Pearls Gets Put in the Pokey: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury

by Stephan Pastis

Featuring 18 months of daily comic strips from 2021-2022, along with reflections and strip-by-strip commentary by award-winning cartoonist and USA TODAY bestselling author Stephan Pastis, this treasury is an open and shut case of absolute criminal hilarity.

For over two decades Pearls Before Swine has been blowing the whistle on everything from modern technology to current events to human nature. With a rap sheet including several hit book series, a film for Disney+, and incredible world travels, award-winning cartoonist Stephan Pastis continues to get caught red-handed making his audience laugh. Throughout this treasury, Pastis covers all his tracks with commentary on every comic strip, along with photos, behind-the-scenes insights on his creative process, and thoughtful reflections on the last few years. If you're a fan of Pearls Before Swine, keep your nose clean and stick it in this book instead.

Genres: Humor, Comics, Fiction

264 pages, Paperback

Published October 22, 2024

About the author

Stephan Pastis was born in 1968 and raised in San Marino, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989 with a degree in political science. Although he had always wanted to be a syndicated cartoonist, Pastis realized that the odds of syndication were slim, so he entered UCLA Law School in 1990 and became an attorney instead. He practiced law in the San Francisco Bay area from 1993 to 2002. While an attorney, he began submitting various comic strip concepts to all of the syndicates, and, like virtually all beginning cartoonists, got his fair share of rejection slips. Then, in 1997, he began drawing Pearls Before Swine, which he submitted to the syndicates in mid-1999. In December, 1999, he signed a contract with United.
Pearls Before Swine debuted in newspapers in January, 2002, and Pastis left his law practice in August of that year. Pearls Before Swine was nominated in 2003, 2004 and 2007 as "Best Newspaper Comic Strip" by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) and won the award in 2004 and 2007. Pastis lives with his family in Northern California.

Reviews

[Rod Brown]

I get regular chuckles out of these chuckleheads, despite the frequently rude behavior and often bleak outlooks.

FOR REFERENCE:

These strips appeared in newspapers from October 11, 2021, to April 9, 2023

Contents: Introduction by author -- Comic strips -- Bonus Section

[EuroHackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The "Elon buys Twitter" strips *really* haven't aged well 😬

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not nearly enough croc strips in this treasury, and not many puns, but the strips on Covid and social media make up for that. Directly referencing something like Covid can certainly date the strips, but it was nearly unavoidable as a topic and it will only be dated to people in the future who didn't live through it. The Covid strips also dovetail perfectly with the social media strips. While Rat remains the "star" of Pearls Before Swine, Pig stands out as the "heart" of the strip. His ability to see the light side in such darkness is admirable while remaining humorous in its presentation.

It's fascinating to see the consistency of Pearls Before Swine as I read through the previous treasuries while new ones come out.

[Colin Murtagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am rather fond of PBS, it's probably one of the best strips currently being published. Quite easily slipping from satire to dark humour, from wholesomeness to surreal.
This collection does take in some of the Covid times, so does seem a little dated now. Despite this, it's still a wonderful collection.
As is becoming more common with the treasury editions, alongside the commentary, there's little bits about Pastis himself, including photos of some of the graves he's visited. Told he was dark.
As long as he keeps putting these collections out, I'll keep getting them

[Tony Laplume · Rating 5 out of 5]

In case you were wondering, people in my Goodreads circle of acquaintance, it’s not lost on me that some of you asked to be friends based on a review you read of mine. But you never like my reviews. And we don’t ever seem to read the same books.

Just something that seemed relevant to point out reading another Pearls treasury.

That is all.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best comic strip of our day: PBS.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The humor is great--the puns are painful and wonderful--and the frequent comments from Pastis under the strips are a nice personal touch bonus.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable as expected. Liked the creator’s commentary throughout.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection. Exactly what I needed to end the year and to brighten my perspective of 2025. Looking forward to more from this author!!!

[Richard O'Hagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best Pastis treasury yet.

[Michael Golightly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great comic!

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've now read all the treasuries currently out for my favorite newspaper comic. This series really scratches a cynical bone in my body.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pastis continues to be one of the funniest and most creative cartoonist around

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why haven't I been reading this daily since 2022?