Stephan Pastis
Stephan Thomas Pastis (born January 16, 1968) is the
creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine.
Background
Pastis was raised in San Marino, California and attended the University of California at Berkeley, earning a B.A. in Political Science in 1989, followed by UCLA School of Law.
From 1993, Pastis worked as a litigation attorney in the San Francisco Bay area. At this time he also tried to fulfill his childhood ambition of becoming a syndicated cartoonist by submitting different concepts to syndication agencies. "The Infirm",[1] "Rat",[2] and "Bradbury Road"[3] were rejected, but "Pearls Before Swine" was accepted by United Features in 1999. It started publication on December 31, 2001, and Pastis left his law job in August 2002.
"Pearls Before Swine"
Main Article:Pearls Before Swine (comic strip)
The character of Rat came from Pastis' earlier strip, "Rat." The character of Pig was based on pigs that had been featured in another submission. When Pastis invented the characters of Pig and Rat, they were just stick figures with jokes. He learned how to write by studying Dilbert comics in bookstores. He then collected the 40 comics that his attorney colleagues liked the best. Fearing another rejection, however, Pastis put them in an envelope and let it sit on the counter in his basement. It sat there for a year until he visited a friend's grave and, feeling as though he had let her down, had a change of heart. He sent it out and 6 weeks later United Features Syndicate called him to inform him that he was being considered for syndication. "Pearls Before Swine" was launched in syndication in 2001.
This information can be found in the introduction to Pastis' first treasury, "Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic." In this treasury and "Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My!" he includes background information on many of the strips they contain, as well as printing the Sunday strips in full color.
Awards
Pastis was nominated for the National Cartoonists Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award for 2002 and 2006, and won the award for 2003.
References
External links
- Biography from the official Pearls Before Swine website
- Short bio (with picture) at The National Cartoonists Society
- Stephan Pastis FAQ at comics.com
- Article about him from MSNBC
- Interview with him, among other people
- Some of his previous comics before "Pearls Before Swine"
- A recent interview with Pastis
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