The Comics Curmudgeon

27 responses to “This will be nastier than Jay Z versus Nas”

1. Hubris
   January 10th, 2005 at 10:00 am [Reply]

   I’m surprised that Stephan Pastis is using the forum of Pearls Before Swine to delve into Hindu mysticism.

   The description of the comics drawn by mouse-guy, and then the reference to the “real comics page,” set up a clear allusion to the different levels of existence (the “loka” in Sanskrit). The appearance of Cathy in this strip also implies the use of a “chakra” as a passageway between worlds.

   Potentially, the belligerent cockroach could travel to our reality and apply duct tape to you or I. The mind reels.

2. Anonymous
   January 10th, 2005 at 12:22 pm [Reply]

   I thought the big rap feud was between Jay-Z and R Kelly.

3. Chris Durnell
   January 10th, 2005 at 12:26 pm [Reply]

   Liberty Meadows referenced other people’s strips relentlessly, and the author, Frank Cho, had an obvious distase for the strip Cathy. Liberty Meadows is not done as a newspaper strip anymore although the comic book more or less carries the same format.

4. Chad
   January 10th, 2005 at 3:14 pm [Reply]

   And Gary Larsen had Garfield inside of a snake once…

5. drownedinink
   January 10th, 2005 at 3:43 pm [Reply]

   I think, probably, Garfield would be considered a safer target, since Jim Davis is even more detached from his creation than most funny pages scribes (and that’s saying something).

6. chuck
   January 10th, 2005 at 4:32 pm [Reply]

   I dunno. Patsis had a funny caricature of Scott Adams (as fat Elvis) a few weeks ago, but I know those two are friends. Would it be the same thing with Guiswite? I hope not… I’d like to see some blood in these strips. Cathy eating the zebra whole, maybe?

7. Kristen
   January 10th, 2005 at 5:10 pm [Reply]

   Cathy could never do something so cool. She’ll probably freak out that the interruption made her mess up her invitations and now the mouse and zebra won’t get one. Will they forgive her? Will they look at her with sympathetic friend eyes? or with revengeful animal eyes? Will it change if she wears new shoes? What if she never drinks coffee again! How about if she puts her feet facing forward for once?

8. LabRat
   January 10th, 2005 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

   One of the reasons Frank Cho took Liberty Meadows from the comic page to comic book format was that he was fed up with his editors; one of the things they frequently asked him to tone down or take out of his strip altogether was his shots at other comics artists. They let him get away with plenty when it came to “Cathy”, but they pulled him up short from mocking Johnny Hart and made him tone down his stabs at Charles Schultz. I think it may have something to do with editors wanting to protect artists who are in the same syndicate- or who have a litigious temperament.

9. Everett
   January 11th, 2005 at 1:43 am [Reply]

   Pastis serialized his critique of lame strips several months ago, having Rat camp out in other strips and holding them and their characters hostage. You should really go into the archives and check them out … he’s a man after your own Hart.

10. manfred
    January 11th, 2005 at 11:54 pm [Reply]

    Any goof ball can make fun of “Cathy”. Lets see him make fun of a real comic strip like “Mark Trail” or “Dick Tracy”

11. Maven
    January 12th, 2005 at 2:45 am [Reply]

    Everett- I canonly find the last 30 days in the archives at comics.com Is there someplace else I can view earlier strips? Thanks!

12. Charles
    January 13th, 2005 at 10:38 am [Reply]

    All I can say is PEARLS is, while badly-drawn, one of the best strips around. LONG LIVE THE RAT!

13. comicphobic
    January 13th, 2005 at 6:44 pm [Reply]

    i noticed this too, and yes it was refreshing! will be checking for this strip more in the future!

14. camel
    January 13th, 2005 at 7:13 pm [Reply]

    considering that Cathy is going “off the air” soon, and for stated reasons such as “I can only write about buying shoes so many times” (what, NOW she reaches her limit? Oy!), it’s almost like beating a dead horse. Pick on someone who is out there perpetuating the bad stuff now AND in the future!

15. x.
    January 18th, 2005 at 1:40 am [Reply]

    Patsis constantly goes after other comics, mostly with the conceit of Rat or Pig wandering off into other strips or going on strike. The best was the week he went after Family Circus. Apparently Jeff Keane saw the first one and requested a copy,not knowing the wrap up would be the Circus children surrounding the ghost of grandad and shouting in unison, “We love you Dead Grampa!”

16. Jim Treacher
    February 3rd, 2005 at 5:09 am [Reply]

    “Liberty Meadows referenced other people’s strips relentlessly, and the author, Frank Cho, had an obvious distase for the strip Cathy.”

    Which is kind of like Carrot Top taking shots at Gallagher.

17. vairitas
    June 28th, 2005 at 2:43 am [Reply]

    today, pearls before swine took a swipe at another deserving strip, the family circus

18. el waldo
    August 1st, 2005 at 6:23 pm [Reply]

    Pearls before swine makes me laugh every damn day (the real purpose of a comic strip?) of course. The little dumb crocs will be the biggest hit in any strip anywhere,

19. BAR-1
    August 29th, 2005 at 5:02 pm [Reply]

    Aaron Warner, who does the strip “A College Girl named Joe” often mocked other comics in his previous strip “The Adventures of Aaron”

    Might note that Aaron also proceeded Cho with the continuous appearance of appealingly drawn women. Notably, the Binko’s CopyCenter Queen, the Mistress of Reproduction.

20. Mushuweasel
    October 10th, 2005 at 5:01 pm [Reply]

    Whoa. He takes the swipe and doesn’t even have some LuAnn collateral damage? What was he thinking?

21. Dee
    October 16th, 2005 at 4:40 pm [Reply]

    Steven Pastis is probably the best thing to hit the comics since Bill Waterson, which is really saying something, for I who once believed that there could be nothing better or even equal to the magnitude of that comic. For those of who have been waiting in vain for 10 years for the return of our boy and his tiger, we now have the rat and the pig.

22. JWD
    October 27th, 2005 at 6:27 pm [Reply]

    Too bad his grammar sucks: “…me and you live…”?!

23. Anton Sherwood
    January 2nd, 2006 at 2:36 pm [Reply]

    The comments remind me of the many web strips that begin with “Let’s make a comic strip! What shall it be about? Two guys on a sofa playing video games?”

    (This page turned up in my referral logs for no apparent reason.)

24. Chupper
    February 13th, 2007 at 1:44 pm [Reply]

    Here’s the start of Rat’s trip to other strips:
    http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?week=1&date=2004/11/22&name=Pearls_Before_Swine

    And here’s the start of the Family Circus mocking
    http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2005/6/27&name=Pearls_Before_Swine&week=1

25. Instigator
    September 4th, 2007 at 4:49 pm [Reply]

    This entire episode reminds me of the scene in Go when Timothy Olyphant’s character tells Katie Holmes’ character about how Family Circus ruins his funny page reading experience. “It’s sitting there in the corner of the page, just waiting to suck,” he says. When Katie suggests he just not read it, he replies that it’s impossible not to read – implying that the level of its suckieness is far too compelling to be ignored.

26. Take That the best hits
    April 6th, 2009 at 2:26 pm [Reply]

    Take That songs …

    Take That is an English pop group started by Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and, formerly, Robbie Williams. All perform primarily on vocals though each have some instrumental talent/song-writing capability….

27. Eric W
    March 23rd, 2010 at 1:07 pm [Reply]

    I’d be interested in seeing this particular PBS sequence revisited now that Pastis has made it clear that his original intention was to have Dickie rip Cathy’s head off.

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