Comments on: Pearls Before Swine

By: Q

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:23:36 +0000

i think pearls is hilarious. i find mutts boring, zippy the pinhead and family circus are horrible

By: Bob Schmeem

Bob Schmeem — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 02:54:38 +0000

I like the crocs! They are awesome and the Zeeba’s are so smaht it scarwy!

By: James Schee

James Schee — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 00:12:27 +0000

I really enjoy Pearls. Not every strip is a winner, I personally didn’t enjoy the whale and seal ones, until the cartoonist admitted a fault in the premise in the strip itself.

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:31:03 +0000

Johanna: I think the deal with “Get Fuzzy” and “Pearls…” this week is based on vacationing cartoonists and guest cartoonists. So often, the guest basically writes their own strip but with the hosting strip’s characters rather than bothering to write anything like the style of the hosting strip. Pastis and Conley are taking this to the extreme by just having Pastis’ guest strips be exactly his own strips again, but with Conley’s characters (badly) pasted over Pastis’.

Of course, on Wednesday they implied that Conley is stealing Pastis’ artwork, but I read that as just another level of the joke for those who don’t get the satire of guest strips.

By: Larry Simmons

Larry Simmons — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 04:28:40 +0000

As with anything, to each their own. I do like the Mutts Sunday strip, if only for the wonderful homages in the title panel. Otherwise, its a little on the precious side for me.

As for the art for PBS… yeah, it’s pretty basic, but it seems to add to the absurdity of the whole thing.

By: Roger

Roger — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:17:21 +0000

I do find Pearls Before Swine amusing when I read it. That’s not often though as I find the art very unappealing and often pass it by. (But that goes for Dilbert and Fox Trot for me as well.)

Mutts is my fave at the moment.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:03:15 +0000

looking at it now I think in a way PbS does same thing Gary Larson often did by letting animals play out human situations in an absurd setting.

I’m not reading PbS regularly but when I read one usually I kinda like it.
And I love Gary Larson’s stuff.

My favourites at the moment are Dilbert and the Boondocks, btw

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:55:40 +0000

Get Fuzzy (and – earlier – Liberty Meadows) took a while to find my funny bone.

My favorites at the moment is Mutts, which has a similar sweetness as Rose is Rose (a strip that the local newspaper axed in favor of PBS… ).

Hmmm… maybe I am getting less cynical in my dotage.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:40:36 +0000

John, I often don’t get Get Fuzzy, so maybe there’s a kind of conservation of humor going on. :)

By: Lyle

Lyle — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:35:16 +0000

I love Pearls Before Swine. It pulls on a little of my love of absurd humor (rat escaping and kidnapping Cathy, for example or the most recent whale/seal strip) and I like the odd mix of complex (the joke about the little crocs singing “Give Peace a Chance” gets funnier when you connect it to the previous strip). It has some moments that are a bit “Garfield” but sometimes those moments work so well because of the kind of humor those characters have been through before.

By: John

John — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:09:44 +0000

I have to categorize myself with the ‘just don’t get it” group with respect to Pearls Before Swine. Get Fuzzy and Unshelved are probably my two favorite comics in the traditional newspaper format at the moment.

By: Larry Simmons

Larry Simmons — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:40:15 +0000

I think Johanna pretty much sums up the appeal of the strip for me. I guess I’m also kind of a cynical person, and, well, this strip is about as cynical as you can get on dealing with people (or animals). At least in a nationaly syndicated strip.

By: Ed Sizemore

Ed Sizemore — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:57:05 +0000

Scott, your not alone. I have never found this comic strip funny either. But, a lot of people I know love it. Can’t say why it just doesn’t gel with me.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:19:15 +0000

Maybe it’s a reaction to strips like Garfield, where an animal looks like an animal but thinks and acts like a human. Here, the animals look like people — they stand on two legs and live in suburbia — but they still behave like animals.

I dunno. I fear too much dissection of the joke will kill it.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:13:12 +0000

Why? Why? WHY?

Is it an age demographic thing or a particular brand of humor?

I do not understand the appeal of this strip and have never found it funny in the least.

However, I am curious about the types of folks that do find it funny.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:57:22 +0000

That IS really weird. I can’t wait to see the punchline for that series.

By: Larry Simmons

Larry Simmons — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:55:47 +0000

My favorite strip, too. You might check the Get Fuzzy strip for this past week, also – seems to be a very strange little crossover going on…