ED. NOTE: Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Comic Riffs will host and emcee the Graphic Novel Night pavilion at the Library of Congress’s National Book Festival. The participating cartoonists will include Lalo Alcaraz, Keith Knight, Miss Lasko-Gross, Diane Noomin, Trina Robbins and Scott Stantis. Today, in advance of his festival appearance Saturday night at the Washington Convention Center, Comic Riffs fires five quick questions at festival headliner Stephan Pastis. –M.C.
BACK WHEN HE was a law student listening to lectures in California, Stephan Pastis’s distracted mind would sometimes wander into the margins. The area where you might, with a doodling hand, habeas a frequent corpus. The head and stick body Pastis often produced was that of a Rat.
These days, Pastis, creator of the popular comic “Pearls Before Swine” and the hit kids’ book series “Timmy Failure,” feels grateful for having escaped from the land of documents and legalese. The Bay Area-based cartoonist much prefers the animal languages of his Pig Latin and Croc talk. “When I started out” in comics, Pastis tells The Post’s Comic Riffs, “I was always so fearful of having to go back to being a lawyer.” Now, with all his success at wielding a sharp wit instead of a writ — and with his preference for gilding the silly — Pastis relishes his dual roles as a creator.
MICHAEL CAVNA: Walt Disney once looked around at his success and, according to lore, said: All this began with just a mouse. Between your successful strip and kids’ series, is it safe to say in your case: “All this began with a Rat?” Are you ever amazed by the 15-year-plus trajectory?
STEPHAN PASTIS: When I started out, I was always so fearful of having to go back to being a lawyer. So the most I ever really hoped for was to just be able to make a living at this. So yeah, everything else has been amazing. And yes, it all started with a stick-figure rat.
MC: You so often speak to [two] audiences: the “Pearls” fans and the “Timmy Failure” enthusiasts. What do these audiences most have in common — is there a similar thread — and how are they most different beyond, you know, age? Are there things you do differently to appeal to each?
SP: I don’t really see a difference, mostly because “Pearls” book-signing audiences have always had a lot of kids.
When writing, I always try to do the same thing — which is to make myself laugh. And that seems to appeal to people who share my sensibility, whether they be cynical, twisted kids or cynical, twisted adults. I guess I just need them to be cynical and twisted.
MC: [Looney Tunes animator/director] Chuck Jones said he put a facet of himself into every character. But if you had to pick one character in all your creations that most identify with or relate to — other than your avatar — who would it be, and why?
SP: Rat. He’s the voice in my head that never gets to speak in real life. Well, other than when a driver cuts me off.
MC: What’s your biggest career highlight so far — meeting Sparky [Schulz]? Collaborating with [“Calvin and Hobbes’s" Bill] Watterson? Tweaking [“Cathy" cartoonist] Cathy Guisewite?
SP: Man, all of those. Meeting Schulz. Having the strip endorsed by Scott Adams early on. Staying in Saddam Hussein’s palace with Garry Trudeau [on a USO trip]. Doing strips with Bill Watterson. Getting an original “Bloom County” strip from Berke Breathed. It’s been quite a ride. Certainly better than reviewing documents as a lawyer.
MC: At Saturday’s event, there surely will be young creative people who want to write and draw for a living as you do. What’s the No. 1 piece of advice you can give them?
SP: Write and draw to make yourself laugh — or write and draw to make your best friend laugh.
The National Book Festival runs 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday at the Washington Convention Center. The Washington Post is a charter sponsor. Click here for more information.