gave her the opportunity to laugh at adversity, vent her frustrations and find humor in being short of money, short of time and short of patience. Not coincidentally, Jan Eliot's original comic strip was called "Patience and Sarah" and featured a single mom (Patience) and her daughter. It ran for five years in 10 weekly and monthly papers.

While working as a copywriter and graphic designer, Jan continued cartooning and developed a second strip called "Sister City," which ran weekly in the Eugene, Ore., Register-Guard for five years. Jan Eliot's cartoons have been reprinted in many humor collections, magazines, computer manuals and parenting books. Jan has also published greeting cards with Maineline Press, Umbrella Press and Marcel Schurman.

In 1995, under the new name of "Stone Soup," Jan's comic strip was nationally syndicated. Jan Elliot promptly quit her job to become a full-time cartoonist and with the quick success of "Stone Soup," she has had no regrets. Closely based on her own life and the lives of her unsuspecting friends, "Stone Soup" focuses on human relationships and the modern family. As Jim Borgman, one of the creators of the syndicated cartoon "Zits" described it, "Reading Stone Soup is like an evening spent sharing stories with good friends until you've laughed yourself back to a reasonable perspective on life."

Stone Soup runs in over 200 newspapers in 9 countries, and there are six book collections in print. The latest, "Deperate Households", is being released by Andrews McMeel in April, 2007.

Jan Eliot is one of only a handful of syndicated cartoonists. Out of 250 syndicated comic strips, only about 10 are done by women.