Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California. It is Pastis' fifth attempt to syndicate a comic strip, the first four including Rat, The Infirm, and Bradbury Road. It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat.

Although created in 1997, it was not published until 2000, when United Feature Syndicate ran it on its website. Its popularity rose after Dilbert creator Scott Adams, a fan of the strip, spread the word to his own fans. United Feature launched the strip in newspapers beginning December 31, 2001, in The Washington Post.

On January 7, 2002, it began running in approximately 150 papers. As of early 2007, the strip appears in more than 400 newspapers worldwide. Prior to his work as a comic strip writer, Stephan Pastis, creator of "Pearls before Swine", worked as a lawyer in California.

As noted in the first treasury book, the beginning of "Pearls Before Swine" was not the first strip, but the creation of the non-syndicated comic "Rat." Pastis created "Rat" in his law school days. He tried to get the comic syndicated but failed. He then took the character "Rat" and put him in "Pearls." He also created another strip known as "The Infirm" about a struggling lawyer.

He attempted to have that comic strip syndicated but it was rejected by the syndicates. There was a pig character in "The Infirm" which he took and put in the strip "Pearls Before Swine".

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