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 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.
Thomas, my 15-year-old, is effectively my editor, I've always trusted his voice, more than anybody, on the strip for years. He has one of those ears that's just tuned to the rhythm of humor, so if he says something's not funny, my stomach just hurts because I know he's right, and it's already been drawn.
A comic strip has a rhythm and a pattern, and you got to get in and out quick. So you set up a joke, tell the joke, and done.
To get syndicated as a comic strip artist is as likely as winning the lottery.
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.'
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.
If you look at other strips from the 1950s, he stuck out like a sore thumb. I'm sure he probably got some of the same complaint letters that I get now,
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.
mostly as an outlet just to do something during class.
I wish I didn't have to do it. But I'm standing on the deck of the Titanic and see the iceberg coming,
I write for three or four hours and then hopefully I'll have something. Then I draw for the rest of the afternoon... I literally block out Wednesday-Thursday-Friday - I more or less disappear.
When you do anything creative, you really have to live entirely in that world. I think my ability to do that is what makes me such a bad dinner guest. I'm always looking over someone's shoulder, taking in stuff around the room, immersed in the world of whatever I'm writing about, and keeping the characters completely in my head.