From law school to the funny pages, life for comic strip creator Stephan Pastis continues to be as unorthodox as the anthropomorphic animals that materialize on his drawing pad.
Pastis, whose strip "Pearls Before Swine" appears in the AJC and approximately 650 newspapers across the globe, regularly breaks conventions, not only with the comic strip itself, but also when it comes to the creative process. While preparing for a book tour to promote his latest collection, "Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out: A (Freaky) Pearls Before Swine Treasury," which includes an Atlanta stop at Manuel's Tavern, Pastis recently chatted about everything from the pressures of being funny to the controversy sometimes surrounding the strip.
Q: Rumor has it that while you were in law school, you became so bored during classes you started to doodle a rat, which eventually became one of the characters in “Pearls Before Swine.”
A: That is true. I still have the paper that I drew him on. It was just this little sketch. It was this class called the European Economic Community. I couldn't take it, so I had to do something.
Q: How did your work as an attorney inspire the humor in the comic?
A: Sometimes Rat is a lawyer, so in that case it sort of comes in. But really, if anything, what it does is, it's this fire at my heels. I never want to have to go back to being a lawyer, so it makes me try harder as a cartoonist. It's sort of this negative incentive.
Q: How tough is it coming up with strips on such a regular basis?
A.: Some days it's very easy, and some days it's impossible. I wish I knew the difference, because on the impossible days I want to do it, and I don't want to lose a whole day. That I haven't learned yet. You don't know when you have it, and you don't know when you don't have it. The one thing I've learned is if I go about three hours and I haven't come up with anything, I need to just stop, because it's probably not going to happen.
Q: What other things do you do for inspiration?
A: I do something very odd that no other syndicated cartoonist that I talk to does, and that is I listen to loud music. I sort of pace the room listening to this music, sometimes for an hour … I don't know if it's because music is rhythm and humor is rhythm … I can't write any other way … Lately I've been listening to a lot of Arcade Fire, The Killers, Radiohead, Coldplay, U2, Pink Floyd, Dylan. It tends to be more moodier sort of music. It's not really upbeat.
Q: When going back and compiling your strips for a book like this, what sort of thoughts do you have on your past work?
A: I always go, "Man, that's not funny." I never like my past work. Well, I shouldn't say that. Occasionally I'll look at something and go, "Yeah, that's funny." But maybe that's the way you have to be. I've heard a lot of cartoonists say the same thing about not liking their past work. I've heard some of them say when that stops, that's when you're stagnating. So maybe that's a good thing.
Q: There’s been some controversy surrounding the strip through the years. Do you agree with the old adage that bad publicity is good publicity?
A.: Yeah, up to a point. It's always nice to be talked about, I suppose. But sometimes you can go too far and anger people so much that it becomes not worth the trouble. But by and large, you want people to talk about you, just not too much.
7 p.m. Oct. 9. Free. Manuel’s Tavern, 602 N. Highland Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-681-5128, www.acappellabooks.com.
