Brown Sludge

Holy Crap Stephan Pastis Is Funny

May 30th, 2006

If the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine” isn’t on your list of things that you HAVE to read every day – your life isn’t as fulfilled as it could be.

My daughter and I are faithful readers, and we’ve spent many afternoons after school shoulder to shoulder just absolutely laughing our keisters off at the antics of Rat, Pig, and especially those hilarious Zebahs… I mean… ZEBRAS.

Now… anything that can bring a middle aged man and his 15 year old daughter together is an “absolute good”, and Stephan Pastis’s strip has actually resulted in several recorded instances of a suspension of the Parental War Crimes Act.

As a divorced Father who often worries over his place in his teenage daughters life, I can’t tell you how many times “Pearls Before Swine” has resulted in my daughter actually deigning to pick up the phone and call me laughing her hiney off and (in between breathless laughter) telling me that I’ve just GOT to read today’s strip.

We’re especially fond of the recurring strips about a group of REALLY dumb crocodiles that are constantly scheming (and failing) to eat their gentle but much more intelligent zebra neighbors. But you never really know what Pastis is going to get up to. From characters that break the proscenium and hijack the strip to mind-blowing cross-overs with other strips – to killer duckies with anger management issues to weeks long setups just so he can pull off a single strip with a certain pun.

It’s definitely an E-Ticket Ride on a VERY crazy train.

Sometimes I laugh so hard that Dr. Pepper comes outta my nose.

I kid you not.

And today Pastis just flat knocks that sucker out of the ever-loving park.

As I’ve blogged recently about Big Oil and Pain at the Pump – his strip is especially just dead on the money. I’d sell a body part to be able to reprint it here vertically as an “in-your-face” to the corporate apologists who can’t get their mind around the idea that Gordon Gekko was a satirical character.

Out of respect for Stephan Pastis’ copyright I’m not going to reprint the strip but here’s a link.

http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/archive/pearls-20060530.html

To see the greedy and fatalistic character of Rat in a position of being the CEO of a Big Oil Corporation is just… well… you GOTTA see it.

I’ve written Pastis for permission to reprint this one strip here because it fits so well with some of the pieces I’ve written, but… as I learned from Wiley this doesn’t always work out so well… but… I can hope I guess.

I’ll keep ya posted.

Holy Crap that’s funny.

UPDATE :

Looks like Pastis is going to stretch the “Rat as Big Oil CEO” theme for a whole week. Toooo funny.

Rat applied for a job as intern at an oil company, and when he listed his qualifications as being a greedy liar who wants to squash the little guy - they made him C.E.O! ROTFL…

Rat Interviews For Internship at Big Oil, Inc.
http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/archive/pearls-20060529.html

Now every day he wants to raise oil prices he has to find a reason to justify the gouging… and boy does he ever have good reasons… LOL… I’ll post the links… which won’t stay linked (lunk?) forever… so… enjoy them while you can.

http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/archive/pearls-20060531.html

UPDATE:
Word from The Man Himself - he says okay! Too cool.

On top of being incredibly funny and spew-soda-out-yer-nose funny he’s also a class act.

Thanks Mr. P!

Entry Filed under: General, Big Oil