When Nancy Beiman was 65 and contemplating retirement from her job as a professor of animation, she had no clue as to how she would fill her days. “Many people take up an artistic hobby. But what was I, a professional artist, supposed to do? Take up accounting?” Before she could embark on a crash course in spreadsheets, she woke up one morning with the idea for a comic strip.
The result was FurBabies, a series about a blended family of dogs, a cat and a child who can all speak the same language. Shawm, an Afghan hound, and Stella, a Francophile poodle fond of haute couture, act as stand-in parents to nine-year-old Kate while her human parents work long hours.
Read of Nancy the animator, of Nancy the cartooning teacher, of Nancy the comic strip creator.
Following her friend’s tutoring, she wrote 24 mini-scripts and a few months later, in April 2023, she submitted them to Andrews McMeel, owner of the website GoComics. “I was extremely surprised to get signed by them on first submission. It was a nice feather in my cap: the comic industry equivalent of being taken on by Disney or DreamWorks.”
FurBabies can be read at GoComics
Thank you! I think that the author did a great job condensing a very long interview into a concise article.
The print version has a much better headline. “I became a cartoonist and escaped THE AGEISTS.”
I really enjoy FURBABIES. Good article!
I love Nancy’s work and can also recommend her substack newsletter, which was how I found her work to begin with.