Pearls Before Swine (comics)
American comic strip
Pearls Before Swine (also known as Pearls) is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis. The series began on December 31, 2001. It chronicles the daily lives of an ensemble cast of suburban anthropomorphic animals: Pig, Rat, Zebra, Goat, and a fraternity of crocodiles, as well as a number of supporting characters, one of whom is Pastis himself. Each character represents an aspect of Pastis's personality and worldview. The daily and Sunday comic strip is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication (by United Feature Syndicate until 2011). In 2018, Pastis won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year for his work on the strip.
The strip's style is notable for its black comedy, simplistic artwork, self-deprecating fourth wall meta-humor, social commentary, mockery of itself or other comic strips, frequently experimental formats, and occasional elaborate stories leading to a pun.
Publication history
Before creating Pearls Before Swine, Pastis worked as a lawyer in California. Bored in his law school classes, he doodled a rat, eventually casting it in a non-syndicated comic strip he called Rat. Rat became one of the main characters in Pearls Before Swine.
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