Pearls Before Swine (comics)

Pearls Before Swine
Author(s)	Stephan Pastis
Current status/schedule	Running
Launch date	December 30, 2001 (Orlando Sentinel) December 31, 2001 (The Washington Post) January 7, 2002
Syndicate(s)	United Feature Syndicate
Genre(s)	Humor

Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California. It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat. Although created in 1997, it was not published until 2000, when United Feature Syndicate ran it on its website. Its popularity rose after Dilbert creator Scott Adams, a fan of the strip, spread the word to his own fans.

United Feature launched the strip in newspapers beginning December 31, 2001, in The Washington Post. On January 7, 2002, it began running in approximately 150 papers. As of early 2007, the strip appears in more than 400 newspapers worldwide.

The Beginning Of "Pearls"

As noted in the first treasury book, the beginning of "Pearls Before Swine" was not the first strip, but the creation of the non syndicated comic "Rat." Pastis created "Rat" in his Law School Days. He tried to get them syndicated but failed. He then took the character "Rat" and put him in "Pearls."

He also created another strip known as "The Infirm" about a struggling lawyer. He attempted to have that comic strip syndicated but it was rejected by the syndicates. There was a pig character in "The Infirm" which he took and put in the strip Pearls Before Swine.

According to Pastis, "Pearls" was supposed to launch on January 7, 2002. However, The Washington Post had bought the strip and needed strips for a week before. Therefore, Pastis drew a week of strips strictly for Post readers (in addition to a Sunday strip he drew strictly for the Orlando Sentinel), and the strip's unofficial start date was December 31, 2001 (December 30 if the Sentinel strip is counted).

Influences

"Pearls" Is influenced by many other comic strips. Stephan Pastis claims it to be influenced by Peanuts, Dilbert, Get Fuzzy, The Far Side and many others. These were the main influences. In an interview with the Roanoke, Virginia-based newspaper The Roanoke Times that his three favorite comics growing up were Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, and The Far Side, saying he liked The Far Side best. He also states in his first treasury collection, Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic, that if you want to learn how to write a good comic strip, you need to study Dilbert. (On the cover of his latest treasury, The Crass Menagerie, you can see on a bookshelf Dilbert and Charlie Brown dolls, a copy of the Get Fuzzy collection Scrum Bums, a complete Peanuts treasury, Calvin and Hobbes Sunday Pages 1985-1995 and at least one other Dilbert item.)

Cast

Pearls Before Swine has a few central characters, supplemented by a fresh array of minor figures starring in their own mini-series.

Main Characters

Rat

Main article: Rat (Pearls Before Swine)

Rat (debut: Dec. 31, 2001) is a megalomaniacal rat, and is the strip's main protagonist. He is frequently critical of the strip's style and artwork as well as the other characters in the strip and all living things. Often self-employed, most of his businesses involve either punishing or defrauding people for their ignorance, much in the same vein as Dogbert, though with a darker humor. Rat lives with Pig in a house somewhere in Albany,California.

Rat is the most insensitive character in the strip, except when it comes to his love for Pig's sister Farina; he also seems to feel some genuine friendship toward Pig himself, although this hardly gives Pig any immunity from Rat's insults. Rat's interactions with others are typically sarcastic, condescending, insulting and sometimes violent, particularly when dealing with what he considers to be exceptionally annoying people (i.e. virtually everyone) and their habits. Rat frequently breaks the fourth wall to berate his creator on his jokewriting, artwork or the general content of the strip itself. He is the author of two book series; The Adventures of Angry Bob and, for children, Danny Donkey, and writes the comic Dickie the Cockroach You Love To Love. In The Adventures of Angry Bob, the protagonist is Angry Bob and he is, of course, always angry. Because he is angry, he tries to cheer himself up, but instead ends up getting himself killed. At the beginning of every Angry Bob story, Bob is brought back to life, usually "undying". In Danny Donkey, a series of children's books, Danny is a protagonist who makes bad morals for the stories, for instance, "If you can't make yourself better, make those around you worse." Rat has a superhero-alter identity, Ego-Man, but he only is the protector of himself, making him a very selfish superhero.

Pig

Main article: Pig (Pearls Before Swine)

Naïve Pig (debut: Dec. 31, 2001) is childlike and dim, but also well-meaning and kind, all of which leads to constant ridicule by his housemate Rat. Pig's jokes generally involve his incompetence and not knowing his true surroundings. Pig has a short-tempered girlfriend named Pigita. Pastis says that Pig is the easiest character to write for: "He just has to misunderstand everything that he hears, then when it's explained to him, he has to misunderstand that too." Pig has a habit of talking to inanimate objects such as food, stop lights, bait and various other things (although since, in the "Pearls" universe, the objects talk back, this is not as odd as it might otherwise be). His dimness is often exhibited in the strip. For instance, he once went to a Halloween party as a hostage and could not see, causing him to fail miserably at charades. Pig's least appropriate characteristic is his love of pork products; He likes bacon, ham, hot dogs, and so on, making him a cannibal. He is also sometimes able to tell which member of his family has been made into the food product.

Zebra

Main article: Zebra (Pearls Before Swine)

Zebra (debut: Feb. 4, 2002), also known as "zeeba neighba" (zebra neighbor) by the comically stupid Fraternity of Crocodiles next-door (Zeeba Zeeba Eata), is a zebra who is often seen trying to patch up relations between his herd back home and its predators, lions and hyenas. His troubles include various encounters with the Fraternity of Crocodiles. He also serves as a less-irritable version of Goat, and is also the only character Goat can put up with.

Because Stephan Pastis used to not be able to draw lions, these particular predators were not shown in the strip until May 31, 2007, when two were shown moving next door to Zebra, on the opposite side from the crocodiles. They are the second-most mentioned predators, behind the crocodiles. Prior to their appearance Zebra has been seen corresponding with them via letter, attempting to give them more culture than just eating zebras and establish a friendship between their species. Instead, the lions' replies are always terse and stupid responses, often featuring them taking his advice the wrong way by eating a zebra. The lions remain the only predators capable of instilling fear in Zebra; the crocodiles just induce frustration due to their complete incompetence. Zebra's lion neighbors, however, are male lions, which do not hunt, and they seem to like Zebra, often giving him advice on how to avoid their wives, who actually would hunt him down if given the chance. The lions tend to speak like surfer's, constantly calling Zebra "dude".

Hyenas are the third type of predator that plague Zebra's herd. Before 2008, they had only appeared in the strip twice: once, a series in which Zebra was an online advice columnist for other zebras; the second appearance was a single Sunday strip in September 2007 as new neighbors of Zebra. Starting on February 25, 2008, a strip was published featuring the hyenas as operators of a funeral home. One time, Larry sent a cat to Zebra, but in the first years, the cat was harmless to Zebra. However, in early winter 2008, Zebra was arrested by the FBI because of the cat's terrorist activities, although Snuffles loves Zebra, and he didn't mean to put his owner mistakenly in jail. In one strip, he was revealed to be a big fan of Peanuts (comic strip), which the crocs attempted to exploit, without success.

On one occasion, he was given a cat who got him thrown in jail for harboring terrorists (for more on this see Minor and one-off charecters#snuffles. He was released on the condition that he get the cat to spill the beans on his weapon buisness.

Zebra's birthday was celebrated in the February 20, 2008 strip, where Rat gave him a used bar of hotel soap.

Goat

Main article: Goat (Pearls Before Swine)

An intellectual goat who interacts sparingly with the other characters, Goat (debut: Jan. 18, 2002) usually appears whenever there is a small issue dealing with a character or a conflict to be mediated. Goat has an equally hard time dealing with Pig's incompetence and Rat's cruelty and occasional ignorance. Goat maintains a blog that, as Rat likes to point out, receives no hits. Goat in turn tends to criticize Rat's forays into writing, often telling him not to write them at all. In early strips, Goat had a beard; he first appeared without it in the March 31, 2004 strip. He is smart and knows how to solve problems.

In a few strips, he is seen telling Rat and Pig about various philosophical and political issues. However, Rat and Pig don't pay attention, and usually start talking about something else, like baseball or the television show The Apprentice.

Goat dislikes conversing with the other characters at all; he much prefers reading books. However, it seems that he most tolerates talking to Zebra; he is least tolerant when talking to Rat (although he tends to be just as equally hostile towards Pig). Goat's real name is revealed as Paris in the September 21, 2007 strip, and it claims that "Goat" is his stage name.

Because of his intellectuality and the fact that he is friends with feminist Gloria Steinem, it can be assumed he is a liberal. However, a 2007 strip says he does not vote.

The Fraternity of Crocodiles

The Fraternity of Crocodiles are the main antagonists and villains of the strip, and are usually involved in various attempts to kill and eat Zebra, all of which fail due to their stupidity. All of the crocodiles in this fraternity speak with a monosyllabic accent (although this accent doesn't have a name, it represents the tone of voice of Frankenstein's Monster or Tarzan)' and their statements tend to begin with "Hullooo, zeeba neighba: Leesten,...". The fraternity name is "Zeeba Zeeba Eata" (although one of them called it "Zeta, Zeta, Epsilon" in a botched attempt to fool their suspicious neighbor). The crocodiles are dimwitted and poor hunters (they believe they are hunting prey when they catch plastic flamingos, garden gnomes or carved tofu cows) who usually need to go to the Safeway supermarket or order fast food to eat (one ordered pizza every night for seven straight weeks). Their inability to catch prey is looked upon with shame by other crocodiles, especially their wives, girlfriends and mothers. The main crocodile in the strip is Larry. Other crocs include Bill, Bob, Floyd, Rick, Jerry, Willie, Jojo, and Vern, most of whom have died at some point. Larry usually works with Bob, another crocodile, or any others of his friends. Larry is known as the Zeebra's arch nemesis.

Their true debut was May 6, 2003.

Larry

At least two have girlfriends or are married. The most often seen "family" of crocodiles in the strip are Larry, his wife Patty, who has a beehive hairstyle, and his son Billy, who is also called Junior. Billy is far more intelligent than his father and he is also a pacifist and a vegetarian, similar to the relationship between the Warner Bros. cartoon characters Sylvester the Cat and his son, Sylvester Junior. At one point, Billy started dating Zebra's niece, a young female zebra named Joy. His dad doesn't yet understand the concept of going out with food and when he sees the two kissing he thinks Billy is killing Joy in a very weird way. However, on December 2006, Billy ran away to live with Zebra and Joy forever. Patty blames Larry for all of the mess, and they have Stumpy, a crocodile, wear a zebra suit in order to catch Zebra and Joy. It can be assumed this attempt failed, as Zebra mentioned to Patty over the phone that Joy went home to Florida.

Larry also buys Kentucky Fried Chicken, and tries to impress his wife by crossing the words Kentucky Fried Chicken off and writes misspelled words like zeeba meat on the bucket. Patty is not fooled by this, so this one time angered her so much that she and Billy together have the left the house like Deck the Halls, to avoid living with Larry, but then, Larry learns that Patty decided to change her mind, and she called the event a lie. Patty is jealous because the lions are more intelligent than the zebras (despite the fact they never ate Zebra) because they have mysteriously found an unknown store where they sell frozen zebra meat. However, Larry said that the store was Payless Shoe Source.

Duck

Duck is the "guardduck" for Pig and Rat's home, and still lives with them despite often taking on different occupations. Pig has described him as "very sensetive and ha[ving] an anger management problem". He's known for a short temper and a violent streak (usually rocket launcher-related) bordering on stereotypical sociopathy. Pig often locked him in a clothes hamper or wastebasket as a punishment for irrational actions. However, we do not see any change on Pig's face. Normally, he is seen watching TV with a mouthless face, then in the last panel of the strip, Duck is locked up in the hamper, but Pig's face doesn't change to annoyed, he looks like as if he never did lock the Duck up in the hamper. Duck's biggest punishment was for destroying 74% of the neighborhood and destroying the neighbors' minivan, thus, Duck disguised himself like Fidel Castro, and he made fake English-Spanish words to make sure the people get fooled by how he looks.

His first appearance was March 14, 2005, when Pig bought him due to the fact that a proper Guard Dog was too expensive. Pig's neighbors frequently laugh at the Guard Duck, but the neighbors usually then get beat up or blown up by a rocket launcher. Soon after he was fired for stealing a neighbor's inflatable pool.

Duck usually did not have his cap for the first years, but soon wore it around the time he met Maura, and he looked just like a plain white duck.However, everybody must watch out for his villainous ways of destruction, such as swallowing an entire man and cutting a bush-like figure of him attacking a gardener neighbor with a chainsaw.

Over time, a metamorphosis took place in this Duck's personality. Originally, he was nothing but a violent duck with anger management problems, but he eventually transformed into a duck associated with the army, seeing the world as his battlefield. He ahs occasionaly referenced the Vietnam War and war movies such as Apocalypse Now.

Months later, the Duck robbed a bank and was thrown in prison. Though he was awarded release on bail, the Duck escaped prison and has been with Pig and Rat ever since.

The Duck once staged a coup to become mayor. Once Mayor, he began checking off neighbors of the town he had written down on his "Enemies List" and began a very corrupt reign as a despot. The reign ended because of the Duck's ineffectiveness as a civic leader (most of his strategies involved eliminating the opposition), but Duck later represented Zebra in a lawsuit the Crocodiles brought against him.

During his brief term as mayor, Duck frequently used language (and, to a lesser extent, tactics) reminiscent of Richard Nixon, for instance: His "Enemies List", his mistaking All The President's Men for a strategy book (he seemed to thinks he needed to capture the Watergate Hotel), his resignation after having been caught spying, and an illustration in which he gives a salute similar to Nixon's infamous one.

The December 3, 2006 strip revealed that Duck did not know ducks could fly, never having been taught because he never knew his parents; he referred to himself as "a broken duck". Things became more hopeful for Duck when on January 1, 2007, Maura the non-anthropomorphic female duck companion appeared with him and even kissed him. However, on January 5, she flew away to migrate with other ducks. Since then, several strips have featured the Duck coping with his loss; most recently, he spent Valentine's Day 2008 on the "Crate O' Sadness" where he was eventually joined by the entire main cast. The crocodiles, in particular, made the poor choice of laughing at the Duck at which point the Duck made Frank, one of the crocodiles, into a pair of boots.January 24, 2007.

Guard Duck's 2 best ways of his job was saving Zebra from the Crocodiles in two ways: saving Zebra from becoming eaten by the crocodiles by threatening them with a rocket gun out of the swamp, and being Zebra's lawyer after the crocodiles sue Zebra to make him their food.

In the treasury The Crass Menagerie, Stephan Pastis remarks that the Guard Duck has become so popular that he's become a sixth main character. Duck seems to also be far more venomous and extremely-dangerous than the Fraternity of Crocodiles, since he can turn them into crocodile skin products in five minutes.

Oft-Recurring Characters

• Stephan Pastis (debut: June 1, 2003) — Pastis appears self-reflexively in several strips as the cartoonist of the strip, usually exhibiting ambiguous feelings toward his characters (and an exasperation with Rat in particular, who gives it back to Pastis in return especially when things don't go his way). On one occasion, Rat had him briefly change the name of the strip to "Worship the Rat". He is often seen smoking, although Pastis has mentioned in his books that he does not smoke and has no idea why he drew himself that way to begin with (though Rat and Guard Duck are often featured smoking as well). In The Crass Menagerie he says that he's gotten criticism for his smoking, as people seem to believe he's glamorizing smoking (Pastis claims he's doing the exact opposite).
• Staci Pastis (debut: May 22, 2003) — Stephan's wife.
• Pigita (debut: Aug. 19, 2002) — Pig's on-and-off girlfriend, known for her wild mood swings. According to the strip published on September 6, 2007, Pig and Pigita have been together for seven years. Although, the strip also mentions that Pig and Pigita have never kissed (saying that they're "taking it slow").
• Farina (debut: Aug. 18, 2002) — Pig's germophobic sister who lives in a bubble, although that doesn't prevent her from dating characters from many comic strips. Rat had dated her years before, and remains in love with her, though he denies it. She has a habit of telling Rat he is not manly enough while at the same time dating an otherwise geeky character like Dilbert or Ziggy (see irony). After her debut, Pastis removed her from the strip for two years, and when he brought her back he had to do a complete reintroduction (from Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My!). Farina doesn't appear often in the strip, and as such Pastis is forced to reintroduce her every time she appears (from The Crass Menagerie).

Minor and one-off characters

• Alphonse, the Needy Porcupine (debut: July 6, 2004) — Loves to grandstand in order to gain attention, much to the annoyance of the other characters (especially Rat). He usually wants hugs from people and will get them by force if he has to. However, since he's a porcupine, the recipients of the hugs get his quills stuck in them (which prompted Rat to introduce him to "Fisty, the kick your *bleep* hand). He once threatened to throw himself out a window (three feet above the ground) if Rat did not help him. Pastis eventually stopped using him in strips after receiving complaints from anti-suicide groups about him. His last appearance to date was in the May 13, 2006 strip where he played a small part in the killing of another character (see below).

• Anemone Enemies — Originally a single Anemone named Annie Mae, then split into two anemones after rat crushed her with a garage door, they are Pig's arch-nemeses and have attempted to destroy him several times. At the beginning of the strip series where the Anemone was introduced, Pig claimed that he got in a fight with a sea anemone eleven years hence, and that the year he [the anemone] swore revenge had come. Whether there is any truth to this (because Pig was sleep-deprived when he said it) is currently unknown. When she/they appeared in the past, the jokes frequently used words and phrases alliterative of the word anemone (PIG: "How dare you tempt me with amenities like anime, Annie Mae, my sea anemone enemy!"). These alliterations also use homonyms with the alliterations to annoy Rat tremendously, such as on May 8, 2006. The two anemones formed a phony friendship with Pig and failed to kill him with a homemade bomb (see Killer Whale, below). It was also hinted in the February 7, 2006 Pearls strip that the Anemone enemy came from a framed picture of the ocean in Pig's house.

• Angry Bob (debut: Sept. 15, 2002): A character in a book series by Rat. Each strip concerning these books starts off with a disgruntled Angry Bob eventually finding true happiness, before meeting an untimely death. However, Rat wrote that he smiled before in 37 years. (It should be noted that many characters in the strip have been named Bob, including another Rat story character named "Detective Bob," but Angry Bob is the one who appears most often.)

• Bela: In one Sunday strip, Rat wrote a letter to a newspaper, in which he said that newspapers had been accepting several comic strips that are intended to appeal to one specific minority group or another, and in doing so, have ignored that many of these strips just aren't funny, but enclosed was his new strip submission: "Bella, the One-Legged Albanian Blind Boy Whose Divorced Parents Speak Fluent Spanish".

• Danny Donkey — A character from the illustrated children's books Rat occasionally writes. He's a donkey who is bitter, rude, and has no guilt or shame doing things that are against the law (like stealing). His first two appearances involved him stealing things (a carton of cigarettes from a convenience store and a Game Boy from one of his friends). In September 16, 2006 (although the sequence ends in October), Rat created a talking Danny Donkey doll that came to life (like Hobbes in Calvin and Hobbes) and burglarized a liquor store. However, Rat decided to blame Pig for the burglary and Pig was arrested; Danny was gone in October. Danny Donkey usually talks about beer and even asked for it on Halloween.

• Dickie The Cockroach — The aforementioned title character in Rat's comic strip. During a series of April 2005 Sunday strips, Dickie came to life, jumped out of the comics page, and ran around tying people up and putting duct tape over their mouths (which Rat wrote him to do when he found the people annoying). He did this to Pig first, then was caught dragging Cathy around which horrified Rat. Dickie's reign of terror was stopped shortly thereafter when Pastis drew a strip where he "revealed" that Cathy was much more popular when the title character didn't talk. Dickie then turned the tables on Rat two weeks later in his return from "death" (in the strip that was sandwiched between this particular strip and the Cathy strip the week before, he had exploded after reading fan mail that encouraged him to smile more; his body couldn't take the pressure), tying him up and taping his mouth shut and handing him over to Cathy. (The original strips featured Dickie pulling the heads off of the offending characters, but Pastis revised the strips after hearing of hostage beheadings in Iraq at the time.)

• The Chihuahuas Are two dogs who are madly in love, but are ironically tethered about a half foot away from each other. Olive and Andy first appeared in two strips: in the first, rat tells pig they are together; in the second Olive is called crazy for valuing emotional intimacy over actually touching. However, Olive's chain broke during the night once and she escaped, breaking Andy's heart.

• Christmas Tree Girl, — (debut: Dec. 2, 2007) was a character introduced on December 02, 2007 as a romantic interest for Rat. Rat, in response, instantly becomes nervous and speechless in her presence. Since her debut to the strip, she and Rat have been on various dates, though none have ended on a particularly good note, with one ending with his napkin on her head 'to stop her staring', and the other ending over an argument with Rat's new BlackBerry Handheld.

• Chuckie, the Non-Anthropomorphic Sheep, appears several times in the strip. He is introduced as being a friend of Goat's. He is non-anthropomorphic, meaning that unlike the other animals he has no human-like characteristics (with the exception of being a biped). Also, notably, Chuckie is killed or prepared to be killed by various characters (including Pigita and Rat), only to inexplicably return. Chuckie has not appeared in a few years, possibly because of the rise of more recently added characters, such as the crocodiles and the guard duck.

• The Fruit Buddies, is a meeting of fruits that "Brother Pig" (Pig) is the head of. The group originally starts off with Annie Apple, Secretary Banana, Brother Pear, and Georgie Grape. On the first day that the group premiered, Georgie Grape was eaten by Rat. Their Grape Recruiting Drive hurt, Pig moves the meeting to a more secure place, the Refrigerator. After Rat finds them and eats a newcomer, an orange, Pig is forced to allow Potatoes into the meetings, which is met with a negative response. On "Petey Potato's" first day, much coughing is heard, with words such as "French Fries", "Hashbrowns", and "Potato Salad" thrown in, much to Pig's dismay. Prior to the next meeting, Rat eats Annie Apple, Brother Pear, and Secretary Banana in the form of a fruit Shake. Left with only Petey Potato, Pig goes to Zebra for advice. As Zebra gives him words of encouragement (to start a Potato Buddies group), Rat makes french fries at home, ending the Fruit Buddies Arc.

• The Road Signs: Road signs that drink in a bar occasionally patronized by Pig. Their personalities appear to depend on the consequences of disobeying them. The "Danger: High Voltage" and "Railroad Xing" signs swore and drunk beer because if you disobeyed them, you'd either get hit by a train or electrocuted, whereas signs saying "Duck Xing" and "Shoft shoulder" are sensitive and drink milk, as disobeying them would mean you either run over some ducks or your car tips over.

• Hobart Farillo, The Miniature Train Engineer- Hobart was (both literally and figuratively) a miniature engineer of a miniature train. He lost his job after the town's miniature train club disbanded, then went home to find that his wife Lydia, a normal sized human, was cheating on him with a man named Phil. Phil eventually moved in with Hobart and Lydia, forcing Hobart to move into the microwave. Hobart lived there until he was killed by a ceiling fan in a diner, having floated up there after given a balloon Pig had got at the county fair.

• The Hyenas Introduced in 2008, the Hyena Hy and Hy run a funeral business, from which they intend to eat the dead bodies of their clients. On the side, they also go around looking for dead or dying things to eat. They are very silly and not very intelligent, which may, like the crocodiles, be an unintentional irony, as hyenas have also recently been found to be very intelligent.

• John and Jennifer Seal — Two seals who moved into the neighborhood unaware that a killer whale also lived nearby. Unlike the comic's other predator-and-prey characters (calm Zebra and the largely incompetent Crocodiles), John Seal is highly excitable and often outraged by the patient, stalking nature of the killer whale. Since the death of the Killer Whale, they have not appeared again.

• The Killer Whale — A character who lived near John and Jennifer Seal and made failed attempts to get them to leave their home so that he could eat them. Slightly more intelligent than the crocodiles (being able to speak properly), he was seen ordering a pizza from Domino's (which he cancelled when he saw the seals had come) and trying to order krill from a Mcdonald's-esque drive-thru. He died on May 13, 2006, when he was accidentally killed by a dynamite-laced meatloaf given to him by Zebra. (The Sea Anemones built a bomb out of the dynamite to kill Pig, who gave the explosives to Rat, who baked them in a meatloaf which he gave to Alphonse the Needy Porcupine, who gave the meatloaf to Chuckie the Non-Anthropomorphic Sheep, who gave it to Zebra, who gave it to the Killer Whale, who died eating it.)

• Leonard — a short-lived character who once moved in with Rat and Pig. He works at Kiddieland as Tatulli, the Self-Esteem Building Bear (named after cartoonist Mark Tatulli, creator of the comic strips Heart of the City and Liō); however, when Pig sees him in his costume, he thinks Leonard is being devoured. Leonard stopped appearing in the strip rather abruptly (Stephan Pastis said in Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My! that he was a "failed experiment") but didn't meet his official demise until several weeks later, when Rat found him drowned in the toilet.

• Lulu — Lulu is a pig that Pig met while visiting a slaughterhouse, mistakingly thinking it was singles party. They plan to run away together and prevent Lulu from being made into a sausage link, but she tragically died before their escape.

• Joy; [Pearls Before Swine]Zebra's niece is a sweet and pretty zebra girl. A bowtie hairclip on her head and her round eyes are to make her look different than her uncle Zebra. Joy became the girlfriend(and best friend) of Billy, who is the son of Larry and Patty Crocodile. One time, Billy told his father Larry he's going on a dinner date, but Larry thought that Joy was the dinner and not the date. Billy also fooled his mother by pretending to eat Joy by having Joy in his mouth,and Joy finally told Larry that he's dating a zebra, but Larry mistaken this as a joke like as if he was dating a chicken leg,or a ham sandwich. Later, Patty found this out and took away the cell phone, computer, and locked him in his room to not be with Joy ever again. But they put out signs out the window, and Billy unlocked and broke his doorlocks to go be with Joy again.On December 2007, eight months after this occurred, Billy ran away from home to go live with Joy on Christmas. She debuted on April 16, 2007.

• The Lions — (debut: 5/31/07) Two lions who moved in next-door to Zebra when an elderly couple moved away. This puts Zebra in an awkward situation -- he has predators on both sides of his house (the Fraternity of Crocodiles is on the other). However, Max and Zach have stated that they will not prey upon Zebra because only female lions hunt. Their wives have been shown attempting to eat Zebra, but only hunt at night. Max and Zach seem to honestly like Zebra, talking to him and warning him of how his actions will draw their wives' attention towards him, only to be disheartened when Zebra refuses to avoid things that make him look weak (like yogurt and the Oprah Book Club). The introduction of Max and Zach was significant because up until that point, while crocodiles and hyenas had both been shown, lions had remained unseen characters. The Lions speak like surfers, beginning conversations with "Duuuude!" and calling Zebra "bro". On July 30, 2007, the wives left Max and Zach, so their diet currently consists mainly on "court-ordered support", which are crates of "frozen zebra". The Crocs once stole the meat, but were subsequently caught by the lions. On February 18, 2008, Max and Zach met new wives, Gigi and Kiki. The lions' dialogue is shown in lower-case letters like the crocodiles.

• Moles — The Moles have a club since they cannot see in the light. They appeared in April of 2008. While visiting a hotel, The Fraternity of Crocodiles kill the entire club of moles and this resulted in Rat getting fired from the hotel.

• Niko Papandropoulos — Niko Papandropoulos is a person who claims to be Pig's guardian angel, but it is later revealed to not be a guardian angel at all. He is actually an escapee from a mental institution who poses for various religious figures. (In Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic, Pastis, who's Greek, said that he received a lot of mail saying that he was portraying all Greek people as escaped mental patients.)

• Pepito — Rat's violent sock puppet who makes occasional appearances, which are usually marked by him attacking one of the characters (the attack is always unseen).

• Rat and Pig's Egos — The egos of Pig and Rat took character form and appeared in a short series of strips. Pig's ego was not very big- possibly because of Pig's stupidity and social standing- while Rat's was ridiculously large and broke through the door upon his appearance. During the second strip, Rat's ego crushed Pig's ego, saying "I think I stepped on a doody" after doing so. During the third strip, Farina (Pig's sister and ex-girlfriend to Rat, who had just returned to the strip) announced that she was leaving to go live with Ziggy, a "real man," causing Rat's ego to wither down to what Pig's ego size was. It was then promptly crushed by Pig, who said "I think I stepped on a doody" just like Rat's ego had.

• The Roof Fish(villains) — Introduced January 14, 2008, Roof Fish sit atop comic strip panels and dangle various items using a rod and reel in an attempt to catch and kill other characters. According to Rat, the bait they use are objects they know will tempt characters into taking them; if they fall for the bait and give in to the temptation, they are eaten. They attempted to ensnare Pig with a DVD of the sitcom "The Office", his favorite television show, and Rat with a cold beer on January 15, 2008). On January 17, 2008, they successfully caught Pigita using an engagement ring she mistakenly thought was from Pig, but because of her weight the Roof Fish were unable to reel her in.

• Scott Adams — Scott Adams is depicted here as "bizarre, obese, inarticulate and reclusive Elvis-impersonator who sits behind the gates of his mansion shooting televisions, ripping his pants, and indulging in illegal narcotics". A routine that he has in this strip is practicing karate moves on his front lawn all night.

• Snuffles — Zebra's terroristic house cat. Snuffles was given to Zebra by the Crocodiles who believed the cat will kill Zebra for them. Instead, Snuffles took a liking to Zebra and became his pet. The FBI's discovery that Snuffles was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction led to his owner's arrest and incarceration. He was released to the custody of Zebra and was later hired by a hotel to replace Rat as its concierge (see "Crossovers" section for more on that). In the April 29, 2008 strip Snuffles was revealed to be the mastermind behind a Nigerian e-mail fraud scam, and on May 21, 2008 he was found selling stolen Rolex watches in an alley.

• Stevie Salmon — Stevie Salmon is a salmon who's main goal is to leave the ocean and head up the river to "party with the ladies", unaware of the fate that befalls a spawning salmon.

• Stromoski the Undateable Frog (or Stromoski, the Frog who has trouble meeting women) — Introduced in 2005, Stromoski is a friend of Pig's who has trouble getting dates because he can't resist sticking his long tongue in women's ears at bars. The response from the women is violent, usually involving the woman in question stomping Stromoski flat, such as on May 1, 2006. Om one occasion, he licked Barbara Bush's ear and was stomped by two Secret Service agents. His last appearance came after he licked Gloria Steinem's ear. He is named after cartoonist Rick Stromoski. (For more on the storyline, including a response by Stromoski, see the Crossovers section.)

• Toby the Agoraphobic Turtle — an agoraphobic turtle who was afraid of public places, so he stayed home, kept his head in his shell and guzzled beer from a "beer bong". When Pig said that "beer isn't the answer", Toby karate-chopped him. Pastis stopped using him, saying he had no licensing potential, but Toby appeared again once afterward, having broken into the garage of Pig and Rat to steal a giant can of beer.

• Tooty, the gingerbread man — Tooty is a talking, atheist, gingerbread man who got his head bitten off by Rat. Tooty also has a gingerbread wife and house, which were also later eaten by Rat.

• The Vikings — A set of Viking toys. Rat believes that they love violence, but in reality they enjoy watching Oprah and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. They also enjoy styling their hair, picking daisies, writing in their diaries, and painting their nails. When fighting, they resort to scratching and hair pulling. They've also referenced Brokeback Mountain and Broadway musicals such as Cabaret. On October 9, 2007, one was arrested and summarily banished by his fellow Vikings for an incident similar to Senator Larry Craig's arrest at an airport restroom.

• Marijuana-addicted Chicken; A chicken that showed up after a brief exchange between Rat and Goat: The latter was reading a book about Herbert Hoover, who promised "a chicken in every pot", which Rat misquoted as "pot to every chicken". When Goat corrected him, the chicken showed up, saying "Whoa, dude. For a second there, like, I almost voted.

• Wee Bear — A little bear with a social conscience. "Wee Bear" is a nickname; he's actually named Moses Savio Chavez, after Robert Parris Moses, Mario Savio, and César Chávez. In a treasury, Pastis wrote that Wee Bear was an attempt to have a Linus-like character in the strip. He also said that though he tried to use Wee Bear as often as he could, he just didn't catch on like he wanted him to. Wee Bear also seems to be a very nice and kind friend to Pig, and Pig promises he'll never forget his 2nd best friend after Wee Bear is arrested for protesting stores. During a minor sequence where Pig and Wee Bear were taking a vacation in December 2004, guess what?, Rat was lucky he didn't go with them. Wee Bear and Pig have protested box stores, but were arrested and thrown in prison in a different state. They were only given 1 phone call, but Rat refused to respond because he was watching his favorite sitcom The Real World and turned the phone off. Now, Wee Bear's fate is a mystery of how he got out of jail, and we'll probably never know if his record got cleaned out too, as Pig was declared innocent and Wee Bear was the cause of the illegal protests.

• Wanda Wildebeest — Wanda is a wildebeest who appeared a few times in past strips. She was talking to Pig at a bar about her lazy boyfriend, a gnu, saying "No gnu is good gnus." Later, the gnu boyfriend begs for her back, and she refuses because he is out-of-shape. He talks to Pig about it and uses another gnu-related pun.

• Cindy — One of Rat's many girlfriends. Cindy was a regular in the strip for a few weeks back in 2005, and was featured in the treasury, Nighthogs. Rat developed an "Empathy Hat" during that time, and used it on her in one strip, saying that "Chicks love empathy."

• Fredo and his wife (Piggybanks) — Pig's pair of piggybanks. He told Rat that he gave Fredo and his wife money by keeping it inside Fredo so that they can retire in comfort one day. Then, Rat explains that the only way to get the money is to smash Fredo open. Through the next few strips, Fredo's wife plots to kill him and says she "got married to young". Finally, Pig cannot find Fredo or his wife anywhere, and thinks that they are together in some wonderful place. We soon find out Fredo's wife is on the beach, enjoying a mai tai.

• Controlling Connie — Another one of Rat's girlfriends. Connie completely controls Rat, and even has him on a leash at one point. When she is not with Rat, she constantly calls him and asks him the same questions. At one point, she sent letters to all of his friends, saying that she did not approve of them and she had chosen new, more acceptable friends. She even made Rat get a new mother. Finally, Rat left her and Pig ends up dating Connie, who thinks that he can become an underwear model.

• Cubby — Cubby was Pig's pet fly. After introducing Cubby to Rat, Pig is told by Rat that a fruit fly's life span is two weeks, to which Cubby responds "Investing in the I.R.A. was a big waste of time." Pig decides to take Cubby to the zoo and park for his final days, but it turns out that Cubby only wants to "get wasted in strip joints" which Rat does with him. Cubby has such a good time at the club that he flies onto one of the dancers, named Trixie, and she smushes him.

• Satan — Satan is a friend of Rat's, and comes to the surface to visit because Hell is being remodeled. He goes to various places with the duo, such as a restaurant where Satan orders the sole and causes the waiter, who mistook him for wanting his soul, to run away. Satan also appears in a later Sunday strip promising two of the crocodiles a zebra in exchange for their souls, but after they sign the contract they find out it was for a pack of gum.

• Dear Betty: Apeared as a frog newspaper columnist to whom Pig wrote a letter to regarding his relationship with Pigita. Despite Pig's confidence she would give positive advice, all he got was "Good luck, moron".

• Klodski, the Kukistani man — Klodski appears in the May 11, 2005 strip when Pig digs a hole to Kukistan, a lost city that Stephan Pastis made up. Pig was actually looking for the original comic strips that consisted of him digging to a real country (in this case, China) instead of Kukistan, and big thought they were worth millions. He began digging a hole in the May 10th comic. Klodski, who hails from the Kirchuk Province of Kukistan, arrives huffing and puffing, and soon decides to take Pig back to Kukistan so that he can feed him to his large family. Pig goes through the hole with him, but is lost when they get to Kukistan because he did not slow down when he saw daylight after jumping through the hole and was blasted off the face of the Earth. Pig later returns by randomly falling out of the sky. (Klodski's Chinese counterpart, for the record, was named Pin Li.)

• The Anxieteers — They are a group of small colored dots that occasionally appear in the strip, scaring whoever they visit with their anxieties. They visit Rat once, mistaking him for someone else. Two of them are named Fred and Bob, but the others' names are never revealed.

• The Dentists: Five dentists (from the old TV commercial line "4 out of 5 dentists agree"). Four would always agree with a situation, while the fifth always had something contradictory to say.

• Newt Gingrich: Pig's pet newt, cross-bred from pygmy DNA and the DNA of the former Speaker of the House. Newt was eaten by one of the crocodiles.

• Timmy Pancake: A friend of Pig's. Pig sent him to an IHOP so he could meet pancakes from other countries, but he ended up being somebody's breakfast.

• The Bait Club — The Bait Club is a group of fishing bait, and consists of four members — Willie Worm, Gigi Grub, Sven the Salmon Egg, and the forever clueless Pig. As soon as Rat discovers the club, he tells Pig not to plan too much with it as he is going fishing the following day and they all are going to die. Knowing their fates, they decide that they will stick together, that is, until Rat only needs one of them for fishing, which follows with Gigi and Willie telling him to take Sven. In their last strip, it begins with Rat telling Pig that he has gone fishing and the club is dead, but ends with all of them together with Rat and Pig, saying things like "I love the world."

• Atlas — Atlas, who carries the world on his shoulders, grows weary and ends up visiting Pig. He puts the Earth down on the table, unknowningly smushing Antarctica, and talks to Pig about his job, and even lets him touch the Earth. Pig finds the location of his house on the world and pokes it, which causes him to be poked by a giant version of his hand.

• The Produce in Pig and Rat's Fridge — During four days of 2006 strips, a storyline was centered around four pieces of produce in Rat and Pig's refrigerator (specifically a carrot, broccoli, a pear, and a tomato). Pig let the broccoli borrow his car keys, prompting the carrot, pear, and tomato to demand that Pig take them to an illegal massage parlor downtown. The carrot, pear, and tomato were picked up in a vice sting at the massage parlor and brought back to Pig's house, where he swore it would never happen again...only to see the broccoli return to the house after a reckless driving spree where he apparently killed the neighbor's dog.

• '"Johnny Mallard"'- A friend of Pig's who was shot after being fooled by a decoy of a female mallard.

• '"Pig as Cathy"'- Over the course of three days, 'Pearls' got delivered the script for 'Cathy', forcing a clueless pig to act out the scripts for 'Cathy'., resulting in 'Cathy' getting the script for 'Pearls'.

Setting

The strip is set in a fictional suburb within or around Albany, California, where Pastis currently lives. Every house appears to have siding on it.

The continuity of the strip is very loose, and Pastis even says that "sometimes characters get jobs once, and you never hear about it again." Many storylines are left with open endings, and sometimes continuity leaps are made (frequently characters presumed to be dead will come back to life). Usually, relationships between characters are left unaltered (Farina, who appears infrequently for long periods of time, has a relationship with Rat that usually picks up where it left off.)

The strip's universe appears to be a world where comic strip characters are actual people who can interact with the creators of their strips or the creators of other strips, as well as the characters in other strips. This is made apparent many times, none more memorable than when rat took over the strip and locked all the characters in, or when he escaped and went on the loose in all of the other strips (see "Crossovers" three paragraphs down). Pastis is a frequent character, usually being criticized by Rat for lack of drawing ability among other disqualifications.

Meaning of the title

The title Pearls Before Swine refers to the admonition "Neither cast ye your pearls before swine" that Jesus gave to Peter according to Matthew 7:6 in the Bible. In the context of the comic strip, Rat, who considers himself a genius, must cast his pearls of "wisdom" before Pig, who is the only one naïve enough to listen to him.

Style

Artistically, Pearls is extremely simplistic, with minimal art. Most of the characters have no mouths, dot eyes and stick limbs; those with lips are unintelligent. Pastis stated, "People say that they like my strip's simplicity, but I'm doing the best I can to just to get up to that level. I'm not dumbing the art down."

Pearls Before Swine has proven controversial, largely due to its dark humor. Despite the simple drawing style, topics such as politics, murder, suicide, and depression are common themes. Steven Pastis has often been sent hate-mail from people who have either been offended or opposed to these themes that he uses. The jokes themselves are often based on puns and wordplay. Pastis also employs the format of the Shaggy dog story, particularly with Sunday strips, relying on a great amount of text to spin an elaborate yarn that is ultimately resolved with an unforeseen and abrupt ending (such as the character’s random death, or an intentionally bad pun, which is sometimes identified as such by the characters).

Pearls is also a meta-comic in that it often satirizes the comics medium, and allows its characters to break the fourth wall and either communicate directly with the author or with characters from other strips. Alternatively, the characters sometimes acknowledge the fact that they are in a comic strip published in newspapers; the strip published on January 14, 2008 had "roof fish" sitting on top of the panel fishing for the characters.

Pearls comics only sometimes contain a continuity, where one storyline will carry on through about a week of comics before moving on to a new storyline. Continuity will often be breached, for instance, charecters who are dead will sometimes come back to life. More often however, comics will be stand alone, such as when Rat sold Pig for 10 million dollars, but in the next strip both were back to normal, Rat being poor and Pig still with him.

Crossovers

Pearls Before Swine often interacts with other comics, as in a story arc that featured members of The Family Circus sheltering Osama bin Laden, unaware of his identity. In late August-early September 2007, a story arc featured Rat lost in the desert, and taken hostage by fans of Family Circus, angry at the strip's mocking in Pearls. Rat proceeded to call Circus creator Bil Keane, who also was angry at the mockery. Rat was freed on the condition that he participated in some pro-Family Circus comics. After one panel of this, Rat says that this was a bad idea. Bil Keane has recently shown the psychiatrist a snowman was visiting as one "Dr. Pastis".

TV characters have also been included, such as Stewie from Family Guy.

In early 2007, one of the crocodiles appeared on a cereal box in Baby Blues. In Pearls Before Swine, the children from Baby Blues were once portrayed as driving a car to get beer for Rat and ended up running over and killing Jeremy from Zits. Baby Wren from Baby Blues was portrayed as someone whom one does not mess with. It is this attitude that results in her killing several members of the fraternity of crocodiles when they try to eat her. The following Monday in the Baby Blues strip, baby Wren was seen playing with a stuffed crocodile with Xed-out dead eyes, an allusion to that storyline. On December 7, 2007, a crocodile appeared in Lio, only to say "OK, me freeked out by dat keed."

Bucky Katt from Get Fuzzy once appeared in early 2007 when Rat suggested Pastis add a cat to the strip for more popularity. Bucky then asked if Pastis had a lawyer. Bucky also appeared in the end of a storyline where Rat tried to learn (from Earl and Mooch of Mutts) how to be a lovable character; Rat said that both he and Bucky flunked.

On the back cover of "Nighthogs" you can see Satchel Pooch from Get Fuzzy in a window.

Characters from Cathy, B.C, Dilbert, and several others have made guest appearances as well, in which they are often mildly mocked. Garfield has also been the brunt of many punchlines, though only once has a character from the strip appeared in Pearls.

During Blondie 's 75th-anniversary sequence of strips in September 2005, which was referred to within some 25 other, generally more well-established comics, Pig and Rat were among the comic strip characters not "invited" to the event- in fact, a sign outside the celebration said that Pig and Rat were to be shot on sight if they were spotted entering. As a response, Pastis in his strip had Pig and Rat complain for weeks. To console them, in a self-reflexive sequence, Pastis set up a competing party in his own strip for other comic characters not invited to the Bumstead home in Blondie. Opus the Penguin from Bloom County and his eponymous strip was the only other attendee.

Others artists, particularly other young and newly established cartoonists, have collaborated on these meta-comic exchanges. On April Fool's Day 2005, Pastis, Get Fuzzy creator Darby Conley and FoxTrot creator Bill Amend published the same storyline involving a Ouija board using each strip's respective characters.

In 2006, Conley used four days of Pearls Before Swine strips verbatim in place of his own comic (having received them in the mail by accident), pasting stock illustrations of Get Fuzzy characters over the Pearls Before Swine characters. This led to a comically nonsensical Get Fuzzy sequence. Specifically, the strips in question saw Zebra getting attacked in his bed by the Fraternity of Crocodiles; Conley pasted stock illustrations of Satchel Pooch over Zebra. The final strip in the series showed Conley and Pastis arguing over the strips.

A similar reversal happened in November 2006, when a "disgruntled newspaper layout artist" inserted random Get Fuzzy panels into Pearls. There have also been other allusions: Satchel from Get Fuzzy once had a Pearls book next to his beanbag, as Rob asked about a phone call from "an annoying lawyer named Stephan" (Pastis was a lawyer before becoming a cartoonist), and Pig has attended at least one evening class led by a "Professor Conley". FoxTrot referenced Pearls Before Swine by having Jason Fox redraw the Crocodiles to look like his sister Paige. On the cover of a Get Fuzzy book, Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun, Rat can clearly be seen flying an airplane. Further, during a series of strips where Darby Conley was injured, the artist shared some ideas for strips, including one that warned him "Do not give Stephan Pastis a plug" (the strip in question featured Bucky Katt roasting Jason Fox and Billy from Family Circus on a spit over an open flame).

In 2005, Rick Stromoski's strip Soup To Nutz introduced a short-lived character, a kid named Stephan Pastis with a grossly enlarged head, as a friend of Andrew Nutz. This was Stromoski's response to Pastis' creation of Stromoski the Undateable Frog (see above). While Pastis drew the strips featuring Stromoski the Undateable Frog first, the Soup To Nutz strips featuring big-headed Stephan Pastis ran first- Stromoski was not as far ahead of his deadlines as Pastis was.

Cartoonist Bill Holbrook referenced the strip in his own Kevin and Kell.

On August 13, 2006, Pig and Rat were in a bar discussing a rule that all comic-strip characters needed to age in real-time, a la For Better or For Worse, Doonesbury, and the first to do this, Gasoline Alley. While this rule, made up by Pastis for the sequence, didn't affect the 5-year-old Pearls, it strongly affected the 50-year-old Family Circus and the 75-year-old Blondie within the confines of Pastis' strip.

For a brief period starting February 22, 2007, Pearls Before Swine featured Jason, Peter, Andy and Quincy from FoxTrot as homeless individuals living on Rat and Pig's lawn. This came after FoxTrot switched to a Sunday-only format.

A likeness of both Rat and Pig also featured in an F Minus strip, published on the 24th of June, 2007.

For the January 13, 2008 Sunday strip, Pearls parodied Slylock Fox. The January 16 Slylock Fox contained a quiz question about Pearls in return, and the February 3 Sunday strip featured Rat as the guilty suspect in a robbery (with Pig looking on).

In a series of strips for the week of March 23, 2008, when Rat gets a job as a hotel concierge, two of his clients are Darryl McPherson from Baby Blues and Ted Forth from Sally Forth. The first strip, on March 26, featured Darryl McPherson asking Rat to have housekeeping make his bed, only to be ridiculed by Rat for the size of his nose which "could provide shade for a family of corpulent gypsies". On March 27, Ted Forth asked Rat to help him find a date because his wife Sally is "homely", "bland", and emasculates him. This strip was concurrent with a storyline in Sally Forth where Ted accompanied Sally on a business trip in New York City and asked for advice from a concierge; Pastis and Forth's Francesco Marciuliano had planned the crossover months in advance.

On June 19, 2008, two of the crocodiles appeared in Matt Janz's strip Single and Looking as part of a storyline involving one of the characters' recent obsession with his own mortality. The crocs are seen carrying U-Haul boxes and being set to move into the strip on Monday, when they're informed that there's no proof anyone is going to die. One of the crocs responds with "Dis awkwurd momeent" when spotted. (It should be noted that Single and Looking is to end on June 22, 2008, which might have explained one of the crocs saying "Eeets no Monday yet?")

The Pearls Labor Dispute

Beginning May 12, 2002, the characters from Pearls began leaving the strip. Rat began the strike when he left a diner that never had food on its plates (blaming Stephan Pastis' lack of ability to draw food for that) and left to "be in a strip where the guy can draw." Rat went to The Family Circus, using Zebra as a go-between between him and Pastis and demanding that Blondie (from Blondie) make a guest appearance at least once a week in the strip. When Pastis offered him Cathy instead, Rat balked, leading Pastis to begin interviewing other characters to replace him (Marmaduke being the first).

On the Friday strip of that week, Goat announced he was leaving the strip as well, saying that he never liked any of his co-workers. Pastis responded by casting Nancy and Sluggo to replace Rat and Goat (who went to join Rat at Family Circus), but promptly fired them. After Zebra left the strip to spend some time with his herd, that left Pig, Pigita, and Chuckie the Non-Anthropomorphic Sheep as the only characters that hadn't left- with Chuckie promptly being slaughtered by Pigita and fed to Pig as mutton.

On May 21, while Pig was trying to convince Rat again to come back as Pastis was filling the Pearls space with ads, he found out that Rat had left Family Circus and was now spending his time with the girl from Love is.... Pig then decided to depart, visiting with Bucky and Satchel from Get Fuzzy.

The next day, the dispute was resolved, with Pig returning from his trip to Get Fuzzy, Rat returning when he found out about the boy from Love is..., and Goat leaving Family Circus, only to be intercepted by Garfield and hit with a newspaper.

Other comic characters that have appeared in Pearls

• Walt and Connie Duncan from Zits
• Mike Doonesbury from Doonesbury
• Huey Freeman from The Boondocks
• Irving Hillman from Cathy
• Luann, Nancy, and Frank DeGroot from Luann
• Rose Gumbo from Rose is Rose (in her Vicky the Biker alter ego)
• Elly Patterson from For Better or For Worse
• Two characters from B.C.
• Bucky Katt from Get Fuzzy.

Substitutions

Most cartoonists work six to eight weeks ahead of schedule. Occasionally, unreleased strips converge with current events in a way that requires the strip's syndicate to hold back or modify them so as not to cause offense with the public; United Feature Syndicate, which publishes Pearls before Swine, re-runs older strips when this happens, and has done so on two occasions:

• During 2002, Rat runs for the office of mayor, against opposition who turns out to be dead; in his first treasury, Pastis explains that the storyline was based upon Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, who posthumously defeated John Ashcroft for his Senate seat in 2000. However, on the second day of the series, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash. To avoid giving the impression that Pastis was making fun of the recently deceased, a majority of newspapers replaced the two-week series with earlier strips.
• On Sept. 26, 2006, such alternate strips were provided to newspapers due to that day's strip involving Pig playing in a washing machine. Concurrent news involved the Jimella Tunstall case, in which her children were allegedly murdered by a friend and hidden from the authorities in a washing machine. Many papers and websites that syndicated the strip ran the alternate strips instead.

Technical aspects

• Cartoonist Darby Conley, creator of Get Fuzzy, helped teach Pastis the technical aspects of cartooning. The two remain friends, sometimes poking fun at each other in their strips.

Books

Main article: List of Pearls Before Swine books

Awards

• National Cartoonist Society Award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip in 2002 - Nominee
• National Cartoonist Society Award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip in 2003 - Nominee
• National Cartoonist Society Award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip in 2004 - Winner
• National Cartoonist Society Award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip in 2007 - Winner

References

• Pearls Before Swine at Unitedmedia.com
• St. Petersburg [Florida] Times (Dec. 13, 2005): "Exactly What Ees that Zeeba-Eating Accent?", by Chase Squires
• "Forum Interview with Stephan Pastis, Creator of Pearls Before Swine" (Summer 2004)

External links

• Pearls Before Swine at Comics.com