"I'm really thrilled to be in Montreal," said Sandra Bell-Lundy, a Canadian comic-strip artist who started sketching her friends in high school and hasn't stopped.

She was always known among family and friends as "the one who drew."

Creator of the Between Friends strip that features stories of three modern working women, Bell-Lundy, 48, has juggled children and a home life with her demanding job of producing a daily strip.

"It's a full week's work," she said from her Welland, Ont., home. "It's not so much a job; it's a lifestyle."

The three women in the strip - Maeve, Kim and Susan - are all in the working world, "dealing with daycare and the things working women deal with," Bell-Lundy said. "These women characters have their own personalities; they're individuals."

When she signed on with the King Features syndicate in 1994, her husband was worried she'd run out of ideas, she said.

She had no such worries. And she intends to have her characters age as the strip progresses.

"That's, I think, how you stay fresh - at least for me."

Labels: Quebec