For Immediate Release: February 22, 2011
Contact: Andrew Farago, 415-227-8666 ext. 309
Images Available Upon Request

Pearls Before Swine:

The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes Stephan Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine for a behind-the-scenes look at the award-winning comic strip on Saturday, March 19, 2011, from 6:00-8:00pm.  This event promises to be fun for the whole family, as we celebrate the release of the latest Pearls Before Swine collection, Pearls Blows Up.  The presentation will be followed by a book signing.  Mr. Pastis will be followed by a pack of hungry crocodiles.

Admission to this event is $5 for the general public, and free for Cartoon Art Museum members.  Advance reservations are recommended.  Please visit http://guestli.st/46650 to purchase advance tickets.  CAM Members should e-mail gallery@cartoonart.org to RSVP.    

About Pearls Before Swine

An unusual rat and pig take center stage in Pearls Before Swine, a daily and Sunday comic strip from United Feature Syndicate.  This quirky comic strip by former litigator Stephan Pastis started in 2002 and is quickly growing, now appearing in 600 newspapers worldwide, including The New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times and Houston Chronicle, and it also has a loyal audience on the Web (www.comics.com <http://www.comics.com/> ), where it generates more than two million page views per month.

At its heart, Pearls Before Swine is the comic strip tale of two friends: an arrogant Rat who thinks he knows it all and a slow-witted Pig who doesn’t know any better.  Together, this pair offers caustic commentary on humanity’s quest for the unattainable.  Available on United Media’s comics.com Web site since 2000, Pearls Before Swine has a growing list of fans, including “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams, who says Pearls is “my favorite comic strip.”

Pastis took the title of the strip from the New Testament phrase, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine.”  In this case, Rat believes he is an endless source of wisdom, and that it is wasted upon Pig, who is rather slow.  In truth, neither of them is very smart, but while Pig is content with his humble status in life, Rat is always on a futile search for fame, riches and immortality.

The National Cartoonists Society has twice named Pearls Before Swine the Best Newspaper Comic Strip – in 2003 and 2006.  The strip was nominated for the award in 2002 and 2008, as well.  The first Pearls Before Swine compilation book, BLTs Taste So Darn Good… (Andrews McMeel) was published in 2003, and has sold through four printings to date.  A second book, This Little Piggy Stayed Home (Andrews McMeel), was published in March 2004.  Sgt. Piggy’s Lonely Hearts Club Comic (Andrews McMeel), the first Pearls treasury featuring both daily and color Sunday strips, was published in September 2004, while Nighthogs was published in April 2005.  Pastis published two books, The Ratvolution Will Not be Televised and Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My! in 2006, followed by Da Brudderhood of Zeeba Zeeba Eata and The Sopratos (all Andrews McMeel) in 2007.  The Crass Menagerie treasury and Macho Macho Animals collection were both published by Andrews McMeel in 2008, while The Saturday Evening Pearls and Pearls Sells Out each were released in 2009, and 50,000,000 Pearls Fans Can’t Be Wrong and When Pigs Fly were published in 2010.

Pastis, a second generation Greek-American, was born and raised in San Marino, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. Pastis spent many childhood hours by himself, drawing in his room.  He’s never had any formal training as an artist or cartoonist (“Perhaps you can tell,” he jokes), but he did draw cartoons for each of his school newspapers as he grew up.  When Pastis wasn’t drawing, he was spending time collecting baseball cards, his other childhood love.

 Pastis holds a degree in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.  Although he always wanted to be a cartoonist, Pastis realized that the odds of syndication were slim, so he went to UCLA Law School and became an attorney instead.  While at UCLA, he drew a popular strip called “Rosen,” loosely based upon another law school student.

 “In some ways, law school is responsible for the creation of Pearls,” says Pastis, “because it was while I was hopelessly bored in a class on the European Economic Community that I first drew Rat.”  He would continue to draw Rat in every comic strip he created thereafter.  

 In 1993, Pastis graduated from law school, got married and moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he got a job at Thornton, Taylor, Downs and Becker, a San Francisco law firm.  In 1996, he began submitting various comic strips to all of the syndicates, and, like virtually all beginning cartoonists, got his fair share of rejection.  In 1997, he began drawing Pearls Before Swine, in which he paired the ever-present Rat with his cohort, Pig. Pastis continued to draw the strip, creating a stockpile of comics before testing the syndication waters again.  In 1999, he signed with United Media to appear on www.comics.com.

 Pastis lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his wife and two children.  When he’s not drawing or working, he likes to read American history books.

 United Feature Syndicate is a division of United Media, the information and entertainment company that develops and markets 150 comic strips and editorial features worldwide, including Get Fuzzy, Marmaduke, Miss Manners, and Sense and Sensitivity by Harriette Cole.  United Media (www.unitedfeatures.com) is a wholly owned subsidiary of The E.W. Scripps Company.   
           

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