Stephan Pastis, Creator of Pearls Before Swine
21 February 2003
The desire for fame, fortune and immortality runs deep through our culture. So deep, in fact, that the desire reaches right down to Rat level. But a Pig could be just as happy without any great distinction. The opposing goals of the main characters of Pearls Before Swine make for riotous comic humour in this rising-star strip.
Stephan Pastis knew he wanted to be a cartoonist, even as a youngster. He successfully drew cartoons for his school newspapers, though he had no formal art training. Thinking that he couldn’t make his livelihood in cartoons, Pastis enrolled in Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley when he was 18. He graduated in 1989 and continued on to the UCLA Law School to become a lawyer.
Still with comics tumbling around in his blood, Pastis drew a popular comic about the escapades of a law student entitled “Rosen” for the university paper. He developed the “Rat” character while at law school in 1991. Literally. “…I was hopelessly bored in a class of the European Economic Community,” he noted on comics.com. *(1) The over-confident, outspoken Rat has been the mainstay of his cartoon work ever since. Pastis graduated in 1993, and found a position as an attorney with Thornton, Taylor, Downs and Becker in San Francisco.
By 1996, during the early years of his career as a legal eagle, Pastis had generated several comic strips and sent his work out to the syndicates. Rejection slips were the usual response. He continued to develop comics and came up with the first attempt at Pearls Before Swine, with the disparaging Rat and naïve Pig as the feature characters, in 1997. He built a large portfolio of work throughout 1998, but rather than submitting it for syndicate examination, he set it aside. The sting of past rejection was too strong.
Eighteen months later, Pastis polled his fellow attorneys to choose which strips were best, then he gathered up the nerve to submit his top 40 Pearls Before Swine selections. Three syndicates showed interest in his distinctive work. Pastis signed with United Media to launch his comic as a Web strip. It debuted on comics.com in November, 2000. Pearls Before Swine proved a success and made its newspaper debut in January, 2002. It has been gaining faithful, giggling fans ever since.
Removing all details but the most fundamental, Pastis drew his characters in a simple manner, and following the same assumption, he kept their names equally uncomplicated. “Giving them names,” the cartoonist said in People Talking with Jory John, “kind of made it artificial. He’s just Rat.” The backgrounds were kept uncluttered and appealing. The writing of the comic strip is Pastis’ favoured part of cartooning Pearls Before Swine. “There’s something electric going on when one of those ideas comes out of you.” *(2)
Charles Schulz was an inspiration to Pastis, who met the famed "Peanuts" creator, rather intentionally on his part, at Sparky’s arena in Santa Rosa, California. On learning that Pastis was a budding cartoonist and not a lawyer there to give him legal hassles, Charles Schulz spent “close to an hour talking to me about my strip and cartooning, treating me as a full-fledged member of this cartooning community, when in fact, I was just a nobody and he was a giant in the field,” Pastis told readers on Washington Post’s Live Online Chat in August, 2002. “When we were done, I had someone take a picture of us together and that photo still hangs above my drawing board.” Now that’s a treasure.
In July of 2002, Stephan Pastis gave up practising law to take up a part-time job. It’s no fluff job to a true cartoon aficionado – he now works at Creative Associates on Monday to Wednesday, examining proposals for licensing the “Peanuts” characters. His mission is to make certain the integrity of Charles Schulz’ work remains consistent and intact through the licencees. Pastis creates Pearls Before Swine Thursday to Saturday, drawing seven strips a week.
Pastis met his wife Staci when they were both students at the University of California at Berkeley. They married in 1993 and have a young son, Thomas. Due to Pearls Before Swine appearance on the Web first, then starting over again in the newspaper, Pastis is at least seven months ahead of schedule in his work. Hey, no use stopping a good thing now.
Have a taste of Rat and Pig on comics.com:
*(1) http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/
Read the short interview of Stephan Pastis with Jory John: (No longer active)
*(2) orion-online.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/03/13/3c8e986c1b974?in_archive=1
Stephan Pastis on Live Online Chat in August, 2002:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/02/style/comics080902.htm
Ta da! The very first Pearls Before Swine book is available at Barnes and Noble:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=69L52HD37I&isbn=0740734377&itm=2
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