Stephan Pastis's Blog, page 17

Just A Question I Can't Get Out Of My Head

If you had to (A) spend the rest of your life on a desert island with all the supplies you'd ever need but absolutely no other people around, or  (B) keep your life as you have it now but carry an emperor penguin under each arm forevermore, which would you choose?

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On the Retirement of the Comic Strip "Cathy"

My first contact with the creator of "Cathy" was a phone call.

"Hi, there…My name is Stephan Pastis, and I draw the comic strip Pearls Before Swine."

Long pause.  Awkward.  Chilly.

"I know who you are," replied Cathy Guisewite.

No "How are you doing?" or "Nice to meet you" or even "Hello."

Just a "I know who you are."

It's the kind of greeting a Nazi hunter would give to Josef Mengele when he found him hiding behind a South American palm tree.

I suppose I should give you some back story.  Better...

The Sad Saga of the Toilet Paper Baby

Squeezed a bunch of toothpaste out of the tube this morning to see if the adage, "You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube" is right.

It is.

Staci walked in as I was doing it.  I had toothpaste on all of my fingers.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked.

Which reminds me.

When Staci really wants to know what I'm doing, she says, "What are you doing?"

When she wants to imply I'm someone she never should have married, she throws in the words "do you think".

I've come to learn over the...

Famous Last Words

Last week, a man standing trial for a double homicide in Utah wrote an e-mail to the Ogden newspaper, the Standard Examiner.  In it, he commented on some of the evidence in the case and the credibility of one of the witnesses against him.

As a former lawyer, I can tell you that this is an attorney's worst nightmare.  An attorney doesn't want his client talking to anyone, much less the press.  That is especially true in a serious case such as this, in which the defendant is facing the death...

I'm Taking the Winnebago to San Diego

I'm off to San Diego's Comic-Con to speak on Friday, July 23 at 2 pm.   I'm on this panel about Peanuts:

2:00-3:00 Peanuts Turns 60— On October 2, 1950 the Peanuts comic strip launched in seven American newspapers. Little did anyone know the impact this comic strip would have around the world for decades to come. Nearly 60 years later, Peanuts appears in over 2,200 newspapers, in 75 countries and 21 languages. The animated specials have become a seasonal tradition and thousands of consumer...

And You Thought the Lincoln and Kennedy Assassination Similarities Were Eerie

So I'm reading this book on the early Christian church, trying to figure out how it was that my church, the Greek Orthodox, split off from the Roman Catholics.

The book explains that the early Christian church had five centers, or patriarchates, all of which were considered equal.  They were Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.  Then one day the Roman patriarchate decided it was better than all the rest and broke off, leaving the rest to fend for themselves.

Sound familiar?

I...

Cartooning 101

I'm often asked for advice on being a syndicated cartoonist.

Here's some.

I was just finishing the last panel of a Sunday strip I was working on this morning and decided to take a sip of coffee.

No, I didn't knock the coffee cup onto the strip.  I'm not that stupid.

I took the sip of coffee just fine.

Then it leaked out of my mouth.

All over the final panel.

Which now looks significantly different than it did pre-coffee.

So for all of you aspiring cartoonists out there, here's a tip from the pros:

Don...

The Phantom Sandwich Menace

I don't trust new people.

I want my doctor to remain the same.  My barber to remain the same.  And the woman who makes my sandwiches at the grocery store deli to remain the same.

Which she didn't.

It was someone new there yesterday.

Unhappy but composed, I ordered the same sandwich I always do.

"Turkey sandwich, please."

She got out a piece of paper to write down the details.

"What kind of bread would you like that on?" she asked.

That was annoying because the regular woman already knows.

"Soft...

A Dip Into the Email Bag

I'm a little behind in email.  About eleven months to be exact.  But I just found this one sent to me last August:

From:     (Name deleted) Subject:     grammar Date:     August 22, 2009 10:41:08 AM PDT To:     Theratandpig@aol.com

I am writing to complain about the grammar in your comic strip.  Most of it is okay but this business of "What do you GOT there, Pig" is so grating and so wrong.  We try to teach our children the correct way to speak and then you use such an improper phrase to...

In Praise of John C.

Rarely is the act of a stupid person so traceable.

From the dents they put in your fender to the trash they toss on your lawn, you never know which of the stupid people did it.

They're tricky that way.

If nothing else, generations of stupidosity have refined the stupid gene to at least cover its own tracks.

Not so with John C.

John C. (whose last name I've abbreviated to keep him from suing Stephan P.) has his moronity on full display at my grocery store.

That is because John C. did not use the...