When Pigs Fly

by Stephan Pastis

Published 7 September 2010

Some believe that the key to humor is timing. Others think it lies in a slightly distorted presentation of the familiar. E. B. White thought that humor ceased to exist upon close examination. But if anyone has humor figured out, it's Stephan Pastis. His philosophy is written in black felt pen on the bulletin board in his home office. It reads: 'When in doubt, kill cute things.'"

Lock up your valuables. Stockpile your ammunition. Sandbag your bunker. The familiar foursome of Rat, Pig, Goat, and Zebra-joined now by the fraternity of Zeeba Zeeba Eata crocodiles are here to storm the ramparts of humor in The Ratvolution Will Not Be Televised.

In this fourth collection from the award-winning comic strip Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis deploys all the weapons of his comic arsenal in an all-out attack on the animal (and human) imperfections he sees around him. The result is a collection jam-packed with the sharp-edged humor that has made Pearls Before Swine one of the most successful comic strips running in newspapers today.

Just remember: As The Ratvolution Will Not Be Televised makes clear, Pearls Before Swine takes no prisoners.

We warned you.


The Sopratos, 8

by Stephan Pastis

Published 1 September 2007



True to Pearls Before Swine tradition, Sometimes You Just Gotta Draw a Cover with Your Left Hand brims with Stephan Pastis's cynical humor, sharp wit, and clever commentary. Always together--and sometimes with their fellow funny-page characters--the regular Pearls clan weighs in on everything from modern technology to current events to human nature.

Picturing daily and Sunday strips that ran between summer 2009 and spring 2010, all the members of the skewed gang are here as Zebra engages in a never-ending war of neighborly hate with the Crocs, who have since sent Larry back to school, where he proves to be the dumbest beer-drinking student ever to enter the fourth grade. As always, Goat offers a voice of reason amid the ongoing chaos that Pastis creates, either from behind the pen or as a character within the strip itself.

In its tenth year of publication, Pearls Before Swine now appears in 600 newspapers worldwide, boasts an ever-growing online readership, and is a two-time winner of the National Cartoonists Society's Best Newspaper Comic Strip award. Pastis's Sometimes You Just Gotta Draw a Cover with Your Left Hand is sure to add to the funny-page phenomenon, for it gives Pearls fans more of what they know and love: satirical logic and hilarious wit.