“I basically play this character who is an a-, so it was not a big stretch for me,” Pastis quips about the blowhard he plays in the app’s video production. Working with Berkeley and Stanford film/media grads, Pastis also reveled in creating the videos. (PEARLS BEFORE SWINE / courtesy of Stephan Pastis and Chronicle Books/.) “You can run your finger along the wall,” he says, “and you can hear me explaining the significance of everything” - from a Cathy Guisewite note to a wall drawing by “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” creator Jeff Kinney.ĬHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD: Pastis’s trade secrets are a click away. The app lets the viewer touch anything on the high-res bulletin board, providing for a more immersive experience. “Five years ago, I wouldn’t have shown anybody that list.” “I even show the bulletin board in my that has everything on it - including my 10 Rules of When a Strip Is Funny, plus additional rules about when the crocs should appear. “It’s the most personal thing in this,” he tells Comic Riffs. The Northern California-based cartoonist is especially proud of the videos. “I put so many hours into this, it made no sense, dollar for dollar,” Pastis tells Comic Riffs on Tuesday, noting that he spent more than a year working on aspects of the app. The app, produced with Chronicle Books, goes live in Apple’s iTunes store today.
With that sense of purpose, Pastis has just launched the first “Pearls Before Swine” iPad app - an elaborate project that features not only 250 color strips, but also “PBS” animations by RingTales, more than a hundred audio commentaries and nearly two-dozen “intimate” videos. There is no standing still on the shifting sands of syndication. And Pastis believes that if newspaper cartoonists aren’t moving into new digital realms, then they’re slipping behind. The “Pearls Before Swine” creator is waxing honest about the state of syndicated cartooning - an industry still groping, like newspapers themselves, to adapt to new business models. “IF YOU AREN’T IN IT, you don’t know just how lost we are,” says Stephan Pastis, punching his words to punctuate his point. (PEARLS BEFORE SWINE / courtesy of Stephan Pastis & Chronicle Books/.) SCENES FROM AN APP: From the mind - and hand - of Stephan Pastis.
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