A Pearls Before Swine collection, Book 1 Stephan Pastis Andrews McMeel Fiction, Collections/Comic Strips/Humor Themes: Anthropomorphism *****
Description
Innocent Pig, his often-devious friend Rat and a number of other odd characters dodge puns and rampant stupidity in the nationally-syndicated comic strip.
Review
This is the funniest comic strip I have read in ages, far more original and clever than most. No PC, watered-down, recycled humor here - and the puns are
truly outlandish. Great fun!
Pearls Before Swine: This Little Piggy Stayed Home
A Pearls Before Swine collection, Book 2 Stephan Pastis Andrews McMeel Fiction, Collections/Comic Strips/Humor Themes: Anthropomorphism *****
Description
The second collection of Pearls Before Swine comic strips.
Review
Just as funny as the first collection. Our local paper started carrying Pearls starting somewhere in the middle of this book, so I'd seen several of these
before, but they're still hilarious.
A Pearls Before Swine Treasury, Book 1 Stephan Pastis Andrews McMeel Fiction, Collections/Comic Strips/Humor Themes: Anthropomorphism *****
Description
A treasury of Pearls Before Swine comic strips, annotated by Stephan Pastis. It describes the origins of the strips and the characters, plus
many trivial facts and commentary by the creator.
Review
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I love this strip! The insights are interesting, too, providing some background to the journey of Pearls and
its twisted cast.
The Timmy Failure series, Book 1 Stephan Pastis Candlewick Fiction, CH Humor Themes: Imaginary Friends ***+
Description
Young Timmy Failure may look like any ordinary grade-schooler (albeit one with a distinctive scarf), but he's actually the greatest detective
in the city, and possibly the world. With Total, a polar bear who came looking for food after his habitat melted and wound up becoming a junior
partner, he runs his detective agency out of his mother's closet. Sure, his grades and social life suffer, but one cannot be bothered with minor
annoyances like homework and schoolbooks and making friends when one has a multimillion-dollar business to build. Then the Failuremobile - better
known as Mom's Segway - goes missing, leading to Timmy's biggest case as he discovers a dangerous rival stalking his every move.
Review
With similar twisted humor to Pastis's Pearls Before Swine comic strip (including many illustrations by "Timmy"), this looked like a fun
little adventure. Timmy's imagination inflates ordinary occurrences into conspiracies worthy of Fox Mulder and the X-Files, while completely
ignoring more obvious (and sometimes troubling) problems. There's more going on than he's aware of, hints that the reader (especially the adult reader)
picks up on. Mostly, the plot involves Timmy creating his own problems, then exacerbating them through repeated misunderstandings and blunders and
grandiose would-be schemes... a formula that grows a little stale when it becomes clear that Timmy's talents are as imaginary as half (or significantly
more) of his deductions. It has some fun moments and truly hilarious illustations, with plenty of messed-up characters and downright bizarre situations.
I don't see myself following the series further, though.
