"Greg Evans," says Dennis Wepman in 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics, "taught junior and senior high school art in his native California, worked as promotion manager and graphic artist for a TV station in Colorado, and entertained with a robot at trade shows and fairs before he sold Luann to News America Syndicate in 1984." Evans's heroine, the thirteen-year-old Luann DeGroot, deals with the trials and tribulations of her adolescence in her own inimitable fashion--finding answers to common teenage problems like dating, lack of money, school, and older brothers. "Luann neither sentimentalizes nor demonizes the period of life it features," declares Wepman: "rather, its sometimes poignant humor derives from its honest portrayal of the sibling hostility, academic tedium, and adolescent angst of its characters."

Evans's ambition to be a professional cartoonist dates back as far as he can remember. It was "probably in my chromosomes or something. I'm one...