http://wordbookstores.com/
to meet Stephan Pastis, the cartoonist behind the Pearls Before Swine strip. For those of you in the cities he has yet to visit, don't miss your chance.
http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/the-falling-down-tour-is-set-come-fall-down-with-me/
He gives an excellent little talk, riffing on the difficulties of a new cartoonist's road to successful syndication;
how he inadvertently managed to anger Turks everywhere (including the Turkish Ambassador to the United States);
and his real relationship with Scott Adams, Bil and Jeff Keane, and Charles Schulz, including what Cathy Guisewite really thinks of him.
His talk was illustrated with a slide show of key strips and liberally peppered with his awesome (or awful, depending on your point of view) puns. Oddly, in response to a question I posed, he noted that his propensity for puns hadn't been obvious during his years as a corporate attorney. Personally, I suspect he was repressing a natural inclination, which is why the strip today contains so many of them.
Interestingly, despite having drawn the strip for over ten years, it has only been a few years since he no longer felt it necessary to maintain his annual CPE (continuing professional education - refresher classes required to retain his certification as an attorney).
He then spent the next couple of hours signing books for the approximately 100 people in attendance, and in most cases adding a drawing. I had him sign mine as follows
since there's no way I wanted to be associated with Larry the Croc (and if you don't get it, then start reading the strip). And you don't have to worry if it's not in your newspaper - read it online at this most excellent site.
http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine
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