From late 1995 to March 2008 I had pretty much given up on newspaper comics. Late 1995 saw the end of both The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes. In March 2008 I finally took my dad’s advice and started reading Pearls Before Swine everyday. It took me a few weeks of reading it to really start appreciating it. Now it is the first thing that I read in the morning. As an example, I found yesterday’s particular funny:
Pearls Before Swine 20080705
…and earlier this year the following strip ran (this is my favorite so far):
If you know the strip’s characters the 2nd one is really funny. I can see where not knowing the characters would make it less funny and I think that this is why I did not get into Pearls before making an effort to follow the strip for a few weeks.
Here is my quick summary of the characters to further entice you:
- Rat – a Russian Optimist, looking for the angle on everything
- Pig – the anti-Rat, nice, humble, and just happy to be alive
- Crocs – extremely stupid with only a rudimentary command of language, always trying to get Zebra or some other prey item
- Zebra – average Joe, but his neighbors are out to kill and eat him
- Goat – a brainy aloof bipedal farm animal
- Duck – a military zealot that is hunkered down in Pig’s lawn
- Author – the author of the strip, Stephan Pastis, frequently includes himself, almost always in a highly self-deprecating way
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