Cartoonist gives little shot at getting older
Cartoonist Sandra Bell-Lundy thinks comic strips are very relevant now.
“If anything, I think comics are in their own little golden age … in a resurgence. I think a lot of it has to do with graphic novels … eightto 12-year-olds who are using them and comics because they find them enjoyable, and use them to read,” said Bell-Lundy Saturday afternoon from Port Colborne.
Bell-Lundy was signing copies of her collection of Between Friends comic strips, titled Death of a Saleswoman, at Something Else Port Colborne.
The book comes from comic strips published in 2011 and 2012.
“I went online to where my comics are archived and picked ones that appealed to me. I work for dailies (newspapers) in sequences for a week and if there was a theme I particularly liked, I included it. They are my personal likes,” said the cartoonist as to how she chose the strips for the book.
Strips were also chosen from ones that had big reader reactions.
Bell-Lundy said Death of a Saleswoman plays on how her characters have aged over the past 20plus years, because she’s aged in that time.
“When I started this strip, Maeve was divorced and single, Susan was married with no children, and Kim was single. Since then, Kim is married and has a stepson, Susan adopted a little girl … and the characters are all in their 50s now.”
The title of the collection is a ripoff of Death of a Salesman, she said, and is a little shot at getting older in life.
“Not all the gags are about getting older, but it certainly comes into play. My characters now wear glasses for reading, where before they didn’t. The kids are older and that’s another reflection of ongoing. It’s just little things, instead of talking about daycare, now they are talking about retiring.”
Bell-Lundy said while men read her strips, for the most part her main readership is women.
“They identify with this because it’s really a personal inside look at what goes on with the interaction between them (the characters). I think that’s what is the big appeal for my particular strip.”
Bell-Lundy, of Welland, said she’s always drawn cartoons as a hobby, but started to self-syndicate in 1990 and in 1994 was picked up by King Syndicates, which distributes her strips internationally.
“I’m in about 175 papers worldwide. I have about 10 papers in India; I seem to do very well in India. I’m in papers in Australia, Jamaica, Trinidad, Sweden, South Africa and the Maldives. Besides Canada and the U.S., I’m in about 10 other countries.
Bell-Lundy said she came to Something Else for the book signing because of store owner Gail Todd.
“Gail recommended me for a speaking engagement, so I sent her a book to thank her. I asked if she would mind selling some copies in the store. She was very enthused and asked me to come down.”