Stephan Pastis
Stephan Pastis
Stephan Thomas Pastisis an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. He has since begun writing children's chapter books, commencing the release of Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made and the second and third Timmy Failure, which debuted at #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Middle Grade Books...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth16 January 1968
CitySan Marino, CA
CountryUnited States of America
I think it might surprise the average person how angry people can get over the comics.
I never feel burdened or overwhelmed by my work. People tell you to find something you love for a career, and I have. That makes me feel very lucky.
Maybe the bar is low, but most of the strips that are 50, 60, 70 years old that are on their second or third generation of artists, the humor is pretty bland. There are others by people that were raised on 'Family Guy' or 'South Park' that are edgier. Mine's not as edgy as those, but it's edgier than 'Beetle Bailey.'
If a restaurant offers crayons, I always take them and color throughout the meal. It beats talking to the people I came to dinner with.
The phrase 'I just turn on my monkey and it makes me feel good' sounds very dirty, but I can't explain why. It's great to try to use expressions like that on the comics page. People want to complain but they can't, because they can't figure out quite what they should be complaining about.
A stand-up comedian faces the audiences and gets their immediate feedback. I hide behind the comic strip, and unless people write to me, I dont know what they think.
Whenever I see people with their collars up, I'm tempted to point it out to them like you would for someone who has a food stain on their shirt or food in their teeth, as if to say, 'Your fashion sense is so offensive I'm assuming it's some sort of accident you'll want to fix.
I want to shake things up like Bloom County did, ... When I was a kid I loved Calvin and I loved Far Side and I loved Bloom County. And I loved them because they took risks. You never knew what you were going to see that day. And there's not a lot of strips that do that now.
I want to shake things up like 'Bloom County' did.
I like characters who have blind spots and are full of themselves, but there also needs to be vulnerability.
I more or less stalked him. I guess that's the right word, ... I waited because I knew what time he came in for his English muffin and all that. Sure enough he showed up. I had some strips I had drawn, and I walked across the room.
The wonderful thing about a book is that you have a canvas that is 300 pages wide, and it's all free space. You can make a piece of art as big as you want and whatever shape you want.
I want a career writing these novels that I can be proud of. And then I want one as a screenwriter.
This is every creative person's dream - a hobby that I'm lucky enough to get paid for.