The News Page

Copyright notice: Images, photographs, cartoons and text on this website can
only be copied or reproduced with written permission from Stephanie Piro or John Nolan.

We've already had too much snow, which means
I've been staying indoors with a warm fire and designing
a brand new 2010 cat calendar for all our cat loving friends.
Here's a small preview:

It's tricky to draw black cats because you want the details of their expressions
to show up. When you see this full size, I think you'll appreciate what I've drawn!

Order them directly from my Cafepress shop.
Click here!

On the Cover of “The Cartoonist!”

Cartoonist Cover LR

Some people dream of being on the cover of the Rolling Stone. There was even
a great 70’s song about it. In the cartooning world one of the most exciting things
is having your work featured on the cover of the National Cartoonist’s Society magazine
“The Cartoonist” and I am honored to be this month’s cover girl!

When Frank Pauer, “The Cartoonist”’s editor, contacted me…I joked that
they must have run out of big names. He was so gracious and professional
when he interviewed me that he was able to take all my babbling about my
career etc and turn it into a fantastic retrospective of my life in cartooning.
Plus the article is laid out very beautifully and my cartoons look very vibrant
in color on the glossy paper. I am thrilled to be a part of this issue. I wish you
all could see it. I am not sure about copyright restrictions reproducing it, but
I’ll post a couple of samples so you can see what an amazing job Frank did:

Cartoonist story 1 LR

Cartoonist story 3. LR

Yipes! The month went by really fast.
Well, here's a brand new book lover design
I just uploaded to my cafepress shop.
This one is for the busy book lover.

Gads, it's October! I've had trouble trying to do a blog,
which I will endeavor to conquer eventually, but meanwhile
I have updated the cartoons, yes, I know, it's been a while, so you
will notice summer cartoons mixed in with brand new Halloween ones.
Alas, such is the life of a full time cartoonist/illustrator/librarian/gardener/ someone
who needs a life now and again! Also, rather than dating this site even MORE, I'm going to
stick with the month, rather than an exact updating date. Not so good as a daily effort,
but still waaay better than an annual one!

Tomorrow, my interview with my cartooning girlfriend, Sandra Bell Lundy,
will be up on her Between Friends blog, right here:

Between Friends

This is my second interview, recently, and both were
interesting and thought provoking to do!

Friday, I had the great pleasure of doing a cartoon workshop
in Hillsboro, NH, at the Fuller Library, a fantastic library in
an amazing huge old Victorian house. There were 16 kids signed up
and we did some character development and one of my favorite programs
I call expressionism where I get one kid to make the expression I tell them to their partner
while the partner draws them. Then they switch. There's a lot of laughter, and
at this program, kids becoming friends and asking for phone numbers.

Big thanks to librarian Cathy Marciniak for inviting me and not giving up
on my crazy schedule!

He asked some great questions, so it was enjoyable participating. He'll be doing
interviews with some of the other Chix, so, stay tuned!

We just got back from vacation. Lots of fun being on the road
and NOT flying since it has become such an ordeal, anyway.

Check out the Chix blog for our visit with Margaret Shulock, the Tuesday Chick! www.thesixchix.com

We took the Tacoma, and headed to DC to visit the Divine Ms. Nico
and her equally Divine husband, Jeremiah. We saw a terrific play that
was part of the DC Fringe Festival:

Dizzy Miss Lizzy's Roadside Revue's production of "The Oresteia",
which had an amazing cast. There was singing, dancing, knife throwing!

One of the reasons I've been behind in posting
on this site is I've been involved in an art project.
I blogged about it on the Chix site, and I will copy it here,
so, here's a link to the Shoe page:
Getting into Shoe Business

Then, I'm off to a library conference, but then I'm on vacation
and will upload new cartoons!

Yes, I've been very, very bad. But when you see
What I've been up to... you will be very understanding!

First off, I promise to upload the new cartoons this week!!!
Secondly, I've made some mini comics. Some are mini graphic novels and "Why Ask For The Moon"
and "Perfect Fit" are collections.
These are all hand-made, signed by yours truly
and can be had for a mere $5.00 each (plus $3.50 postage).

So far, these are the ones available:

You can call 603 755 2926 or e-mail to pay with visa/MC
or order them or pay through Paypal by putting
stephaniepiro@gmail in recipient when you log on.

You've probably read about what the fires in Australia
have done to the people and animals in those areas.
You may remember I did a lot of drawings of animals
for the NH SRP, and they were so interesting, and
I enjoyed drawing them so much that I felt I had to try
and help the animals in some small way. I designed a
fundraising button. Click on the image for details:

Well, it's snowing, once again. One has to bundle up and tackle the elements,

even when one would much rather be curled up reading "Eat, Drink and Be From Mississippi" that you just snagged from the library, or at least drawing up
some new Chix toons.

On a happier note, a couple of years ago, I donated some art, a logo, to a worthy cause, Rochester Reads a literacy advocacy group based in Rochester, NH. The art was very successful and you can see it on bumper stickers all over the place and at certain times of the year as striking banners hanging all over downtown Rochester:

Left to right they are: Pamela Hubbard, Anne May, me,
and Rochester Library Director John Fuchs

Here it is. Pretty cool to have one to hang up at home!

and the other about Noodler's Ink, a wonderful discovery!
it features this sharp character who is also below wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

Check out the Chix site, if you haven't made it a favorite already!
There's lots of fun art and blogs by all the Chix!

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas,
Happy Festivus, Kwanzaa and whatever
personal holidays you choose to celebrate!

Here it is, almost 2009!
Lots of updating needs to be done including photos and news
and I promise ( I know, promises are EASY to make...HARD to keep!)
to do a lot of updating, but, here's what you need to know:
we had a MAJOR ice storm here in NH. Losing power in the cold
is an honest excuse for not updating one's website.
If you don't believe me, here's the true story:

Click on the drawing:

I had wonderful news recently. Two of my Six Chix cartoons that featured cats as the lead characters have won Certificates of Excellence from the Cat Writers' Association! This was a huge surprise, and I am absolutely thrilled to have had my work honored by the CWA for the second time.

Here it is, almost Halloween. I finally uploaded some new new cartoons
and hope to keep this site a bit more updated in weeks to come.

I just got back from the Turning the Page Conference where I learned fundraising advocacy on behalf of the library (along with our Director, Debbie and Tami my co-worker) and met wonderful librarians from Maine and NH and took intensive yet fun classes from a variety of Gates facilitators. I've got lots of new ideas to implement at the library. The highlight was Kevin Carroll an absolutely dynamic speaker who started off the conference on a high note.

Things have been busy, busy, busy. I've been creating programs for the library and am about to head off to a library conference, so have been cartooning like mad before that happens and in-between and blogging on the Chix blog. New projects are in development which I'll post about as they happen.

For those that asked, here is a wedding photo from Nico and Jeremiah's wedding. It was a perfect day. Everything went as smoothly as possible. Here is the happy couple:

Some more good news. The card designs I did for American Greetings are now available at Rite Aid stores and other place under "Women's Humor". Here are a couple of pictures. So, don't forget if you need a birthday card or a card for your best girlfriend, please check these out! It would be great to work with AG again, and good sales is one way to make that happen!!!

And, we are back from vacation, back from another Woody fest, lots of fun and great music, as usual with two break-out performers. One, a local boy from Okemah, wrote remarkable songs, very haunting and beautifully sung. His name is John Fullbright. Check out his Myspace page. And the others were three young guys called The Broken Wing Routine. Last year they were buskers at the festival. This year they were on the bill as people attending the festival were so taken with them. They did an unrecorded Woody Guthrie song that just gave you the chills. Check out their Myspace page.

We've been busy, busy, busy catching up on everything. Lots of work. Blogging on the chix site. Check out what the chix have to say at www.thesixchix.com.

Today my beautiful daughter, Nico, is getting married!
I did a couple of tributes to Nico and her husband to be, Jeremiah.

and on the front page of this website.

I just want to take a moment to wish them the very best
on this wonderful day. The first day of summer. Summer solstice.
Good omens for a sunny beginning to a long and happy life together!

The terrific new SIX CHIX Website is up and running.
See what all the Chix are up to with lots of art samples
and our own dish-y blog! The blog was quite a challenge,
for me, anyway,but it seems like I'm finally able to post
my rambling thoughts and artwork.
Quite the accomplishment!

A lot going on since my last posting:
The snow is gone, the garden is planted and
the wedding of the year is almost upon us!
Yes, Nico and Jeremiah's fabulous event on June 21!

I went to two incredible showers that Nico's amazing friends threw for her,
the lovely and amazing ladies Liz Bauman in Maryland and Kerri Centrella in Boston.
I had a blast at both of them! Thanks for being such wonderful friends and hostesses!

I gave a presentation at the NHLA Conference on May 21 and had the best time. Librarians are a terrific group of people, smart AND fun! A great combination! My presentation wascalled
"Confessions of a Weekend Chick / the Library version" .
Lots about my career as both a cartoonist and a librarian. The audience seemed to enjoy themselves as much laughter was heard and interesting questions were asked.
(if you'd like me to come do my presentation at your library
contact me at stephaniepiro@verizon.net )

This was thanks to the wonderful CHILIS Summer Reading Program Committee who asked me to do the art for this year's SRP, "G' Day For Reading" the Australian theme, as I've mentioned. Well, the material is out there in the NH libraries, now.
Everything from posters to t-shirts.
If you live in NH, stop by your local library and check it out!

A couple weeks ago two friends and I attended David Francey's concert in Wolfeboro.
By now you know how much I admire Mr. Francey's work.
More on this here:
David Francey Page

Sad news. Bob Childers passed away. Shocking to hear this.
He was one of our favorite musicians at the Woody Guthrie Free Festival.
We just saw him and many of the other musicians in January. See news below
about the "Ribbon of Highway/Endless Skyway"

Happy Birthday to Nico!
(March 16)
And happy Easter, too!
A little early this year, but to celebrate I've uploaded a week of bunny cartoons
into the new dailies I've posted. Hope they show up on the right days.

Every Easter I add a new bunny cartoon featuring my interpretation
of the intrepid bunny going door to door with his goodies.
Watch out this week for my "Chix" version of the bunny

and here's a link to Saturday.
You can see my cartoons on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer site weekly
as well as all the other Chix!

I'm recovering from a cold and snowed in.
Here's what I've been doing instead of drawing and writing
or snow shoveling etc.
Watching "Jericho"!

The new cartoons are all up for those of you who didn't notice.
The other day, during the food fest below, my good friend Mike Lynch asked me if I'd be willing to do a cartoon about what the first home VCR meant to me, and that the cartoon would then be posted on his friend's website called A Hole In The Head. Of course it meant a great deal, so I drew up a little story, all of which you can see on the site.

Last Saturday night we had the good fortune to attend the
"Ribbon of Highway/Endless Skyway" Woody Guthrie Tribute concert featuring our favorite performers from the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. The line-up we saw included Bob Childers who narrated the life of Woody,

and Jimmie LaFave,

Joel Rafael,

the Burns Sisters

,Sara Lee Guthrie and her husband Johnny Irion and the big surprise,

Radoslav Lorkovic playing accordian and piano.

If you're lucky enough to have the tour come to your area...don't hesitate to grab a ticket and be prepared to have an incredible musical experience and a darn good time!

I was absolutely thrilled to come home last night and find
a fed ex package which contained a CWA MUSE MEDALLION
for my illustrations for "Paws For Thought"!

It is beautiful!
The Cat Writers' Association is a very distinguished
organization of exceptional professional writers and artists,
so winning an award from the CWA is quite an honor !

Thank you to all the judges!
And thanks to Anne Leighton, the author!
This is such a fun and informative book.
It was a pleasure to work on it!

I was thrilled to hear that I won three
Certificates of Excellence
from the Cat Writers' Association!!!

And one each for my illustrations for the two books
"Paws For Thought" and "101 Cool Games for Cool Cats"
A big thank you to the judges for this incredible honor!

October 29, 2007

We just got back from the Ohio State Festival of Cartoon Art,
one of the best festivals and best times we've had at an event.

Between hanging out with old friends, meeting pals from the Wisenheimer and making new friends, and seeing a variety of interesting speakers, it seemed like the weekend just flew by.

Here are some of the fantastic women of cartooning at the OSU weekend:
From left: Sandra Lundy, Jan Elliot, Benita Epstein, Stephanie, Anne Gibbons,
Rina Piccolo, Kim Warp and Deb Peyton.

The highlight of the weekend has to have been Mike Peters, perhaps the funniest human being on the planet, a brilliant editorial cartoonist and of course, the creator of "Mother Goose and Grimm". My cartooning girlfriends, Benita Epstein, Kim Warp, Rina Piccolo, and I got to meet Mike and he was completely charming and talked to us at length about our work and then proceeded to tell us and the rest of our group of friends the most hilarious stories I've ever heard. I wish I could repeat them here, but really, you would need to track him down and ask him about the "secret service" story and Macho, and the UN party story, if you are lucky enough to attend an event where he's speaking.

John got to meet his favorite cartoonist/author, Ted Rall ("To Afghanistan and Back" and "Silk Road To Ruin") and his talk was another highpoint as was getting to hear and finally meet one of my favorite cartoonists, Alison Bechdel. I love her drawings and her characters are complex, funny and political. Her most recent work is the fascinating (and brave!) graphic memoir "Fun Home".

We also enjoyed Frank Stack, author of "The Adventures of Jesus",
and Ray Billingsley, creator of "Curtis" who was a marvelous story teller.

This was our first time attending, but actually the 9th trienniel of the festival.
Many thanks go to the amazing Lucy Caswell and all the OSU volunteers
(including "Chix " fan Carol J. Shelton) for organizing this amazing event!

Presenting another new design for book lovers!
This one is for book club members. Wear this to the next meeting
and make everyone else mad with envy! Plus, the name of your book club
or library can be added to the back of most of these shirts
for a small extra charge (blame Cafepress for that!)

Nico and Jeremiah were just here for a wedding (Congratulations Brendan),
the Rochester fair, and a barrage of gothic fall photo taking:

YAY! The cartoons are updated!
Has it been over a month since I've updated this site??? Yipes!
How will I ever do a blog?
Well, it sounds like a whole new Six Chix site will be coming your way
complete with a shared blog where each of us will keep you informed of all the fabulousness we've been up to as Chix. I'll keep you posted for the launch date!

Coming up in October, John and I, and our new neighbor
cartoonist pal, Mike Lynch, will be attending the
Ohio State University Festival of Cartoon Art.
My good friend, Sandra Bell Lundy, has raved about this event for years,
so we are finally going to check it out. We'll post about it here, when we
get back! We will be flying out of Pease on Skybus, so, we'll let you know
what THAT experience is like, too!

The cartooning world received some very sad news last month. Arnold Wagner,
esteemed cartoonist and cartoon historian passed away in August. He was an original
member of the professional cartooning board, "The Wisenheimer", of which I've been a
member for quite a while. He was the most generous person, always there with answers
or advice to any questions, always supportive if you had a cause you were championing.
He had a wonderful blog called Cartoonology, very commendable, as someone who has
considered a blog, he just went ahead and did it.
I had the good fortune to actually meet Arnold and his lovely wife, Connie,
at the San Francisco NCS Reuben Weekend. The Wagners, John and I, Ted Goff,
Peaco Todd and a number of other cartoonists and friends had a wonderful night out
together at an Italian Restaurant. It was a night of laughter and good talk with some
of the most talented people including Peaco's friends who were in the science field
(and did you know you could remove wine stains from jeans with table salt???
Well, you can!).

On the Wisenheimer, Arnold never complained (not all that much, anyway)
during his illnesses, and his absences were always noticed by the members.
Arnold was the very heart and soul of the cartooning community,
and he will be greatly missed, but his spirit will always be with us.

Well, we finally finished printing the tribute cartoon collection
"This Toon is Your Toon" (title by Aussie Nik Scott!). This was a major undertaking
and a heck of a lot of work.
Thanks so much to all the cartoonists, whom I believe are all listed in previous postings here.
John slaved away, organizing, doing the layouts, writing a fitting introduction, printing, hand folding each copy and then stapling them. Then we hauled them down to our best friend Steve Winterton's studio, where he chopped them so they looked more like REAL books!
Here is what the finished copy looks like:

Our cartoonist pal and esteemed editorial cartoonist
Tom Stiglich, did the front cover art (and donated the original )
and the back cover cartoon is by also esteemed cartoonist
Malcolm McGookin (also from Australia).
Our plan is to donate the 100 books to the
Oklahoma chapter of the Huntington's Disease charity,
and that they will sell them as a fundraiser at the
Woody Guthrie Festival next week.
And that they will either raffle off or auction off
Tom Stiglich's original of the cover!

I was chosen by the NH CHILIS librarians to do all the artwork for
the 2008 Summer Reading Program! This was a great and unexpected honor!
Let me tell you that the snappiest, smartest and most fun people out there are librarians, and NH has some of the very best. I met with the board for this project in Concord, NH, and enjoyed getting feedback (and blueberry muffins). The theme I will be doing art for is"G'day For Reading" an Australian theme, and Tami LaRock of the Goodwin Library in Farmington, NH, ILL'd some marvelous books for me, so I've been sketching away, researching all the incredible wildlife in Australia, many of which I knew about, but the varieties! And the wonderful names!
Who knew there were more than one type of bandicoot?
Don't you just love the word "wombat"?

I also just did two new designs for my Cafepress shop!
These are especially for book lovers and librarians.
Click on the designs to go to the site:

Hope you like them!

The "Fair Game" cartoons are FINALLY updated!
What with all the work I've had lately, plus weeding,
I finally had a chance to update the cartoons and the site, in general!
Hope you enjoy them!

I had a fabulous time in Arlington over Memorial Day weekend with
daughter extraordinaire , Nico, and her fiance Jeremiah.
We tromped around in the heat and saw ALL the DC sites,
the Vietnam tribute wall, the eerie Korean War Memorial,
the huge-er than huge Lincoln statue of the Lincoln Memorial,
the magnificent WWll Memorial,

Plus we got to see "Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World's End"...and DON'T listen to the critics.
This is a GREAT, intense, non-stop, multi-Johnny Depp experience.
Remember, critics didn't like "Love, Actually" either.
I'm talking to YOU, NY Times critics!

COFFEE of the GODs or Goddesses
I have a quote that's all over the internet. Who knows how it got there,
but at least I get a credit for it:

"Behind every successful woman...is a substantial amount of coffee"
I wrote it for the above coffee design in its original version back in the early 90's.

Anyway, I'm occasionally asked by people to use that quote,
and recently, I had the delightful experience of being contacted
by Demetria of Athena Coffee in Hawaii.
She and her family (including Athena, her beautiful daughter!)
actually grow the coffee they sell, and it is truly incredible coffee.
We LOVED it, and we are very picky coffee connoisseurs!
Here is a link to their site

I just got the samples in the mail of the two fabulous books I spent several months illustrating. They are available in the UK, and I will post ordering info here as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, here are the covers. Click on them to see illustration samples!

"Paws for Thought" is by "101 Cool Games For Cool Cats"
Anne Leighton is by Elissa Wolfson

Stephanie assures everyone the Foot of the Week 151, just posted below, is in fact a shoe, although it looks more like an inverted bowling pin wearing a wig.

Also in the chart below, a warm welcome to our first known visitors to the site from Albania, Togo and Cote D'Ivoire.

We have blocked in time from May 23-May 29 to get back to work on the cartoon collection in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, This Toon is Your Toon. The book will be ready to go to our local, friendly UPS franchise printer in early June, and from thence to Okehma, OK in July for sale at the 10th annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, with the proceeds going to finance research for a cure for Huntington's Disease.

Sincere thanks to the 30 or so cartoonists from Scotland, Australia, Canada, the United States and the Dominican Republican for donating a great batch of work. Taken together, the cartoons are an important graphic statement about the economic, social, environmental and political state of the planet in 2007, and range in tone from whimsy to biting satire.

The Woody Guthrie cartoons continue to arrive via e-mail.
Latest contributors are: NYer cartoonist Barbara Smaller, Roy Schneider,
Patricia Storms, Malcolm McGookin , Marek Bennett
and Friday chick, Kathryn Lemieux!

The two books I illustrated for authors Ann Leighton (Paws For Thought)
and Elissa Wolfson (Cool Games For Cool Cats) will be released very soon and will be available in the UK, and hopefully here, before too long. They were a lot of fun to work on and I think any cat lover would enjoy these terrific books.
Here are a couple of the illustrations I did for each book:

In celebration of Farmington Corner 039 - a true story - and as a tribute to the special internet fraternity who are still making the pilgrimage from afar to read it, Stephanie has drawn some cartoon feet and boots, which are being posted weekly:

(Above) No. 85 Claudia's Stiletto, dropped on the Wisenheimer Board, and found by Rod McKie, a.k.a. Prince Charming, from Edinburgh, Scotland, one lucky day in July, 2003

No. 101 No. 102 No. 103 No. 104 No. 105 No. 106 No. 107 No. 108. No. 109 No. 110

No. 111 No. 112 No. 113 No. 114 No. 115 No. 116 No 117 No. 118 No. 119 No. 120

No. 131 No. 132 No. 133 No. 134 No. 135 No. 136 No. 137 No. 138 No. 139 No. 140

No. 141 No. 142 No. 143 No. 144 No. 145 No. 146 No. 147 No. 148 No 149 No. 150

A warm welcome to visitors from …
Argentina	United States	Philippines	Belgium	Portugal
Aruba	Urugauy	Singapore	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Romania
Bahamas	Venezuela	Taiwan	Bulgaria	Russian Federation
Belize	Virgin Islands (US)	Thailand	Croatia	San Marino
Bermuda	Ascension Island	Viet Nam	Czech Republic	Slovak Republic
Bolivia	Australia	Armenia	Cyprus	Slovenia
Brazil	Cayman Islands	Bhutan	Denmark	Spain
Canada	Christmas Island	Brunei Darussalam	Estonia	Sweden
Cayman Islands	Cocos Islands	Georgia	Faroe Islands	Switzerland
Chile	Cook Islands	India	Finland	Turkey
Colombia	Fiji	Iran	France	Ukraine
Costa Rica	French Polynesia	Israel	Germany	United Kingdom
Cuba	Kiribati	Jordan	Greece	Vatican City State
Dominica	Micronesia	Kazakhstan	Greenland	Yugoslavia
Dominican Rep.	New Caledonia	Kyrgyzstan	Hungary	Benin
Ecuador	New Zealand	Kuwait	Iceland	Cote D'Ivoire
Guatemala	Niue	Maldives	Ireland	Egypt
Guyana	Papua New Guinea	Nepal	Italy	Ghana
Jamaica	Samoa	Oman	Latvia	Kenya
Mexico	Tonga	Pakistan	Lebanon	Mauritius
Dutch Antilles	Tuvalu	Qatar	Lithuania	Morocco
Nicaragua	Cambodia	Saudi Arabia	Luxemburg	Mozambique
Panama	China	Sri Lanka	Macedonia	Namibia
Paraguay	Hong Kong	Syria	Malta	South Africa
Peru	Indonesia	United Arab Emirates	Moldova	Tanzania
Puerto Rico	Japan	Albania	Monaco	Togo
St. Helena	Korea (South)	Andorra	Netherlands	Uganda
Trinidad & Tobago	Malaysia	Austria	Norway	Zambia
Turks & Caicos	Maldives	Belarus	Poland	Zimbabwe