Between Friends

One of the cool things about the cartooning business is getting to meet and interact with a really talented and interesting group of people. Back in the fall of 2007 John and I had the good fortune to attend the Festival of Cartoon Art in Columbus, Ohio. This is a terrific event that happens once every three years and is a great place to meet cartoonists from all the different parts of the industry. There were several interesting presentations and panel discussions and also many opportunities just to socialize. The only downside to my experience there was that I do not always immediately connect a person's name with their work and there were several folks to whom I was introduced but could not be sure if I knew their feature or not. On one hand, this was probably a good thing, as this is a pretty professional gathering and I may have found myself fawning over my favorite cartoonists to the point of embarrassment, but the down side is that I missed my opportunity to get to know some of my favorite artists.

One of those artists is Sandra Bell Lundy, creator of the comic "Between Friends." I think I remember being quickly introduced - I know we sat at the same table for a meal at least once, maybe twice, but I just didn't make the connection. Until we were in the car. At 12:00 a.m.. Heading back to Wisconsin.

Between Friends is one of my favorite comics - whenever I read it I feel as if I am reading about myself or one of my women friends, and I couldn't believe I had missed my chance to tell her how much I enjoy it. Sheepishly, I contacted her by email after the event. She very graciously told me that similar things had happened to her in the past and how helpful it is when, at such an event, the artists have their feature on their name tags. That was the beginning of a lasting correspondence, and also a discovery of her terrific blog, which is linked at the bottom right of this page.

For those of you that may not be familiar with the strip, here is a sample that I think captures Sandra's humor very well.

As with Edison, if your local paper does not carry Between Friends you have a couple of options to see it regularly, either on the dailyink or through Comics Kingdom. (I will be explaining these services in more detail in a later post.) Or click on Sandra's blog link below and then click on the animated widget that is on her site.

Enjoy!!