Source of text and Image: Tropedia
A Pig Man is a combination of a man and a pig. He doesn't have to be a genetic hybrid, sometimes he's just an anthropomorphic pig or a pig-like humanoid alien.
In fantasy settings they may be a rare kind of were-animal, or just a pig-faced monster. Sometimes the work will call the Pig Man an "orc" โ this probably stems from the fact that a few popular works have depicted their orcs as pug-nosed, tusked creatures.[1] In more futuristic settings, they'll be the product of genetic manipulation; these are usually human with "pig" added to them, but it could be the other way around. Either way, they're used as grunts, they have little intelligence, and they can be slaughtered by the hundreds with no moral implications.
In science-fiction settings, it makes a certain amount of sense that the pig is the preferred species for this type of gene splicing: pigs and humans are anatomically similar enough on the inside that pigs may soon be grown as human organ donors. The similarities even extend to behavior, pigs being omnivores with furless skin and similar behavior in the wild, enjoying beer as much as the next guy.
Tragic is the story of the Pig Man who escapes his evil masters and tries to live a human life; they'll usually be outcasts who will never know what it's like to be loved.
As the trope name implies, a character of this type will almost always be a Pig Man, similar to how cats are usually female. There are a number of reasons for this, the most prominent being that both pigs and men are stereotypically boorish and disgusting, and of course pigs are not considered the most attractive animal; Beauty Is Never Tarnished after all! If there is a whole race of Pig People you might see some Pig Women in the background but don't expect them to play an especially big role.
In yet another (almost entirely gay) sense, anthropomorphic pigs and boars can be very potent Fetish Fuel in furry Bara. This is somewhat rare in the Western Furry Fandom (and any cultural context where pigs are culturally considered unappealing to look at), but is more abundant in the Japanese Kemono community, where it peaked during the Year of the Pig in 2007. Much of the appeal is in the highly masculine Unkempt Beauty of Pig Men portrayals (sometimes overlapping with Ugly Cute), having much in common with the aesthetic ideals of the The Bear community. Really, a lot of gay furries would find the top picture hot.
Compare Half-Human Hybrid, Petting Zoo People, Full Boar Action, Government Conspiracy and Corrupt Corporate Executive. Oh, also Beauty Equals Goodness, Mooks and Hollywood Evolution. See Full Boar Action for swine that aren't part human and are crazy anyway. See also Messy Pig.
Some of the Pigmen of our time:
Those "Feed The Pig" PSAs that run on Nightmare Fuel.
The Burger King advertisement for their limited time offer Ribs features a winged pigman as a spoof of the expression "when pigs fly". Of note is that he was actually driving a pickup truck, not flying; he explains that he's moving out of his mom's basement and needs the truck to carry his stuff.
The Swine Apostle from Berserk.
Porco Rosso. He used to be human, but he became half-pig through some unexplained event. He essentially wants to quit humanity.
In Spirited Away Chihiro's parents were turned into pigs because they ate food left out for the spirits. Apparently Miyazaki likes pigs.
Ai to Yuuki no Pig Girl Tonde Buurin. A Magical Girl who transforms into a pig. Yup.
And let's not forget Tesla from Bleach (his release that is).
Ranma ยฝ had Ryouga, who turns into a pig at comically appropriate times.
Kaoru from Freak Island wears a pig mask and a female version is Ami Murata who also wears a pig mask.
Words Worth. Pig-men rapists.
The Orcs in Slayers are pig-men with red skin. In one episode of NEXT, they were even cooked and served in a restaurant! Not that they taste good, mind you...
In Eyeshield 21, part of the Shinryuuji Naga's line consists of four look-alikes for the main characters of Journey to the West. Naturally, Hakkai resembles a giant pig.
Oolong from the Dragon Ball series.
He comes from a village populated solely by pig people... and they're all just as perverted as he is.
Pig-men are part of the Black King's troops in Drifters, among other non-humans.
Zampano the chimera from Fullmetal Alchemist, who looks human most of the time but can transform into a Pig Man at will.
Pig is an Italian comic series about a man who has undergone some genetic experiment and as a consequence, turns into a pig-man with Super Strength whenever he is sexually excited. The only way for him to turn back into a human is to have sex with a different woman every time.
Spider-Ham. He's a spider who was bitten by a radioactive pig.
A borderline case at best, since the entire Spider-Ham universe is populated by Funny Animals โ there aren't any "humans" to speak of.
Pig-Iron, of Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, used to be just a cute little anthromorphic pig until a magic meteorite knocked him into a vat of molten iron โ now he's the hulking Pig of Steel.
Jim Woodring's often-unsettling comic Frank has Manhog (described by his creator as a "lamentable father figure").
Gilbert Shelton's Underground Comics included the satirical superhero Wonder Warthog.
Sir Porga, an uplifted pig, is a member of the Knights of Wundagore in the Marvel Universe.
Green Lantern has a heroic and villainous example in Kilowog and Larfleeze, respectively. Although neither of them explicitly look like a pig, the porcine appearance is there; Kilowog looking more like a domestic pig and Larfleeze looking more like a warthog. Though some artists make Larfleeze look more like a horse or a rat.
Duckburg has quite a few pigmen, which seem to fall into two stereotypes: the sneaky villain and the gentle Big Eater. Both are usually rich. Carl Barks revealed that, for the most part, pigmen were used when he wanted a generic villain. That didn't stop him from making them memorable...Porkman De Lardo, anyone? Interestingly enough, if the Mayor of Duckburg makes an appearance, he'd usually be a pig.
While not an actual pigman, Grant Morrison introduced Professor Pyg to Batman's Rogues Gallery, who wears an incredibly disturbing pig mask. Of course, given his creator, the mask is the least disturbing aspect of the character...
Pigs occasionally turn up as characters in Usagi Yojimbo. Gunichi, the mentor who originally sponsored Usagi to Lord Mifume, who deserted them at the Battle of Aichi Plain and whom Usagi later tracked down and killed, was a Pig Man. There's also Zato-Ino, the Blind Swordspig.
While not an actual Pig Man, Jigsaw from the Saw films does have a rather disturbing pig's head mask that he is sometimes shown wearing along with his sinister longcoat.
Time Bandits: Evil turns Og into a half-pig half-man. Later he turns him entirely into a pig.
The movie Penelope is about a girl who is cursed with a pig's nose until she can find one who will love her as she is.
Gammorreans in Star Wars are green-skinned pigmen who serve as Mooks for Jabba the Hutt. In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, they're a violent, primitive people that gravitates towards being Mooks or guards (in other terms, Orcs in SPAAAACE!). The X Wing Series introduces the pilot Voort "Piggy" saBinring, whose brain chemistry was tampered with, making him a calm Genius Bruiser.
In Legend, Pox was a (humanoid) goblin with a pig's head.
The Island of Doctor Moreau had some pigmen.
In a way, Animal Farm โ but those were more like Manpigs (pigs who slowly became similar to men, walking on two paws, and wearing clothes).
The hyperpigs in Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe (including Sparver in The Prefect, who's a cop).
In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a baby is so ugly he turns into a piglet. For such an ugly baby, he did make a rather handsome pig.
The French scifi novel Le Pรจre de nos Pรจres by Bernard Werber (who also wrote the novel that "inspired" the movie Antz) postulates a human-pig (or rather some sort of simian-boar) hybrid as the origin of humanity, Also, genetically modified pigs used for human organ transplant.
Journey to the West features Zhu Bajie/Cho Hakkai/Pigsy, who is notably the least virtuous of the heroes.
The novel 'Pig Tales' by French author Marie Darrieussecq features a woman who turns into a pig-woman over the course of the book.
Note that the title character of Paul Zindel's novel The Pigman is not an example, just an old man who collects porcelain pigs.
Similarly, The Pig-Man in a short story This Troper studied at school defied the juvenile narrator's horrified expectations by turning out to be a man who raised pigs.
William Hope Hodgson's novel The House on the Borderland features an underground-dwelling tribe of monstrous pigmen as one of the sources of horror.
For those who haven't read the novel: we don't actually know that they're a tribe, and it's hinted (for that horror-filled touch) that they're the lesser/younger versions of an evil Pig Man god who turns up later in the novel, possibly as the primary antagonist. (It's a long story.)
Harry Potter had a greedy, chubby cousin whom Hagrid attempted to curse into one of these. However, Hagrid was too incompetent for that and only managed a tail.
The Hogfather, Discworld's Santa-figure, is mostly a jolly toymaker, but because he's mythologically descended from traditions of killing a wild boar to bring the summer back, there's still "a hint of hair and tusk".
And, in Paul Kidby's illustrations, a ring through his nose.
Quite literary in Oryx and Crake, where pigs are spliced with human DNA in order to create ultra-large pigs who grow multiple human organs that are used for transplants. Some of them even have some human brain tissue, which makes them viciously intelligent. Of course, It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time.
A pig-man adventurer converses with Pookie and Spider in one of the short stories from Myth-Told Tales. Presumably he's from a dimension where everyone is a pig-person, although his species and origin are never specified.
In Paths Not Taken, one member of Herne the Hunter's bestial entourage is a boar-headed ogre called Hob In Chains. Not only is Hob an example of this trope, but he's attended by a mob of dimwitted lesser pig-men, who are implied to have once been human.
