Brian Crane is employed in what he describes as "one of the few creative endeavors where you're expected to come up with fresh ideas 365 days a year."
He's been doing that now for 20 years. His popular comic strip, "Pickles," is syndicated by the Washington Post and runs in more than 600 newspapers around the world.
The strip is inhabited by 70-somethings Earl and Opal Pickles, married at least half a century, plus their daughter, son-in-law and grandson. Once in a while, readers will spot a picture of a temple on the wall or an Ensign magazine sitting on the table.
"Even though I can't advocate my religion, in my mind the characters are Latter-day Saints," said Brother Crane, 61, in a phone interview from his home in Sparks, Nev. "They live LDS standards. They don't drink or smoke, and they don't swear. It's clean but funny.
"Humor makes life a lot easier, especially as you get older. A lot of what people call humor today is really putting down or ridiculing. But positive humor builds and reinforces relationships."
There is a difference between light-mindedness and lightheartedness, he noted.
"Some people are terminally serious. Life is a lot easier, and a lot more fun, if we don't take ourselves too seriously." He quotes President Gordon B. Hinckley: "We've got to have a little humor in our lives. … If the time ever comes when we can't laugh at ourselves, it will be a sad time."
Brother Crane believes humor helps people get through rough patches in life. "If we can laugh at it, we can live with it" he said. "Laughter is like changing a baby's diaper. It doesn't solve any problems permanently, but it makes things better for a while."
An Idaho native who graduated in art from BYU, Brother Crane worked in advertising and publishing for nearly two decades before trying the cartooning he'd always wanted to do. The first three syndicates rejected it. But his wife, Diana, encouraged him to keep trying, and after the Washington Post Writers Group picked up "Pickles" in 1990, he "retired" and started a new career.
Being creative every day is hard work.
"People don't care how funny you were yesterday, they just want you to be funny today," he said. "Ideas don't come on cue. There are days when I think I'll never get a new idea again."
He's always listening to conversations going on around him and draws on his own childhood experiences as well. In addition, friends sometimes send him things they think might be used in the strip.
He does most of the "thinking" in the morning and draws the cartoon in the afternoon. Evenings and Sundays are set aside for family and his responsibilities on the high council of the Sparks Nevada Stake. (He notes this is his third time serving in that capacity and adds, "Maybe I'll get it right.") He acknowledges that experiences as Young Men president and Scoutmaster have provided material for the strip.
While none of the characters have aged a bit in the 20 years since "Pickles" first ran, its creator's own seven children have grown up, and he and his wife are awaiting the arrival of their ninth grandchild. They are a joyful, renewable source of humor for the cartoon and for life.
"Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and joyful," he said. "A righteous sense of humor is an expression of that joy."
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