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''Pearls Before Swine'' is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, who was formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California. It chronicles the daily lives of five anthropomorphic animals: a Pig, a Rat, a Zebra, a Goat, and a fraternity of crocodiles,〔 as well as a number of supporting characters. Pastis has said each character represents an aspect of his own personality and world view. The daily and Sunday comic strip is distributed by Universal Uclick as of 2011; previously, United Media's United Feature Syndicate distributed the strip. It debuted in 2000, when United Feature Syndicate ran it on its website. Its popularity rose after ''Dilbert'' creator Scott Adams, a fan of the strip, showed it to his own fans. United Feature launched the strip in newspapers beginning December 31, 2001, in ''The Washington Post''.〔Pastis, Stephan, ''Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic'' (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2004; ISBN 0-7407-4807-6), p.5: "''Pearls'' was supposed to launch in newspapers on January 7, 2002. But just prior to the launch, the ''Washington Post'' bought the strip and wanted to start running it a week early. Thus, this week of strips (beginning 12/31 ) was quickly put together just for the ''Post'', and this () strip became the first ''Pearls'' strip, published in exactly one paper".〕 On January 7, 2002, it began running in approximately 150 papers. As of September 2011, the strip was appearing in 750 newspapers worldwide. The strip has become controversial due to its use of adult humor, mock profanity, violence, drinking and drug references and a few references to Middle-Eastern terrorism. ==Origins== Prior to creating ''Pearls Before Swine'', Pastis worked as a lawyer in California.〔 In law school, he became so bored during classes, he started to doodle a rat, eventually casting it in a non-syndicated comic strip he called ''Rat''. The title character of Rat would later become one of the main characters in "Pearls Before Swine." The "Pearls" character of Pig also came from a failed strip called ''The Infirm'', about a struggling lawyer. In 1999, he submitted ''Pearls Before Swine'' to syndicates. Several expressed interest and about three accepted it, but they could not convince their sales staff that it was marketable. However, Amy Lago, an editor at United Media, saw the strip's potential and launched it on the United Media website in November 2000 to see what kind of response it would generate. Pastis recalled in 2009, When Scott Adams, creator of ''Dilbert'' and supporter of the strip, told his fans about "Pearls Before Swine", interest skyrocketed, and the strip was taken to print. Aiding Pastis in the artistic elements of the strip was Darby Conley, creator of the comic strip ''Get Fuzzy''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pearls Before Swine (comics)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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