Stone Soup: The First Collection of the Syndicated Cartoon

by Jan Eliot

Whats a real family like? These days its bound to resemble the lovable clan in Stone Soup. Stone Soup is a funny, irreverent, sympathetic comic strip read by more than 8 million people every day. This... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0836228936
• ISBN13: 9780836228939
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.5" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Who says feminism can't be funny?

There seems to be a lot of debate going on in the previous reviews over whether or not Stone Soup is feminist. My opinion: of course it is! And it's quite refreshing to see a comic strip that isn't afraid to be. Better yet, the strip is never preachy and, unlike Foxtrot (to which it gets compared frequently), it's almost always funny. I've also seen a lot of comparisons to For Better or for Worse (helped along perhaps by the fact that Lynn Johnston wrote the introduction to this collection) which I find closer to the truth. The big difference there is that unlike FBoFW, Stone Soup is almost never sentimental. Eliot always finds a way to squeeze a laugh out of good times and bad, without dwelling on her storylines or overdeveloping them. While her focus may be on single mothers, her humor is accessible to one and all. And of course, it helps that Val and the gang always manage to keep their sanity intact at the end of each story!

Buy a copy for everyone you know!

Someone below called this a feminist comic strip but I think that's misleading, especially given the current difficulties in just defining that word. Yes, it happens to have several female characters, and yes it's not a stereotypical mom-dad-dog-2.4-kids-wagon-picket-fence family, BUT: This strip is about all of us, everyone of every sex and age and family style, and it's enjoyable to (and enjoyed by) a wide range of people -- even ordinary traditional people and even (gasp) men! My husband loves it, my 60-something dad loves it, and so on. I think the publisher's blurb on the back of the second Stone Soup collection ("You Can't Say Boobs On Sunday") got it right: "Anyone who's ever had a family, been in a family, or known a family seems to love Stone Soup. ... Readers see themselves and their families in Stone Soup, and they love it." That goes for people who don't consider themselves family-oriented, and for people who do.Everyone I've known who's read any Stone Soup has enjoyed it and wound up quoting or passing around some of the strips.Recommended reading for everyone except total grumps, I say.

LAUGH OUT LOUD FUNNY!

I read a lot of comic strips and most make me smile, some invoke a chuckle. Stone Soup is the only one that makes me laugh out loud over and over. My refrigerator is covered in Stone Soup and so is the wall of my cubicle at work. BUY THIS BOOK AND THE SECOND COLLECTION, YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

A wonderful feminist strip!

Finally, a truly feminist comic strip about non-traditional families! I've been waiting for Stone Soup for years, but I didn't realize it until the Boston Globe started running it about a year ago. I had to read it from the beginning, so I ordered this book and read it cover to cover in one evening, then read it cover to cover again the next day.And if you love Stone Soup as much as I do, do yourself a favor and look up Jan Eliot's earlier work in the Women's Glib projects. You can see the seeds of Stone Soup forming, as well as other completely unrelated work of hers with an equally feminist slant.

Wonderful!!!

Loved this book!!! I'm a big collector of comic strip books....Can not wait until the next one comes to the stores! I enjoy family type comics and its nice to see a different type (but common?!) one portrayed. I've shown this to my friends and they have all seen themselves in one or more of the characters, So Kudos to Jan Eliot for the book!! Let's hope to see the next one soon.