Cartoonist Profile: Jan Eliot

Jan Eliot was born in 1950 in San Jose, California. Her life before becoming a cartoonist was very average, working in industries like service and sales for most of her young years. Eliot always enjoyed drawing and comics; she spent a lot of nights drawing and creating little comic strips. Eliot also has an expensive history in graphic design, which played an essential part in her future career. After almost 16 years, an independent newspaper helped her become syndicated. Eventually, Eliot moved from San Jose to Eugene, Oregon, where she used to work in a home office and still resides now. Jan Eliot’s last comics was published in July of 2020 when she retired (“Jan Eliot.” Wikipedia)

Jan Eliot drew many comics throughout her life; her work also appeared in 4 comic books “Women’s Glibber: State-of-the-Art Women’s Humor” and “What Is This Thing Called Sex? Cartoons by Women” all of them being humorous and sarcastic. Eliot was proud to be publishing women-centered work. One of her weekly comic strips, Sister City, was posted in Eugene, Oregon, by The Register-Guard. 

Sister City, later renamed Stone Soup, was Eliot’s primary syndicated newspaper comic strip, launched in November 1995 and ended in July 2020. Stone Soup ran for about 25 years (Stone Soup – Wikipedia). Stone Soup combined Politics with Family and Humor centering around Valerie Stone, a single mother raising two daughters with many humorous encounters. The strip was engaging, containing ten main characters and many other recurring characters throughout its publishing. 

Comic Strip Profile: Stone Soup

This strip, published on October 10, 2000, is an excellent example of Eliot’s typical work. The comic doesn’t contain a lot of different colors and is only used to highlight the essential parts that play a role in the storyline. Much of the background is just a few lines; some frames completely lack a background, let alone color. Yet, this detail allows the reader to focus on what’s important in the comic. It is also notable that Eliot uses available space efficiently, drawing speech bubbles around the characters at the top of the panel. Eliot expresses the emotions of her characters very clearly with facial expressions and movement indications. 

Eliot also illustrates an increase in sentiment felt by the bride by making her facial expression and hand movement more extreme and noticeable. In the first panel, Eilot presents the bride with a facial expression that shows curiosity by drawing her eyes large and her mouth very small, but also uncertainty, as she only cracks open the door and peaks outside. In the second frame, the bride’s face shifts into a surprised expression, but panels three and four show a highly emotional and angry expression. Based on this strip, one can imagine that many of Eliot’s work is about emotions and humorously illustrating them. 

Eliot has very slight design features in her strips, which can identify her work. Besides the simple drawings and plain backgrounds that focus more on the foreground and the strip’s main characters, she is also consistent with her panel size and shape. I have not found a single strip or comic by Eliot that isn’t consistent with the panels, further simplifying the reader’s experience.

Wikidata Profile: Jan Eliot

As of September 2023, Jan Eliot Wikidata’s profile is empty and missing much information. It only contains her name, date, place of birth, and some other identifiers. Her profile also lacks a picture and information on her education, occupations, and any notable work. Eliot’s profile lacks essential information and is inaccessible as her Wikipedia website is only available in 3 languages.

Jan Eliot, Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6148848

Jan Eliot’s life

Jan Eliot has always liked creating comics and drawing; she devoted much time before her professional life as a cartoonist to creating comics and writing stories. Jan Eliot’s first professional cartoonist gig, Stone Soup, has earned an audience throughout the 30 years that it ran; many subtle changes were made by Eliot, as is common to adjust for the target audience and a shift in the cartoonist’s character itself.  

A significant change in the comic throughout its lifetime was in 1995 when “Sister City” was renamed “Stone Soup” after being syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. In 2015, Eliot decided she would no longer make daily comic strips but spend more time socializing. Jan Eliot’s style was easily recognizable by her family humor, often present throughout her strips. Some work Jan Eliot did besides Stone Soup was in Off Road Parenting and What Is This Thing Called Sex? Cartoons by Women.

Stone Soup ended in 2020 when Jan Eliot decided to retire. The last strip was published in July of that year, after which Jan Eliot could enjoy her time in her house in Eugene. Eliot said it was a difficult choice to retire, but during her retirement, she wishes to travel and spend more time with her family.

Eliot’s strip was based on her life as a single mom, just like the main character in Stone Soup, so many occurrences directly relate to Eliot’s personal life. Eliot was awarded the Eugene Arts and Letters Award in 2010. 

Timeline JS

Visual timelines are much easier to follow and give viewers a clear sense of the cartoonist’s life. Compared to a written text, a graphic can be understood much faster and more effectively convey information to others without being carefully studied. A visual timeline might be a little more labor-heavy to create, yet when compared to a text, the display of information attracts the viewer’s attention. I also like visual timelines as they are very dense on information, even though it may seem that a text is more personalized and can also incorporate events and information that do not necessarily have a timeline. 

[timeline src=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I0y35geuqvTo5abXlf2avZ72ubHqYs0intAkiB4x61w/edit#gid=0″ width=”100%” height=”650″ font=”Default” lang=”en” version=”timeline3″ ]

 

I created this Timeline using TimelineJS, an online timeline creation tool. TimelineJS made it easy for me to show you information with a better understanding of the time frames. 

My Timeline includes information about Jan Eliot’s personal and professional life. Starting with a few slides about her life in general and before she became a cartoonist. Her previous jobs were hard to find, as was much of the other information about her. I still haven’t found anything that mentions where she went to high school or any pictures of her in her younger years. When Eliot finally became a graphic designer, she made significant progress toward her career and growing skills and abilities. 

Moving on, the Timeline talks about her most important work over the years as a cartoonist and her syndicated strip Stone Soup. I also mention the acquisition of Sister City by Universal Press Syndicate in 1995, which led to the strip being renamed Stone Soup. 

The Timeline also mentions that Eliot won the ‘Eugene Arts and Letter Award in 2010 for enriching Eugene’s cultural life through art, as she was actively engaging with the local community and promoting its wellbeing. The Timeline ends with Eliot ending the daily strip and retiring in 2020.

I hope the audience will walk away with a better understanding of Eliot’s life and how much she accomplished with her work and a comic strip that ran for about 30 years. The Timeline should answer many questions someone might have regarding Eliot and her work.

While creating this Timeline, I learned the importance of finding reliable data with sources to support the claim. I have seen numerous websites discussing the same thing but vary regarding details. Ensuring the information you read is accurate before spreading it further is essential. Since Jan Eliot is not very public, not much information is easy to verify, making the job harder. Hence, you have to be more careful about the available information.

I have also learned how to organize all the information I have accumulated on Jan Eliot chronologically and display it so that it is easiest for a viewer to learn about her. I have also added to my understanding of her life as it allowed me to lay out the information individually and look at it from a different perspective.

Addition to Wikidata profile – Extra Credit

User: DanielUR-RHCS – Daniel Demtschenko

I added Jan Eliot’s retirement data under ‘work period (end)’ as July 2020 and a website as a reference. 

I also added Stone Soup as a notable work to her page and referenced a website. 

This might be a little weird, but I found her address, too, so I figured, why not? It’s data, after all.

Also added three awards that she has received throughout her life. These awards are listed on this website.

I have added her workplace to her website and added a reference that I found online. 

The references to her occupation field are empty. I added a URL that states that she is a cartoonist. 

I’m unsure if this is required, but I also added references to her first and last name. I just added the document I found from the Department of Education. 

Lastly, I have added that she was featured on a radio station in Oregon. 

 

Summary

Jan Eliot’s life is versatile and eventful, starting by working in industries like sales and service, which eventually helped her become the cartoonist she is today. Eliot is a mother to two daughters and raised them alone in a household, which she had made her strip about. Eliot, in 1990, published her first strip, “Sister City,” closely related to her own life. After five years of Eliot’s first professional strip, it was syndicated by the Universal Press Syndicate and renamed “Stone Soup.” After the syndicated, the strip became daily and was updated to a more digital approach. Characters are now drawn and colored digitally, which made a noticeable difference as the strip became more popular. Stone Soup continued to the center around Val Stone, the 39-year-old. A single mother who is raising her two daughters, Holly and Alex. The strip is significant because it mentions societal problems but treats them with humor while raising awareness. Eliot’s drawing style is unique and straightforward; She never adds excess detail in her strips but keeps them plain and simple. Her backgrounds are never clustered or complicated but most often just white, making the foreground stand out more than it already does from all the bright colors Eliot uses on her characters. In 2010, Eliot received the “Eugene Arts and Letters Award” for enriching Eugene’s cultural life with her work. She continued to create strips for 30 years until, in 2015, she decided to end her daily strip and devote more time to family and friends. She released new strips weekly until 2020, when she announced that she would retire entirely, with her last strip published in July of 2020. It was a difficult choice for Eliot but an excellent way to end her career and enjoy time traveling and with family.

Eliot still lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is part of Eugene’s cultural life. Her strips were set in Eugene, so many of her readers are from Eugene and recognize many of the scenes from real life, which can add to a reader’s enjoyment of the strip. Even though Eliot retired in 2020, Eugene will never forget the impact that Eliot had on its residents and how she helped the community grow in many ways, particularly how she helped Eugene grow in the art sector.

 

References:

“Jan Eliot.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, January 11, 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Eliot. Accessed September 17, 2023.

“Stone Soup.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, August 30, 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup_(comic_strip). Accessed September 17, 2023.

“Jan Eliot – from the Archive.” KBOO, July 7, 2020, kboo.fm/media/81760-jan-eliot-archive. Accessed September 17, 2023.

New:

“National Cartoonists Society.” NCS, nationalcartoonists.com/author/jan-eliot/?v=f24485ae434a. Accessed October 29, 2023.

Creator of the Internationally Syndicated Comic Strip. “Jan Eliot.” Jan Eliot – Bio | Keynote Speaker | National Speakers Bureau, nationalspeakers.com/jan_eliot/bio. Accessed October 29, 2023.

Computer Writing and Research Lab, Department of Rhetoric and Writing. “Interview with Jan Eliot, Creator of Stone Soup.” Viz., viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/interview-jan-eliot-creator-stone-soup.html. Accessed October 29, 2023.

“Comics: ‘Stone Soup.’” The Washington Post, WP Company, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59819-2003Oct21.html. Accessed October 29, 2023.

CSotD: Profile – Jan Eliot – The Daily Cartoonist. 26 July 2023, https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2023/07/26/csotd-profile-jan-eliot/.

“Jan Eliot.” KLCC | NPR for Oregonians, https://www.klcc.org/tags/jan-eliot. Accessed 14 Dec. 2023.

Brooks, Valerie. “Valerie J Brooks – Gobsmacked: Confessions of a Working Writer: Interview with Cartoonist Jan Eliot, Creator of ‘Stone Soup.’” Valerie J Brooks – Gobsmacked, 26 Oct. 2011, http://gobsmackedwriter.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-cartoonist-jan-eliot.html.