Is cartooning the way to a healthier, less stressful life? Artist Muriel Scheps is convinced it just may be.

"We all have things in our lives that we find unbearable, yet can't seem to make go away. When this happens, our friends and relatives often us give us the advice, "Get used to it." Of course, that's much easier said than done," Ms. Schneps says.

"When it comes to getting used to it, a cartoon can do wonders. Maybe that's why most people who pick of a copy of The New Yorker, read the cartoons first. It's a quick way to distance one's self from the problems of day by laughing it all off."

Get Used to It, a collection of Schneps' original, light-hearted, often bizarre and flat-out funny cartoons, will be released in summer 2020 by San Francisco-based IFSF Publishing.

According to her publisher, Brooks Roddan, the book itself came about in a completely unexpected way. "I've known Muriel for years," said Roddan. "I knew her as a fine artist, an accomplished painter, but didn't know she made cartoons. One day my wife and I were visiting her, and she happened to have a stack of her drawings laying on the table. We started flipping through them, and soon we were laughing our heads off. We decided right then and there that the world needed a book of Muriel's cartoons."

Schneps's cartoons are quirky collection of cartoons involving maladjusted men and women, screaming moms, annoying dog owners, prairie therapists, surreal scenes, and animals and space aliens that are totally miffed by human behavior.

"Laughing at adversity is serious business," said Schneps. "We need all the help we can get doing it. Dancing and cartoons can chase any problem away."

Muriel Schneps was born in the Germantown district of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She showed talent in art as a child, and while in elementary school took classes at The Fleichers Art School in Philadelphia, and while in high school at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1972, she moved to New York, where she took classes briefly at the Art Student League of New York. Over the years, she studied under several notable instructors, including Marshal Glasier and Daniel Green.

She painted for several years in NYC, and then moved to Seattle, where she worked feverishly at her craft for another two years. Her next stop was San Francisco, which would remain her home for the next 25 years. Her art has been featured in numerous gallery shows in San Francisco over the years, and she was often a familiar figure at the wharf, where she made pencil and acrylic portraits on the street. Muriel also painted on the streets of Paris for several months. She has received various awards for her work at art exhibitions.

She has dabbled in stand-up comedy, and performed in a variety of sketches for Kirk's Notes, a cable access TV show in San Francisco that ran from 2000….

"When I was told about her story, interested for sure. Then I saw the drawings and writing, laughed and got it. Saw it all together, couldn't stop laughing nor put it down.Realistic, clever, shows us why humor counts. A true treasure of insight and artistry." - Thomas Ingalls

"Is this description or praise? A poet once called a poem, 'the brain braining'. The same might be said of Muriel's 'cartoons', as so many of them tap into that unmapped territory of consciousness that has suddenly awoken from a deep sleep, only to be thrust into human wakefulness, able to x-ray the fantastically strange funny-bones of each. Is Muriel a comic? I think so, having seen these pieces now many times and laughing again every time I see them. A social critic? Definitely. An artist? Yes, only an artist could render her subject matter with such deadly humorous precision. 'Get Used to It' is not only the personal record of highs and lows of recovery from life threatening circumstances, it's the comi-tragic tale of our times." - Brooks Roddan