Post Content

Panels from Fox Trot, Get Fuzzy, and Pearls Before Swine, 4/1/05

OK, to answer the question that you’ve all asked me: It was an April Fool’s joke. Or maybe it’s an April Fool’s “joke,” since the strips aren’t really that funny; I suppose the joke is that all three are identical. Woe to the person who only gets one of these strips in their paper. Get Fuzzy gets bonus points for using the word “piehole.”

Anyway, I go so much email about this that I thought I ought to address it, but what I really care about is Rex Morgan’s obviously undiagnosed manic depression.

Thank God he’s not one of the 45 million Americans without health insurance, because he’s going to need a lot of meds.

Post Content

Speed Bump, 1/28/05

Faithful readers will remember this month’s shameless swipe at Cathy in Pears Before Swine. At the time, I wondered whether this violation of the unwritten laws against comic artist infighting might unleash a wave of carnage on the comics pages likes of which we’ve never seen before. While Cathy has taken the high road (and there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type), Pearls Before Swine seems to come under a flanking attack today from Speed Bump. After all, Stephan Pastis is the author of PBS, and you’ll note the “PBS” belt buckle being worn by our optometrist patient here.

Of course, if Speed Bump is working as a paid character assassin for Cathy Guisewite revenge, she should shell out a bit more, because this joke is pretty laaaaammme. Stephan Pastis 2, Anti-Stephan Pastis Cabal, 0.

Post Content

Pearls Before Swine, 1/9/05

I guess I’ve always assumed that there’s some kind of “gentleman’s agreement” among comic artists not to mock each other’s work, no matter how much it sucks. The only person I can think of who has violated this rule is Berke Breathed, whose hostility towards Garfield is public and relentless. So I have to say that I’m rather pleased to see Pearls Before Swine publicly declare Cathy to be “filled with folks who utter inanity after inanity,” not just because it’s obviously true, but because it may herald the beginning of a bitter and unseemly spat within the supposedly cozy fraternity of comic artists. Will we see Cathy and Irving’s dogs charging into the underbrush to tear thinly disguised versions of Pearls Before Swine’s mouse and pig characters to bits? Will Thebigday.com offer Cathy readers an opportunity to help pay for a contract on Stephan Pastis’ life? Whatever the outcome, all I can say is that Ms. Guisewite will not be pleased, and her wrath shall be terrible.