Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for August 20, 2009

got it—enough

When I was your age, it was in black & white, too!

Except the Sunday funnies!

Jan is running on empty, take a vacation. Maybe the stone soup characters can pay a visit to Jan Eliot at the drawing board

Aren’t you all being a bit rough? The week-long serial has long been a convention for comic strips, and cartoonists have been known to use them to make goofy editorials from time to time. Jan isn’t doing anything different than what her medium traditionally allows. A day-by-day elaboration of a theme or a point for one week has been comic strip gravy for decades, what’s wrong with using it to satirize a topic that’s important to the writer? Danged internet and its short attention span.

“um-day”………….

Excellent, LVJeff.

Berkely Breathed used to cover this topic all the time in “Bloom County”. Actually “Doonesbury” is the only comic that doesn’t shrink. Garry Trudeau has something in his contract about it. But he often appears on the editorial page.

Here is Seattle, the Hearst Newspaper “The Seattle Post-Intelligencer” just folded. Our remaining one “The seattle times” picked up a few of the King Features, but had to shrink the comics page to fit them all in. I’m 62 and have to read the comics with my bifocals and a magnifying glass.

BRAVO @ LVJeff… Jan has a right and a duty as a writer to let things be known. If smaller space is a problem how will anyone know if she doesn’t make it a point. I think that people want to laugh but do not want to think. That is sad. I am enjoying this week just as I did last week and the week before.

@JANELIOT>>>>KEEP UP THE WONDERFUL AND FUNNY WORK.

Yes, I too think this week’s strips are great - it’s not that easy to make the same point over and over and still be funny, which this series is. And when there’s a strip I really like, I can print it in any size, and in black and white or in colour, however I please. So I have a nice collection.

Actually there’s another convention that annoys me, the one of the first two Sunday panels being optional; some papers include them, some leave them out. I always feel cheated if they’re not there. I guess nowadays most of the papers leave them out - again, a way to save space.

Why don’t they realize how many readers they’re alienating? Or maybe I’m one of the few who are not embarrassed to say which part of the paper I consider the most important? and open to first?

But lately I’ve been moving in the opposite direction as well - noticing which articles get printed that I may not get to see that easily on the internet.

May our favourite comix all last!! and last!! I was going to say forever, but immortality might not be that desirable to all the comic strip artists…

They should do one where they are grateful to have a job. A lot of comic strip characters have been laid off instead of downsized like stone soup. Hey I don’t know about the rest of you but I’d rather have a cut in pay and size then no job at all.

Where I’m at county is, I asuming, downsizing. More on insurance, not filling positions, and very small percent raise. I work pt for the county and I have no health inssurance and only so many hours a year. Another company 3 vice-presidents where fired, executive took a small paycut, 401K froozen until next year and more layofffs.

Well said, LVJeff & RinaF.