I can't believe I'm getting paid for this,” beams Sandra Bell-Lundy, of Welland. “I'm doing a comic strip! I think that it's really cool that I get to do something as a career that I would do as a hobby anyway.”
Bell-Lundy is the creator of “Between Friends”, a daily comic strip which has been syndicated with King Features for 17 years. It appears in nearly 130 newspapers worldwide. She says she still gets excited when she opens the newspaper and sees something she created on the page in front of her.
“I think it's really cool to see my work, still, even after all this time...and it's beside all these other people that I admire and I enjoy and I'm there with them,” she laughs. “ I still get a real kick out of that.”
“Between Friends” focuses on the friendships and lives of three women: Maeve, Susan and Kim.
“Most of the time they are little sequential stories that are humorous. I usually do about a week on one theme. Sometimes I'll have ongoing stories, but they're intermittent.”
Bell-Lundy says she is flattered that readers connect with her characters; sometimes fans are so enthusiastic (or dismayed) about a developing plot that they will write her and voice their concerns.
“I did a series about Maeve reconnecting with her ex husband, Simon, and he was moving in with her because he needed a place to stay. I would get mail from people saying ‘ I hope that you're not going to let Maeve get together with him again' And they're really mad because they don't like Simon and they think she's smarter than that. They connect with the characters, and they get really involved.”
And while most of the storylines are based on humour, Bell-Lundy has written about serious themes such as fertility, adoption and domestic violence.
“The strip is reality based so once in a while I will do something on a more serious note if I have a passion or a real interest in it,” she says. “ And I have done a story line on domestic violence...I had a friend that had been in that situation like 30 years ago, so the storyline started from there.”
Bell-Lundy did extensive research at the University of Western Ontario's Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children, as well as Gillian's Place in St. Catharines.
“I talked to them and I fashioned the story from those things and it had a tremendous response. I heard from survivors of abuse and from clergy and high school teachers and university professors and law enforcement. I had well over one hundred responses.”
It became very emotional towards the end.
“I remember one day I was sitting at my computer and I just started to cry because the amount of mail was overwhelming itself, but it was the contents of the mail that was overwhelming as well. People said I did a good job with the story.”
Bell-Lundy says while her life and experiences have an influence on “Between Friends”, people should realize that the comic strip is fiction.
“It's writing from my life, but not verbatim. It's just bits and pieces. The stories have to fit my character. Although my characters are probably influenced by me, it's not exact. Some people will write to me and say ‘were you doing this?' and I tell them ‘not really; don't think that the strips are exactly about me.'”
There was, however, one storyline which developed straight from Bell-Lundy's heart.
“I did a series on infertility, quite a long time ago, because my husband and I had dealt with infertility.”
Bell-Lundy was eventually able to become pregnant, but the character of Susan was not.
“I had decided to bring in kids for Susan, but after everything my husband and I had gone through I couldn't just have Susan get pregnant easily. So I had her face infertility and she eventually adopted. That (storyline) received a lot of mail.”
Bell-Lundy says she enjoys giving back to the community and was “excited” when she was asked to work on a campaign with the Canadian Cancer Society.
“I created three comic strips featuring my characters. The Canadian Cancer Society was doing a campaign to promote regular mammograms for women over 50,” she explains. “And I was really pleased to be able to help them. They printed up the stories on posters and used one of my strips on the container for their 'Thing-a-ma-boob'. They even did a little flash animation of the strips (which is featured on their website at www.thingamaboob.ca.”
The Thing-a-ma-boob is a device made up of different sized beads depicting the various sized lumps that can be detected through regular mammograms.
Often women think the mammogram will be uncomfortable so they avoid scheduling one, and Bell-Lundy's comic strip uses sensitive humour to show how simple the mammogram really is.
Bell-Lundy says that working on the Thing-a-ma-boob campaign was “exciting; especially watching the actors bring my characters to life when they were doing the reading for the animation.”
And although being a cartoonist is “just so cool” it is also very hard work.
“I think some people look at a comic strip and they just think ‘oh that's fun, I could do that' ... but creating a comic strip is very hard work. You have to have seven days a week perpetually. I don't get a holiday unless I work double, and if I'm sick I still have to have something to submit. There's nobody that can do it for me.”
Bell-Lundy has released two anthologies of “Between Friends” collections; “Hello, Daughter” and “Coffee, Tea and Reality”. For more information visit her website at www.betweenfriendscartoons.com.