Stephan Pastis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Stephan Pastis
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Pastis in 2017
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Stephan Thomas Pastis
January 16, 1968 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley (BA) University of California, Los Angeles (JD) |
| Occupation | Insurance defense litigation attorney (1993–2002) Cartoonist of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine (2000–present) Author (2003–present) |
| Spouse(s) | Staci |
| Children | 2 |
Stephan Thomas Pastis (born January 16, 1968) is an American cartoonist and former lawyer. He is best known for creating the popular comic strip Pearls Before Swine. He also writes fun children's books, like the Timmy Failure series. The seventh book in that series, It's the End When I Say It's the End, was a big hit, reaching #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Middle Grade Books.
Contents
Stephan Pastis's Early Life and Education
Stephan Pastis grew up in San Marino, California. His parents were immigrants from Greece. He started drawing cartoons when he was a kid. His mom would bring him pens and paper when he was sick in bed to keep him busy.
He went to the University of California at Berkeley and earned a degree in political science in 1989. The next year, he went to law school at UCLA. Even while studying law, he kept drawing. He created the character Rat, who later became a main character in Pearls Before Swine, during a law school class he found boring.
Pastis said that writing for Rat felt very honest. He felt like he could truly express his thoughts through this character.
From Lawyer to Cartoonist
From 1993 to 2002, Pastis worked as a lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area. However, he quickly realized he didn't enjoy being a lawyer. He didn't like how competitive it was or the stress it caused.
In the mid-1990s, he decided to try again to become a professional cartoonist. He sent many different comic ideas to companies that help cartoonists get their work into newspapers. But his ideas, like The Infirm and Bradbury Road, were turned down many times.
Creating Pearls Before Swine
The character Rat came from one of Pastis's earlier comic ideas. Pig, who is very different from Rat, was in another idea called The Infirm. At first, Rat and Pig were just simple drawings with jokes.
One day in 1996, Pastis drove to an ice rink in Santa Rosa. This was where Charles Schulz, the famous creator of Peanuts, often had his coffee. When Pastis first met Schulz, he blurted out, "Hi, Sparky [Schulz's nickname], my name is Stephan Pastis and I'm a lawyer." Schulz looked surprised, thinking Pastis was there for legal reasons!
But Schulz quickly recovered and was very kind. Pastis remembers: "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."
Besides Peanuts, Pastis also got ideas from the comic strip Dilbert. He studied how Dilbert was written to learn how to create a three-panel comic strip. He also showed his comics to people he knew to get honest feedback on which ones were funny.
Pastis drew about 200 new comics for his idea that would become Pearls Before Swine. He picked the best 40 but was afraid of being rejected again. So, he left them sitting in his basement for two years.
Finally, in 1999, he visited the grave of a college friend who had always encouraged him to follow his dreams. This visit gave him the courage to send his comics to three different companies, including United Features. United Features did something new: they first put his comics online at Comics.com to see what readers thought.
When Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, praised the comic, people loved it! Eight months later, Pastis happily quit his job as a lawyer. He believes that being unhappy with his law job actually helped him. He felt that humor often comes from reacting to unhappiness, and wanting to leave his job pushed him to create better comics.
Fifteen years later, Pearls Before Swine was still one of the fastest-growing comic strips. It appeared in over 650 newspapers around the world. Pastis usually works many months ahead of his deadlines, which is quite rare for newspaper cartoonists.
In June 2014, Pastis worked with Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. They created a week-long story together for Pearls Before Swine. In these comics, a second-grade girl named Libby drew some of Pastis's cartoon frames for him. Pastis later shared that Watterson himself had drawn the artwork for three of these strips. In the last comic of the series, Libby tells Pastis she won't draw any more strips, saying, "There's a magical world out there." This was a special nod to the last words Calvin says in the final Calvin and Hobbes comic.
Pearls Before Swine Book Collections
Pastis's first big collection of comics, called Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic, came out in 2004. These collections, called "treasuries," include comics that were in earlier smaller books, plus Sunday comics in full color. Pastis also adds notes from readers and explains why some comics didn't work as well as he hoped. He releases a new treasury about every year and a half. These treasuries are now the main way his Pearls Before Swine books are published.
Stephan Pastis's Personal Life
Stephan Pastis lives in Santa Rosa, California, with his wife, Staci, and their two children. He is on the board of the Charles Schulz Museum. He helps with things like merchandising rights for Peanuts and answers questions about Schulz's famous comic.
Pastis believes that Charles Schulz is like a superstar in the world of comic strips. He said that Schulz's work was very new and different. Before Peanuts, comics were often very silly and over-the-top. But Schulz went "inside the soul" of his characters. Pastis says Schulz has had a huge influence on his own work. He has even used similar settings, like a front porch or a beach, in his comics. He sees Rat as being like Lucy, Goat like Linus, and Pig like Charlie Brown from Peanuts.
In 2011, Pastis helped write a Peanuts special called Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown.
The Timmy Failure Book Series
On February 25, 2013, Pastis released his first book for younger readers, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. This book, published by Candlewick Press, is written in a style similar to the popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.
The Timmy Failure books follow the funny adventures of a young boy named Timmy, who dreams of being a great detective. He solves mysteries in his neighborhood with his best friend, a polar bear named Total.
Many books have been released in the series:
- Timmy Failure: Now Look What You've Done (2014)
- Timmy Failure: We Meet Again (2014)
- Timmy Failure: Sanitized for Your Protection (2015)
- Timmy Failure: The Book You're Not Supposed To Have (2016)
- Timmy Failure: The Cat Stole My Pants (2017)
- Timmy Failure: It's The End When I Say It's The End (2018)
- Zero to Hero (2020), which is a prequel to the series.
Timmy Failure Movie
In April 2017, Disney started working on a Timmy Failure movie. Tom McCarthy directed the film and helped Pastis write the script. The movie was released on Disney's streaming service, Disney+, in January 2020. The main character, Timmy, was played by Winslow Fegley. The movie was filmed in Portland, Oregon, from July to September 2018.
Awards and Recognition
Stephan Pastis has been nominated for the National Cartoonists Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award many times, including in 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2014. He won this award in 2003, 2006, and 2014.
He has also been nominated for The National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year every year since 2008, and he won this top award in 2018.
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See also
In Spanish: Stephan Pastis para niños
