Stone Soup, named for the stone soup

Stone soup

Stone Soup is an old folk story in which hungry strangers persuade local people of a town to give them food. It is usually told as a lesson in cooperation, especially amid scarcity. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is...

fable

Fable

A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...

, is an internationally syndicated American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 written and illustrated by Jan Eliot

Jan Eliot

Jan Eliot is an American cartoonist. She writes and illustrates the comic strip "Stone Soup." She created a previous strip known as "Patience and Sarah," which enjoyed a run of five years in 10 publications....

. The comic strip began as a weekly in 1990. The syndicated daily strip debuted in November 1995.

The Stone family features a family headed by single mother Val, an uncommon contrast with the ordinary nuclear family

Nuclear family

Nuclear family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children. This is in contrast to the smaller single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have...

 depicted in more traditional strips. As the author explained,

When I write I am writing first and foremost for single and working parents. I often felt very isolated and "put down" because of my circumstances (I was a single working mom for 10 years). I even had a teacher tell me that their school "was a better place before all the single moms arrived". My daughters both turned out fabulously, thank you, and I think I was a good parent.

It is common for strip storylines to consist of household squabbles and arguments that are not resolved. Unlike many strips, the characters do age, but at a very slow rate. Val has celebrated her 38th and 39th birthdays in the strip; Alix and Holly were 9 and 12 when the strip began, and are now 10 and 13.

Main Characters

• Valerie (Val) Stone is a 39 year old widow
  Widow
  A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
  
   with two young daughters. She has a professional job which allows her to help support her mother and, in the early years, her sister Joan. On the job she is openly disconcerted by her co-workers' political machinations
  Office politics
  Workplace politics, sometimes referred to as Office politics is "the use of one's individual or assigned power within an employing organization for the purpose of obtaining advantages beyond one's legitimate authority...
  
  . Her home life, however, is the greater source of aggravation, especially when dealing with her daughters. She loves women's sports.
  • Holly Stone is Val's 13-year-old daughter, prone to vanity, entitlement, and getting into fights with her younger sister Alix. She is the stereotypical teenager, viewing her family as "abnormal." She rarely passes up an opportunity to challenge her mother (she taught Alix to say 'Muhhhtherr') and sees almost everything in terms of herself ("In what universe is tuna noodle surprise a reward?"). She loves dressing in revealing or provocative clothes, but she is a feminist at heart.
  • Alix Stone is Val's 10-year-old daughter, a blissfully naive (and pugnacious) tomboy
    Tomboy
    A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of the gender role of a boy, including the wearing of typically masculine-oriented clothes and engaging in games and activities that are often physical in nature, and which are considered in many cultures to be the...
    
     mystified by her sister's histrionics, but often easily influenced by her illogical and lazy behavior (like wearing flip-flop
    Flip-flop
    Flip-flops, thongs, Japanese sandals, or jandals are an open type of outdoor footwear, consisting of a flat sole held loosely on the foot by a Y-shaped strap, like a thin thong, that passes between the first and second toes and around either side of the foot...
    
    s in the November cold). She still has the innocence of youth but Holly tries to teach her cynicism and sarcasm. Val considers her the model of calm and reason among the chaos, almost all of which comes from Holly ("I dress like someone who values freedom and mobility over style").
• "Gramma" Evie Stone lives with her daughter Val and granddaughters. She comes across as crotchety and overly stern with her family, but cuts loose in Reno or when painting. She has no patience for modern parenting methods and rarely passes up the chance to express her views on anything. The kids regard her as a mixed blessing, especially since underneath it all she can often be a barrel of fun. Her cooking is generally much better received than Val's. In 2006, she went abroad to Uganda
  Uganda
  Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
  
   to build houses for an aid organization. She has since returned. It was revealed in a recent strip that she had gotten a tattoo of a butterfly on her shoulder sometimes in her 60's, much to the dismay of Val and Joan. On November 27, 2009, she went to Thailand to work with Habitat for Humanity; she has a new (younger) boyfriend in which she travels the world with on humanitarian voyages. Her daughters worry about her. On 1 July 2010, she tells Val she's coming home for the summer as she (Val) could use the help with the girls. On 14 July 2010, she arrives to a very joyous family reunion with her oldest and the grandkids.

Secondary characters

• Joan Stone is 36 years old, rarely seen without her glasses
  Glasses
  Glasses, also known as eyeglasses , spectacles or simply specs , are frames bearing lenses worn in front of the eyes. They are normally used for vision correction or eye protection. Safety glasses are a kind of eye protection against flying debris or against visible and near visible light or...
  
   on. She is Val's younger sister. At the start of the strip, Joan was an unemployed single mother and dependent on Val. Joan starts her own freelance copywriting
  Copywriting
  Copywriting is the use of words and ideas to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. Although the word copy may be applied to any content intended for printing , the term copywriter is generally limited to promotional situations, regardless of the medium...
  
   business, working from home
  Telecommuting
  Telecommuting or telework is a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links...
  
  . Joan took back her maiden name after her divorce, and kept it when she married Wally in strips that ran on Oct 14-15, 2000.
• Wally Weinstein, introduced in 1995, is Val's down-to-earth next-door neighbor. Wally married Joan in 2000 after a long engagement. A balding and bespectacled insurance
  Insurance
  In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
  
   salesman (he owns his business), he can cook, loves being a dad, and is handy with tools. He thinks hot chocolate
  Hot chocolate
  Hot chocolate is a heated beverage typically consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and sugar...
  
   and donut
  DONUT
  DONUT was an experiment at Fermilab dedicated to the search for tau neutrino interactions. Even though the detector operated only during a few months in the summer of 1997, it was largely successful. By detecting the tau neutrino, it confirmed the existence of the last lepton predicted by the...
  
  s are a panacea
  Panacea (medicine)
  The panacea , named after the Greek goddess of healing, Panacea, also known as panchrest, was supposed to be a remedy that would cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely...
  
  .
  • Andy Gilburt is Wally's 16-year-old nephew, who doesn't think too highly of rules but has no qualms about playing hard rock music at earsplitting levels. Andy moved in with Wally during Wally and Joan's engagement. He has endeared himself to Holly in countless ways. Recently his parents decided to divorce and Andy chose to live permanently with Wally and Joan.
  • Max Krabowsky is 3 years old. He is the preschool son of Joan from her first marriage. Max has two stock emotions: thrilled with life or utterly miserable. He worships action figures, as evidenced by his sudden comprehension of potty training simply by wearing superhero underwear (much to Joan's dismay).
  • Luci Stone Weinstein, Wally and Joan's daughter, was born in strips that ran on July 6–8, 2007 (although her birth certificate stated that she was born on July 8, at 1:30 AM, weighing 9 lbs., 8 oz.) after a pregnancy
    Pregnancy
    Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
    
     storyline that began in October 2006.

Recurring characters

• Phil Jackson, introduced in Stone Soup The Comic Strip, is a motorcycle
  Motorcycle
  A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
  
   police officer
  Police officer
  A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
  
   who fears the world is becoming too hurried for his liking. He is Val's on-and-off boyfriend and the campus cop at Holly's school. He and Val broke up when he "freaked out" about dating someone with children. In "Desperate Households" they are reunited. Early on his complexion was slightly darker than Val's. Over time his skin tone became inexplicably gotten darker and darker until he was almost certainly African American
  African American
  African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
  
  .
• Dickerson is Val's coworker and adversary. He is the stereotypical "suck-up" in the office. When he's not brownnosing the boss, he tries to impress Val with tales of entertaining their boss on his (Dickerson's) boat. In "Desperate Households" Dickerson is laid off as was Val, but she gets re-hired after the company starts to spiral downward. Dickerson has yet to return.
• Rena is Val's office buddy and confidante. Working with Val reminds Rena to enjoy being single and childless. When it comes to cooking, she doesn't think outside the box ("make?").
• Leon Krabowsky is Joan's first husband and Max's biological father. He went out for milk one night and ended up in the Virgin Islands
  Virgin Islands
  The Virgin Islands are the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, which form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean...
  
  . Leon and Joan are divorced when the strip begins, but he occasionally drops by to mooch.
• Susan is the neighborhood vet who also coaches the girls basketball team. She once dated Wally but they broke up when he found out that she didn't want kids and he did. Sometime while Val and Phil weren't together, she and Phil dated (this was never seen in the books).

Biscuit

The apple of Max's eye, but to everyone else, a "yappy little mutt". Officially Holly and Alix's dog, found as a stray, the girls bring her home and promise to take care of the little pup - originally named "Lily" but the family decided on "Biscuit" since she seems to answer to the name. Val provides care and Max provides adoration. Biscuit has a thing for Val's bunny slippers. During Biscuit's first visit to Susan the vet, it is revealed that Biscuit is female.

Val's book club

Val belongs to a book club with an assortment of characters from other strips, including Elly from For Better or Worse

For better or worse

For better or worse may refer to:* "for better for worse", a phrase from traditional Christian marriage vowsIn film:* For Better, for Worse , a 1919 American film...

, Alice

Alice (Dilbert character)

Alice is an engineer from the Dilbert comic strip. She is one of Dilbert's co-workers in the department. She has long curly hair, which transformed into a large and distinctive triangular hairstyle when the character became a regular...

 from Dilbert

Dilbert

Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. First published on April 16, 1989, Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character...

, and Rose/Vicki the biker chick from Rose Is Rose

Rose Is Rose

Rose Is Rose is a syndicated comic strip, written by Pat Brady since its creation in 1984, and drawn since March 2004 by Don Wimmer. The strip revolves around Rose and Jimbo Gumbo, their son Pasquale, and the family cat Peekaboo...

. Cathy

Cathy

Cathy is a feminine given name. It is a pet form of Catherine or Cathleen.Cathy may refer to:-Artists:* Cathy de Monchaux, British sculptor* Cathy Guisewite, American cartoonist who created the comic strip Cathy in 1976* Cathy Sisler, American artist...

was mentioned, but "couldn't come till she found the right man and lost 10 pounds." (She did attend the baby shower for Joan.) The book club also threw a baby shower for Joan, which takes place in "There's No "WE" in Crowning" (published in 2007). This is a short collection that takes the reader from the first onset of Joan's pregnancy till the birth of Luci by a midwife at home.
Strips featuring the book club have appeared on at least two occasions and are republished in the 2005 trade paperback collection. (See below.)

Stone Soup collections

Title	Publication Date	ISBN	Publisher
Stone Soup		ISBN 0-9674102-2-3	Four Panel Press
You Can't Say Boobs on Sunday	1999	ISBN 0-9674102-0-7	Four Panel Press
Stone Soup The Comic Strip	2001	ISBN 0-9674102-1-5	Four Panel Press
Road Kill in the Closet	2003	ISBN 0-9674102-3-1	Four Panel Press
Not So Picture Perfect	2005	ISBN 0-9674102-5-8	Four Panel Press
Desperate Households	2007	ISBN 0-7407-6429-2	Andrews McMeel
There's No "We" in Crowning!	2007	none	Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate, a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, is the world's largest independent press syndicate. It distributes lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird...  (only available from Lulu)
Ho Ho Ho: A Stone Soup Christmas	2007	none	Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate, a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, is the world's largest independent press syndicate. It distributes lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird...  (only available from Lulu)
This Might Not Be Pretty	2008	ISBN 0-9674-1026-6	Four Panel Press