logo search
white
Grey
public area
news
general news and updates
properties and rights
characters
sports_and_brands
art and design
tv and video/dvd rights
syndication_rights
business and offices
about licensing
who we are
offices and territories
job opportunities
plus is more

user name
password
forgot your password
news
plus news and updates
territory focus
category focus
sign up for access
 
 
Pearls Before Swine daily strip sample

An unusual rat and pig take center stage in Pearls Before Swine, a quirky daily and Sunday comic strip by litigator Stephan Pastis. Launched in 2002, the strip appears in 200 newspapers worldwide, including The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The strip won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben division award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip of 2003.

At its heart, Pearls Before Swine is the comic strip tale of two friends: a megalomaniacal Rat who thinks he knows it all and a slow-witted Pig who doesn't know any better. Together, this pair offers caustic commentary on humanity's quest for the unattainable. Available on United Media's web site since 2000, Pearls Before Swine has a growing list of fans, including Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams who says Pearls is "one of the few comics that make me laugh out loud".

Pastis never had any formal training, but he did draw cartoons for each of his school newspapers as he grew up. He holds a degree in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. Although he always wanted to be a cartoonist, Pastis realized that the odds of syndication were slim, so he went to UCLA Law School and became an attorney instead. While at UCLA, he drew a popular strip called "Rosen." It was while was hopelessly bored in a class on the European Economic Community that Pastis first drew "Rat," a character that would reappear in every comic strip he created thereafter - including Pearls Before Swine.

Pearls Before Swine Sunday page sample

Plus Licens represents United Feature Syndicate and Newspaper Enterprise Association for syndication rights to Pearls Before Swine in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.