The first thing that Stephan Pastis notices when the Skype interview starts is the background noise. "Is that traffic?," he says, almost unbelievingly. For someone who has nearly become deaf to the city’s honking habit, Pastis’s observation seems quick. Yet, why should that surprise? Over the last 15 years, the lawyer-turned-syndicated cartoonist has wooed many the world over with his irreverent comic strip Pearls Before Swine, that’s an astute observation of the world we live in, even if the observations aren’t always politically correct.