Two local women pool talent in creative endeavor
The way Carol Mills and Sue Fogarty see it, we all need some kind of therapy.
The two Geneva women realized that we often turn to our friends to find that therapy. While men have poker nights and gatherings for sports events, the ladies' experiences revealed that many women have wine nights, margarita nights, coffee and chocolate sessions, or various other formats in which to gather on a regular basis.
"We both belong to groups and we just got to thinking it would be fun to create an amusing and entertaining cartoon that reflects these types of groups," Mills said.
Thus, came along the creation of the "Wine Nite" cartoon strip and accompanying Web site at wine-nite.com, which has been in place about four months.
"We kind of describe it as cartoon commentary," Mills said of the cartoon that features three female characters - Tess, Edie and Sam - getting together for light conversation. "We view it as sort of a New Yorker magazine type (cartoon) frame with a target audience of those 30 and older."
Mills, who does freelance marketing and event planning work, has been friends with Fogarty, who manages Third Street School of Dance in St. Charles, since they met 20 years ago when Mills was owner of Child's Play in Geneva.
"Sue is the artist and we just developed this as a print cartoon, with our goal being to get it in some sort of women's magazine," Mills said. "Creating the Web site makes it easier for us to show to people, but we will be doing a mass e-mailing (to prospective suitors) in the future."
Mills and Fogarty meet twice a week to collaborate on the strip and talk to visitors through the site's blog. They also have been plotting marketing strategies for future development of the site and cartoon.
"It's not really about promoting these types of groups, though we do like to hear about any groups that women might be involved with," Mills said. "This really is just about being amusing and entertaining.
"The cartoon celebrates all the courageous, frustrated, resourceful, triumphant and funny women who meet in a similar fashion."
A real spider man: One of the more interesting achievements I heard about in the past year had to do with a Geneva High School graduate who got some international acclaim for revealing that a certain type of spider didn't eat insects - it was a vegetarian.
Christopher Meehan, a 2003 Geneva graduate and a Villanova University graduate with a masters in biology, revealed his findings about the Bagheera kiplingi spider in the Current Biology journal, in what amounts to the first discovery of its kind.
Those who study arachnology had long believed that all known species of spiders strictly ate insects.
Meehan said he actually wasn't too fond of spiders, especially web builders with fangs. But he did develop an interest in the jumping spider species.
He said his research isn't "about spiders for spiders' sake," but because some species have been around so long and others are relatively "new," they provide an opportunity to research some fundamental questions about evolution.
Meehan pointed to his biology class at Geneva High School with instructor Kevin Gannon as a key to falling in love with the science.
You can learn more about this interesting fellow and his research in a Daily Herald feature story next week.
And next Wednesday, I'll mention a few of the interesting names and places that were in this column as I look back at "Talk of the Town" in 2009.