Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis

An unusual rat and pig take center stage in Pearls Before Swine, a quirky daily and Sunday comic strip by erstwhile litigator Stephan Pastis. Launched in 2002, the strip appears in 600 newspapers worldwide, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times and Seattle Times. The strip has twice won the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip – in 2003 and in 2006 and nominated for the Reuben  

Award for “Cartoonist of the Year” in 2008, 2009 and 2010?. 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.

Pearls Before Swine has a growing list of fans, including Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams who says Pearls is “one of the few comics that make me laugh out loud.” Pastis never had any formal training, but he did draw cartoons for each of his school newspapers as he grew up. He 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.” It was while was hopelessly bored in a class on the European Economic Community that Pastis first drew “Rat,” a character that would reappear in every comic strip he created thereafter - including Pearls Before Swine.