Stephan Pastis is getting some positive attention on CNN right now. The article talks about the growing popularity of the quirky strip and how it almost didn’t make it.
Even then, he didn’t have instant success.
“He was in a holding pattern at [syndicate] United Media,” recalls Pastis’ friend and “Get Fuzzy” cartoonist Darby Conley. “They thought the strip was out there too much.”
Pastis also wasn’t the most accomplished artist, as he freely admits, and Conley was asked to teach Pastis some of the technical aspects of cartooning.
But Conley was impressed with “Pearls.” “It was genuinely funny. There are maybe three or four strips that are,” he says.
United Media, however, was still uncertain about “Pearls.” It decided to give the strip a six-month tryout on the Internet. It was there Pastis discovered he had another fan — “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams, who raved about the “Pearls” on his Web site.
Adams’ recommendation, in late 2000, helped widen interest. More recently, the strip has gotten a big boost from newspapers wanting to fill the hole left by the temporary run of “Calvin and Hobbes” (tied in with “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes”) and those dopey crocodile characters, who moved in next to Zebra (or, as the crocs say, “zeeba neighba”).
Technorati Tags: Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis
It’s great that Stephan Pastis is gettng greater recognition. Pearls is a great strip.
Editors should try to pick more new strips with fresh humor to breath back life into the comic pages. No more legacy strips!
It’s great that Stephan Pastis is gettng greater recognition. Pearls is a great strip.
Editors should try to pick more new strips with fresh humor to breath back life into the comic pages. No more legacy strips!