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. Pastis continued to draw comics; the character Pig came from a failed strip, The Infirm. In 1999, Pastis first submitted Pearls Before Swine to a few syndicates. Several expressed interest and three accepted it, but they could not convince their sales staff that it was marketable. Amy Lago, an editor at United Media, saw the strip's potential and launched it on the United Media website in November 2000 to see what kind of response it would generate. Pastis recalled in 2009:

Pearls Before Swine debuted in 2001 as a website strip under United Feature Syndicate. When Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and a supporter of the strip, told his fans about Pearls Before Swine, interest skyrocketed, and the strip was taken to print. Aiding Pastis with the strip's artistic elements was Darby Conley, creator of the comic strip Get Fuzzy.

United Feature Syndicate launched the strip in newspapers on December 31, 2001, in The Washington Post.Pastis, Stephan, Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2004; ), p. 5: "Pearls was supposed to launch in newspapers on January 7, 2002. But just prior to the launch, the Washington Post bought the strip and wanted to start running it a week early. Thus, this week of strips [dated beginning 12/31] was quickly put together just for the Post, and this [12/31] strip became the first Pearls strip, published in exactly one paper". On January 7, 2002, Pearls was running in approximately 150 papers. Since 2011, it has been appearing in 750 newspapers worldwide.

In January 2021, Andrews McMeel delayed the circulation of a comic arc that depicted Rat, as President of the United States, overthrown in a fictional American coup d'état by Guard Duck, worrying that readers might think of it as inspired by the 2021 United States Capitol attack. The arc was postponed to August/September 2021, and reruns were published in place of the originally scheduled week in January. Pastis and the company both clarified that the strips were a pure coincidence and had been drawn before the riots happened.

Influences Pearlss style and humor are inspired by several comic strips, chiefly Peanuts, Dilbert, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County and The Far Side. Pastis has drawn tributes to these influences in his strip. When asked in an interview whether his profession as an attorney inspired the humor in the comic, he said, "I was very unhappy as a lawyer, and humor is a reaction to and defense against unhappiness. ... if you dislike what you're doing to the extent that I did, it gives you the impetus to get out."

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

Characters

This is a partial list of the strip's major and secondary characters:

Rat

Personality Rat is a megalomaniacal, misanthropic rat who is known to drink and smoke, as well as not care about anything. He is contemptuous toward almost everyone he meets, including the general public, his friends and associates, and even the author of his own comic. Rat holds a high opinion of his own intelligence, frequently inventing sweeping theories about human nature, but ironically he is often fairly poorly informed himself; Pastis describes this trait as Rat's "exaggerated sense of self", which he says is "key" to Rat's character. In addition to his arrogance, Rat is high-strung and impatient, and frequently unleashes angry tirades, physical violence, or elaborate revenge plots against people who anger him.

Rat has held numerous jobs throughout the comic's history. Most frequently, he is seen as a barista at a fictional café called Joe's Roastery. Though Rat tends to be openly rude or dismissive to his customers, he continues to hold this job, because Joe's Roastery has a stringent diversity policy that prevents them from firing the only rat in their staff. In addition to this job, Rat also frequently launches get-rich-quick schemes and runs for political office. His political campaigns are usually unsuccessful, although he did become President of the United States in a 2017 storyline, but was later overthrown in a coup by Guard Duck and replaced with Larry the croc in 2021. Rat's political stances are generally militaristic (e.g. advocating the invasion of France or Mexico); Pastis has described Rat's politics as "somewhere to the right of Dick Cheney".

Rat is also prolifically creative, and is frequently seen attempting to write novels or draw comics. Recurring characters in Rat's writing include Angry Bob, a character who tends to die violently while pursuing happiness and inner peace; Elly Elephant and Henry Hippo, who typically appear in cynical parables about romance; and a nameless, corrupt congressman. Rat has also drawn comics about a misanthropic, alcoholic donkey named Danny Donkey, who briefly came to life in a 2006 storyline.

Though Rat seems to dislike or disdain everyone he meets – including his family, who he generally strives to avoid whenever possible – he does occasionally show moments of kindness. Pig is the most frequent recipient of these moments, as Pastis often uses them "to answer the question, 'Why would Pig be friends with this guy?'" Rat has also nursed romantic feelings for Pig's germaphobic sister, Farina during her rare appearances in the strip.

Character history Pastis started drawing Rat in law school, often killing him off for the sake of humor. He would often doodle Rat in classes while bored, and in his early stages Rat was more of a depressed, philosophical character as opposed to the cynical egomaniac he is today. Pastis tested different names for this script before deciding on Rat after his title character.

Later, as he began attempting to get syndicated, Pastis added a second character as Rat's companion. This resulted in the creation of Poe, an amorphous blob that resembled nothing. Newspapers deemed Rat too depressing and Pastis stopped drawing the strip.

Rat was later put into another one of Pastis's comics, Bradbury Road, which was also rejected.

Bradbury Road is the story of Gus, a ten-year-old boy who is befriended by Rat, a cynical rodent who gnaws his way through the wall into Gus' room. Gus, the child of divorced parents, lives with his mother and very rarely sees his father. Reserved and slightly awkward, he spends a lot of time in his own room. For those times when Gus is not around, Rat talks with Jingles, a stuffed, court jester doll that lives on a shelf in the boy's room.

After some rejection, Pastis eventually wrote Pearls Before Swine, an attempt to revive Rat with a less depressing tone. Poe was replaced by Pig, and began syndication by United Media on December 31, 2001.

Pig

Personality Pig is a gentle, optimistic, but dimwitted pig. He is also quite immature, with Pastis stating that he views Pig "as a little kid". He believes that there is good in every being, even his cynical housemate Rat. Pig's lack of knowledge often leads him to misunderstand world issues and social norms; this is compounded by the fact that, when they are explained to him, he frequently mishears or misinterprets important parts of the explanation. Pig also tends to be easily manipulated by Rat's writings; he tends to uncritically believe them and make strident proclamations of support for Rat's viewpoints.

Pig has a deep love for food. On several occasion, he has befriended sentient food items; he has also dated a maple syrup bottle named "Ms. Bootyworth" and founded a religion centered on cheese. In the early days of the strip, he frequently befriended fruits, most notably the Fruit Buddies. He also regularly eats bacon, despite being a pig himself. In addition to his voracious eating habits, Pig is generally slothful and avoids physical activity, causing him to be obese. While he is generally content with his body, he occasionally attempts to lose weight; however, he usually takes only minimal efforts to do so.

Pig has an on-again, off-again relationship with a female pig known as Pigita. Pig's tendency to misspeak often leads him to offend Pigita by unwittingly making rude or sexually forward remarks; Pig's routinely immature behavior is another source of friction in their relationship. Pig tends to get along with his family, though he tends to receive fairly little respect from them.

Character history Pig's beginnings lie in The Infirm, a third attempt by Pastis to get syndicated. In this strip, Pastis based the story on a lawyer named Bob Grossman who screwed up a lawsuit brought by a sausage company and was forced to work at the farm the sausage company owned until he made up the difference. Grossman worked with pigs, one of whom told him he was "screwed" because the farmer was only paying minimum wage.

Although The Infirm was rejected, Pastis liked the pig characters so much that he eventually simplified the artwork and one became known simply as "Pig" in the first Pearls strips Pastis sent to the syndicators. In fact, it was Pig's addition to the strip that caused it to be known as Pearls Before Swine – Rat would consistently be imparting his "pearls of wisdom" on Pig only to have it fall on deaf ears. (Pastis also said this was a play on a Biblical verse, part of which reads "neither cast ye pearls before swine".)

Goat

Personality Goat is an intelligent, well-read goat who enjoys discussing world news and philosophical issues. He frequently clashes with Rat due to Rat's poorly informed and relentlessly cynical viewpoints. Goat also attempts to teach Pig about various matters, generally without success. For this reason, he is described on the Pearls website as "the voice of reason that often goes unheard".

Despite his intellect and his generally amiable personality, Goat tends to be socially inept – he is usually uncomfortable around new people, and has fairly little knowledge of pop culture. For this reason, while Goat regularly pursues romantic relationships, his efforts tend to be sabotaged by his awkward behavior. Consequently, when left to his own devices, Goat often prefers to read on his own rather than to spend his time sociably. He also maintains a blog that consistently receives few or no pageviews, a fact for which Rat often mocks him.

Name As with most of other animal characters in the strip, Goat is only referred to by the name of his species, Goat. However, in a storyline where Goat travels home and visits his mother, it is revealed that "Goat" is a stage name and that his real name is Paris. This name was chosen as a tribute to Pastis's grandfather, Paris Tripodes.

Character history