Archive: Pearls Before Swine

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Marvin, 3/27/08

Yesterday, several commentors noted that Marvin and Bitsy (yes, Marvin’s dumb dog is named “Bitsy”) were conversing not with their usual thought-balloon-based psychic powers, but in ordinary word balloons denoting normal audible speech — or as normal as any such speech can be when being uttered by a baby and a dog. Naturally, because this is Marvin, I assumed that it was a result of the strip’s general slapdash halfassery, rather than than some momentous change in the inner universe of the characters. But today, we see that Marvin can in fact speak aloud to adults in complete (and rather pompously phrased) sentences. Why? Who knows? Who cares? It’s Marvin. At least they’ve quietly dropped the stupid text speak.

For Better Or For Worse, 3/27/08

Gosh, Liz, I wonder why it doesn’t feel quite right? Maybe because this whole process has involved you letting go of your own hopes, dreams, ambitions, wants, and personality, and now are just being buffeted along by everyone else’s opinions? Or maybe you’re talking about the dress itself, with its built-in whalebone corset, which feels very much not right as it jabs into your ribs.

Gil Thorp, 3/27/08

Hey, everyone, would you like to get ready for taco casserole at home? It’s easy! Here’s how:

  • Dump a dozen hard-shelled tacos, with your choice of cheese, ground beef, salsa, and vegetables, into a saucepan.
  • Pour in four cans of cream of mushroom soup.
  • Stir over medium heat until mixture becomes a more or less undifferentiated, vomit-like mass.
  • Pour into possibly leaky brown paper bag; hold sideways.
  • Never, ever eat again, because the process has been made forever repellent to you by your experience with “taco casserole.”

Sally Forth and Pearls Before Swine, 3/27/08

Hey everyone, it’s a Sally Forth-Pearls Before Swine crossover! There’s very little I can say that would be funnier than Sally Forth writer Ces Marciuliano’s original blog post on the subject, so you should just go check that out now.

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Hi and Lois, 1/13/08

I’m not the kind of guy who’d fly into a pointless rage and rip into Hi and Lois … oh, no, wait, I double-checked and it turns out that’s exactly the kind of guy I am. Anyway, today’s Hi and Lois is even more pointless than usual. It is in fact the worst kind of Sunday strip: the kind that could have easily been a daily strip with three panels (specifically, the last three panels) or even one panel (specifically, the last one). Even without the two throwaway panels at the beginning, this pretty much has the vibe of a long boring story that Lois is telling that turns out not to have a point; add in panel one (red-hot UPC scanning action!) and two (Lois realizes she doesn’t have her eco-friendly reusable bags — what, does she usually carry them all in her purse?) and it becomes practically unbearable. For some reason, though, it’s panel five that really pushes me over the edge, and I want to isolate it to make my point:

See, if this were part of some meandering, slice-of-life graphic novel by Harvey Pekar or Daniel Clowes that ran to thirty or forty pages, it might be acceptable. But this is a Sunday Hi and Lois. It’s got six or seven panels to make its point, one of which taken up by the title. None of those panels should consist of a character making a statement of fact and another responding with a punctuation-less “OK”. C’mon, Hi and Lois, you’ve got places to be.

Apartment 3-G, 1/13/08

Speaking of long, boring stories that go nowhere, having subjected you to several utterly uneventful days of Apartment 3-G this week, I feel obligated to show one in which something actually happens — namely, the totally unforeseeable betrayal of Lu Ann. I’m sure Alan has a reasonable explanation for his behavior, like “I know she has heroin hidden in her teeth! I know it and I’m going to get it!” This is definitely going to be the most awkward art opening ever.

Pearls Before Swine, 1/13/08

I don’t have much to say about this one other than to add to the chorus of approbation, but I thought those of you who don’t see the Sunday PBS would want to have a look. The answer to the six differences is particularly hilarious.

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Spend half your life in school and the end of August brims with dread. Here comes!

Mark Trail, 8/31/07

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It begins with smiles — smiles and good, hot coffee savored with the one you love, in a special place in the sun it feels like God created just for you. But it ends in fists — fists, and hair.

So, Elrod — pick up the pace a little, willya?

Apartment 3G, 8/31/07

Oh, this will end in tears. Not only does Tommie have a chance at happiness — she has two, in the persons of Gary Bland and Dr. Joe Doctor. Apparently, this ages her from a toddler in panel 1 through panel 2’s young adult, to the garish, pitted, furrowed crone of #3. Tomorrow’s strip may have her crumbling to dust, muttering somebody’s name — but whose? Meanwhile, Margo’s fixin’ to hate on her, no matter how it turns out.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/31/07

It’s a measure of how far we’ve come in Funky Winkerbean that the arrival of Les’s bête bleu (extruded into the narrative as “my imagination’s wicked way of personifying depression”) is the most interesting thing to happen in months, birthchild reunion and Congressional testimony notwithstanding. With any luck, we’ll enjoy weeks of manufactured irony: “It’s Lisa who’s dying, but Les who is sick!”

Pearls Before Swine, 8/31/07

Theme or no theme, there’s some stuff you just can’t pass by. You gotta love panel 2’s Socialist Realist fanart of Jeffy, and the Dolly pennant. Dare we dream of a day when all the comics exist solely to mock other comics, and our work here is done? Because that would be a day, my droogies; that would be a day.

— Uncle Lumpy