Stephan Thomas Pastis
(pronounced "Steffan Passtiss") (born January 16, 1968) is an
American
cartoonist, 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,
Rat, and
Bradbury Road were rejected, but
Pearls Before Swine was
accepted by
United Features in 1999. It
started publication on December 31, 2001 and is still one of the
fastest growing comic strips, appearing in more than 450 newspapers
worldwide and counting. Pastis left his law job in August 2002.He
is married to his wife Staci.
Pearls Before Swine
The character of
Rat came
from Pastis's earlier strip,
Rat. The character of
Pig was based on pigs that
had been featured in
The Infirm. 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 6 weeks later and
with help from
Scott Adams,
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's first
treasury,
Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic.
In this treasury and the three that followed (
Lions and Tigers
and Crocs, Oh My!,
The Crass Menagerie and
Pearls
Sells Out) he includes background information on many of the
strips they contain, as well as printing the Sunday strips in full
color.
Pastis works up to nine months ahead of deadline, a rarity in the
world of newspaper comics.
In the strip for November 23, 2009, Rat vandalizes this Wikipedia
article.
Awards
Pastis was nominated for the
National Cartoonists Society
Newspaper Comic Strip Award for 2002 and 2006, and won the award
for 2003 and 2007.
References
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
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