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Stephan Pastis is in love. With Montreal.

The comic-strip creator of Pearls Before Swine took in the city for the first time last fall. He caught the Habs playing the Bruins. He made the mandatory bagel, deli and poutine pilgrimage. He checked out the bistro and indie bookstore scene. He marched and/or biked from Old Montreal to Mount Royal. Upon leaving, he expressed a desire to uproot to the city.

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Of course, the temperature was relatively balmy back then. Pretty similar to that of his current San Francisco home.

Fast-forward three months. The thermometer has hit a punishing minus 29 Celsius – not even factoring in wind-chill factor – during our telephone chat.

“So maybe I’ll live in Montreal only during the warm months,” says Pastis, clearly unaware that the warm months generally constitute less than half a year here. No matter.

Pastis is, unarguably, one of the most successful cartoonists on the planet. Pearls Before Swine runs in more than 750 newspapers, including the Montreal Gazette. He has an estimated 17.6 million readers a day.