Comic strips

Cartoonists in the news – Stephan Pastis

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Alan Gardner January 17, 2007 1 minute 2 comments

I’m beginning to think that Stephan Pastis is the most written about cartoonist of 2006 and is setting himself up for a repeat in 2007. Anyway, here’s an interview with him from the Concord Monitor. They are now running Pearls Before Swine in the place of Foxtrot.

From the interview:

What do you think it is about Pearls Before Swine that resonates with people?

You know, I don’t know. But it’s very hard for a new strip to get on the page. And if you’re a young comic strip with a sort of edgy skew, it helps you because there aren’t that many on the page. Most of the strips are family strips, and so that kind of sets you apart.

The article mentions that Pearls is now in 400 newspapers. I don’t remember what Stephan’s client count was before Foxtrot left the dailies, but I’m sure it wasn’t that high. I still maintain that Stephan was one of the major beneficiaries of Bill Amend’s semi-retirement.