PORTLAND, Ore. -- They say life imitates art -- and that apparently includes the funny pages.

"Stone Soup" comic strip creator Jan Eliot did NOT realize what she was getting into when she decided that one of her characters, Joan, would be having a baby at home.

But then came the e-mails. Eliot -- who lives in Eugene -- has received more than 100 e-mails from people in the past two weeks thanking her for bringing the issue of home birth into the mainstream.

Eliot says the topic has drawn some of the largest response to date from her comic strip, which is syndicated nationally.

According to the most recent numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics, less than one percent of all births in the nation are done at home.

But some figures suggest the percentage of home births is much higher in Oregon.