Stephan Pastis

The hits for my comic strip went from 2,000 on a Tuesday to 155,000 on a Wednesday.

that was the power of scott and 25 years later pearls before swine is in almost a thousand newspapers now let me tell you something you might not not know which is how generous what scott did is in my particular field because syndicated cartooning is not like publishing say fiction books where you'll happily give a blurb to a fellow writer because many books can be successful all at once

In newspaper comics, a cartoonist can only succeed by knocking someone else's comic out of the newspaper.

So when you endorse someone, particularly who's in the same genre of comics as you, you are building a competitor who could one day knock you out of newspapers.

Scott did it anyways.

But that wasn't the end of his help, because in 2003, in just the second year of my strip, Scott offered me the biggest opportunity he possibly could have, asking me if I wanted to draw Dilbert for a day, something that would give me way more exposure than I had ever had before.

So of course I said yes, and I asked him, are there any limitations?

And Scott said no.

So I proceeded to draw a strip where Dilbert ran with scissors and died.

theoretically ending Scott's comic.

You can't have Dilbert without Dilbert, thereby opening all 2,300 of Scott's newspaper slots to Pearls Before Swine.

That's how I chose to repay my mentor.

As the years passed, Scott and I became friends.

And when I went to his house, I was still trying to learn everything I could, peppering him with one question after another.

Like when I asked him one time, how do you manage to be so funny in your books?

And Scott said, I try to make my brother laugh.

So simple, but so brilliant, because when you write comedy for a living, you often find yourself trying to please this amorphous mass of people.

And when you do, you end up pleasing no one.

So instead, make one person you know laugh.

And I have followed that advice in every book I have published since.