Stephan Pastis
Encyclopedia
Stephan Thomas Pastis (born January 16, 1968) is an American
cartoonist
and the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine
.
." He started cartooning as a child; his mother brought him pens and paper to amuse him when he was "sick a lot" and had to stay in bed. He dreamed of being a syndicated cartoonist, but figured the odds were against it. Since he enjoyed debating he decided that the law would enable him to earn a living. He attended the University of California at Berkeley
, earning a B.A.
in Political Science in 1989. The following year Pastis attended law school
at UCLA
. He kept drawing all during this time, coming up with the character of the first Pearls Before Swine
character, Rat, during a boring class in law school.
From 1993 to 2002, Pastis practiced law as a insurance defense litigation attorney in the San Francisco Bay area, but quickly became disenchanted with it. He didn't like its adversarial nature, nor "the anxiety and tension it produced," so in the mid-1990s he revisited his earlier ambition of becoming a syndicated
cartoonist by submitting various concepts to syndication agencies. The Infirm, Rat and Bradbury Road, as well as others, were repeatedly rejected.
In addition to Peanuts, he drew inspiration from The Far Side
, Calvin and Hobbes
, Bloom County
, Doonesbury
, and Get Fuzzy
.
Pastis drew about 200 strips for the new comic and selected 40 of the best, but fearing more rejection, let them sit on the counter in his basement for the next two years. It wasn't until 1999, when he visited the grave of a college friend who had been a free spirit and had encouraged him to be the same, that he overcame his fear and submitted them to three different syndicates, including United Features
. United took the unprecedented step of first running the strips on its comics.com internet site to gauge reader response. When Scott Adams
, Dilberts creator, who Pastis had never met, endorsed the strip the response "went through the roof". Pearls debuted in print on December 31, 2001.
Pastis also credits Get Fuzzy cartoonist Darby Conley
with contributing to the development of the strip. They met through their syndication attorney, and Conley taught him how to color the Sunday strips and add gray tones to the dailies.
Eight months afterwards, Pastis gleefully quit his law practice. Pastis attributes his dissatisfaction with the law in being helpful insofar that "humor is a reaction to and defense against unhappiness", and that wanting to get out of his job provided him with the impetus to create better comic strips so that he could get selected for syndication.
Eleven years later, Pearls is still one of the fastest-growing comic strips, appearing in more than 650 newspapers worldwide. Pastis generally works five to nine months ahead of deadline, a rarity in the world of newspaper comics.
Pastis' wife, Staci, is sometimes depicted in the strip, usually offering to exchange her husband for a free pizza. They have two children, Thomas and Julia. The family lives in Santa Rosa
, California where Pastis is on the board of the Charles Schulz Museum, helping with merchandising rights issues and answering questions about Peanuts.
Newspaper Comic Strip Award for 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007. He won the 2003 and 2006 awards. He was also nominated for The Reuben Awards for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
and the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine
Pearls Before Swine (comic strip)
Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, who was formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California. It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat, as well as a number of supporting characters...
.
Background
A second-generation Greek-American, Pastis was raised in San Marino, CaliforniaSan Marino, California
San Marino is a small, affluent city in Los Angeles County, California. Incorporated in 1913, the City founders designed the community to be uniquely residential, with expansive properties surrounded by beautiful gardens, wide streets, and well maintained parkways...
." He started cartooning as a child; his mother brought him pens and paper to amuse him when he was "sick a lot" and had to stay in bed. He dreamed of being a syndicated cartoonist, but figured the odds were against it. Since he enjoyed debating he decided that the law would enable him to earn a living. He attended the University of California at Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, earning a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Political Science in 1989. The following year Pastis attended law school
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
at UCLA
UCLA School of Law
The UCLA School of Law is the law school of the University of California, Los Angeles. It has been approved by the American Bar Association since 1950. It joined the Association of American Law Schools in 1952.- History :...
. He kept drawing all during this time, coming up with the character of the first Pearls Before Swine
Pearls Before Swine (comic strip)
Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, who was formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California. It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat, as well as a number of supporting characters...
character, Rat, during a boring class in law school.
"When I wrote for him [Rat] it seemed pretty honest. It was the first character where I could really say what's on my mind. When I put it on paper, it's my voice. So it works for me."
From 1993 to 2002, Pastis practiced law as a insurance defense litigation attorney in the San Francisco Bay area, but quickly became disenchanted with it. He didn't like its adversarial nature, nor "the anxiety and tension it produced," so in the mid-1990s he revisited his earlier ambition of becoming a syndicated
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
cartoonist by submitting various concepts to syndication agencies. The Infirm, Rat and Bradbury Road, as well as others, were repeatedly rejected.
Pearls Before Swine
The character of Rat came from Pastis's earlier strip, Rat. The character of Pig, who is Rat's diametric opposite, had been featured in The Infirm, which was about an attorney who numbered an evil pig farmer among his clients. Although Pastis had developed the characters, they were still just stick figures with jokes. One day in 1996, Pastis drove to an ice rink in Santa Rosa where Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts had his coffee every day. The meeting didn't begin auspiciously, since Pastis blurted out: "Hi, Sparky [Schulz's nickname], my name is Stephan Pastis and I'm a lawyer." Schulz turned pale; he thought Pastis was there to serve him with a subpoena. However, he recovered, and Pastis remembers Schulz's graciousness:"I was a total stranger to him, and he let me sit down at his table and we talked for an hour. I took a picture with him. He looked at some of the strips that I had been doing and gave me some tips. Man, I was on cloud nine."
In addition to Peanuts, he drew inspiration from The Far Side
The Far Side
The Far Side is a popular single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from January 1, 1980, to January 1, 1995. Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world,...
, Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his...
, Bloom County
Bloom County
Bloom County is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, where children often have adult personalities and vocabularies and where...
, Doonesbury
Doonesbury
Doonesbury is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college...
, and Get Fuzzy
Get Fuzzy
Get Fuzzy is an American daily comic strip written and drawn by Darby Conley. The strip features the adventures of Boston advertising executive Rob Wilco and his two anthropomorphic pets: dog Satchel Pooch and cat Bucky Katt. Get Fuzzy has been published by United Feature Syndicate since September...
.
What worked for me personally was to study the writing of Dilbert. I just bought a bunch of Dilbert books and studied how to write a 3-panel strip. Then I showed them to a group of people who were acquaintances (but not quite friends) in order to get their honest assessment of which ones were funny and which ones weren't. As to the ins and outs of getting syndicated, I bought a book called “Your Career in the Comics” by Lee Nordling.
Pastis drew about 200 strips for the new comic and selected 40 of the best, but fearing more rejection, let them sit on the counter in his basement for the next two years. It wasn't until 1999, when he visited the grave of a college friend who had been a free spirit and had encouraged him to be the same, that he overcame his fear and submitted them to three different syndicates, including United Features
United Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...
. United took the unprecedented step of first running the strips on its comics.com internet site to gauge reader response. When Scott Adams
Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, business, and general speculation....
, Dilberts creator, who Pastis had never met, endorsed the strip the response "went through the roof". Pearls debuted in print on December 31, 2001.
Pastis also credits Get Fuzzy cartoonist Darby Conley
Darby Conley
Darby Conley is an American cartoonist best known for the popular comic strip Get Fuzzy.-Background:Conley was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1970, and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee....
with contributing to the development of the strip. They met through their syndication attorney, and Conley taught him how to color the Sunday strips and add gray tones to the dailies.
Eight months afterwards, Pastis gleefully quit his law practice. Pastis attributes his dissatisfaction with the law in being helpful insofar that "humor is a reaction to and defense against unhappiness", and that wanting to get out of his job provided him with the impetus to create better comic strips so that he could get selected for syndication.
Eleven years later, Pearls is still one of the fastest-growing comic strips, appearing in more than 650 newspapers worldwide. Pastis generally works five to nine months ahead of deadline, a rarity in the world of newspaper comics.
Pastis' wife, Staci, is sometimes depicted in the strip, usually offering to exchange her husband for a free pizza. They have two children, Thomas and Julia. The family lives in Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa is the Spanish and Portuguese name for Saint Rose. It may also refer to:-Places: Argentina:*Santa Rosa, La Pampa*Santa Rosa de Calamuchita *Santa Rosa de Calchines *Santa Rosa de Río Primero...
, California where Pastis is on the board of the Charles Schulz Museum, helping with merchandising rights issues and answering questions about Peanuts.
“Schulz is to comic strips what Marlon Brando was to acting. It was so revolutionary. Before ‘Peanuts,’ the writing was physical, over the top, but Sparky goes inside the soul. His influence on me is enormous. I’ve taken his backgrounds, the front porch, the beach and the TV beanbag. Rat is Lucy, Goat is Linus and Pig is Charlie Brown. Sparky is a template, whether or not you know it, he’s the template.”
Treasuries
Pastis's first treasury, Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic, was published in 2004. In addition to the content of the previous books, BLTs Taste So Darn Good and This Little Piggy Stayed Home, and Sunday strips in full color, Pastis included responses from readers and a section in which he explained why certain strips weren't successful, and how he would have corrected the content. , four more treasuries have followed. Each book in the series is subtitled "A Pearls Before Swine Treasury".- Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic (September 2004, Andrews McMeel PublishingAndrews McMeel PublishingAndrews McMeel Publishing, LLC is a company which publishes books, calendars, and related toys...
, ISBN 0-740-74807-6) - Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My! (September 2006, Andrews McMeel Publishing, ISBN 0-740-76155-2)
- The Crass Menagerie (April 2008, Andrews McMeel Publishing, ISBN 0-740-77100-0)
- Pearls Sells Out (August 2009, Andrews McMeel Publishing, ISBN 0-740-77396-8)
- Pearls Blows Up (March 2011, Andrews McMeel Publishing, ISBN 1-449-40106-6)
Blog
Stephan Pastis has his own blog at http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com where he updates his fans. The write-ups are usually humorous, describing his daily life, vacations and trips. He had also described his trip to Iraq in his blog in a series of write-ups starting "Saddamapalooza". He usually updates his blog every 2 to 3 days. His posts are accompanied by doodles from Pearls, or his own photographs.Awards
Pastis was nominated for the National Cartoonists SocietyNational Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
Newspaper Comic Strip Award for 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007. He won the 2003 and 2006 awards. He was also nominated for The Reuben Awards for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011.
External links
- Pastis's blog
- Short bio (with picture) at The National Cartoonists Society
- Stephan Pastis FAQ at comics.com
- A 'Pearl' of a Strip, Brad Stone, Newsweek, Jul 01, 2005
- Interview with him, among other people
- Some of his previous comics before "Pearls Before Swine"
- Interview with Pastis (December 24, 2006)
- Podcast interview with Pastis