For all those would-be cartoonists who did not win the "Luann & Friends Cartoon Contest," take heart. "Luann" creator Greg Evans had his share of disappointments as well.

"I didn't keep count, because it was so depressing," the San Marcos resident said about the number of rejections he received before finding success with the daily comic strip "Luann."

Contestants were asked to submit a family-themed original cartoon or a caption for a predrawn "Luann" cartoon in the contest. Younger contestants were asked to color a black-and-white "Luann" scene.

Besides Evans, contest judges were North County Times cartoonist Mark Thornhill and Olivia Luther, museum and exhibition coordinator at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

The center's museum will display the winning entries in its "Luann & Friends: Comic Families" exhibit through Oct. 1. The display is also related to the premiere of "Luann -- Scenes From a Teen's Life," a musical by Evans that will debut at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, on Sept. 15 and run for three nights.

Prizes for the original cartoon and caption winners included gift certificates to Mickey's Art Store, tickets to the musical, museum passes and signed "Luann" books. Coloring contest winners received tickets to the musical, art supplies from Mickey's and children's art books.

Evans said it was difficult to pick the winners once he and other judges narrowed the choices down to the top contenders, but Lena Gallagher's original cartoon and Eileen Fernandez's original caption to a "Luann" strip stood out to take first place in their categories.

"The artwork and the joke did have a fresh stamp of individuality about it, which kind of set it apart," he said about Gallagher's comic.

Evans was impressed with Fernandez's caption to a strip that showed Luann on the couch while her mother, Nancy, carried a basket of laundry. While most entries wrote a caption about Luann relaxing while her mother did chores, Fernandez took the joke in another direction.

"There's a lot of definitions of humor, but one of them is the unexpected, and that's what made this one work," Evans said.

And what would the creator of the characters have them say in the scene? Evans himself was at a loss.

"I thought that was a challenging one," he said. "I know these characters better than anyone, and I couldn't think of anything in there."

Asked what advice he would give to budding cartoonists, Evans said: "Don't do a strip about a teenage girl that's better than mine. That'd be No. 1."

On a more serious note, Evans said, cartoonists should be original and true to themselves.

"You've got to find your own voice, your own uniqueness," he said. "That's what made 'Calvin and Hobbes' great. It was a clever concept, but it was (artist Bill) Watterson himself who made that strip phenomenal. I could have come up with the idea of a boy and his talking tiger, and it wouldn't have been anywhere as great as Watterson's."

Evans said when he wasn't copying other cartoonists in his first attempt at a strip, he was trying to force his way into any opening he could find.

"I'd look at the comic pages and say, 'What's missing here? Oh, there's no strips about circuses! I'm going to do a strip about circuses!' "

Now that he has found his voice, Evans said keeping his stories and characters fresh is the hardest part of writing a strip.

Evans is challenging himself in a new way this year by turning his "Luann" characters into a musical set to debut at the CCAE on Sept. 15.

"I realized I really don't have the chops to write a real musical a la 'La Miz,' so I decided from the start to write a revue with a series of blackouts and songs," he said about the play, which will run three nights.

Audiences will recognize Evans' familiar characters and also experience his hidden talent as a songwriter.

"I've always enjoyed writing music, and now that they have computers with sequences, you can layer in strings and do great drum loops," he said about how he wrote the play's 20 original songs.

Evans said in college he "played the guitar a lot like all the other hippies," and some years ago he wrote a musical, but most of his songs have been heard only by his wife.

The play is a production of Center ARTES at Cal State San Marcos with Rancho Buena Vista High School, in cooperation with the CCAE.

"I've seen a ton of musicals and I love the whole idea, so when this proposal came up, I thought, well, OK, I'll see if I can write it," Evans said. "I'm really looking forward to seeing it come to life."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

Information on Cartoon Exhibit, play

The museum at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, will display the winning entries in its "Luann & Friends: Comic Families" exhibit through Oct. 1.

"Luann -- Scenes From a Teen's Life," by Greg Evans will debut at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, on Sept. 15 and run for three nights. Performances are at 7 p.m. Sept. 15 (kids night out/family performance); 2 and 7 p.m. Sept. 16; and 2 p.m. Sept. 17. Tickets are $10. Call (800) 988-4253.