Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 14, 2016

Good time to be a crayon manufacturer.

And up rises a great hue and cry…

They’re sold at the adult bookstore.

Shouldn’t that be a Hot Pink crayon?

Careful, readers may become aroused by this colorful tail.

I can’t deny that the market for adult coloring books exists, because I can’t walk into Barnes & Noble without seeing stacks of the things. I’m immune to their appeal myself, of course, just as I never cared much for coloring when I was a child..I suspect being colorblind has a lot to do with it.

We always knew Pastis was ahead of his time(too bad that’s not a compliment)

There are two kinds of adult coloring books.

Half of them use slogans like “Achieve ultimate harmonic mindfulness and inner comfort and peace with these calming and stress-relieving creativity mandalas…”

The other half uses phrasings like “This is a NAUGHTY coloring book! It’s got SWEARS in it!”

Please! That’s nothing compared to the outrageous news I see everyday.

This is a how one creates a market where there is no market………….Good Luck !…….but I can see where coloring books would be helpful with one’s motor skills as we age :-}

I really didn’t enjoy my adult coloring books until I found a video on YouTube “How to color inside the lines” – it has made a world of difference. I’m so proficient now that my wife even put one of my pictures on the frig. My two year old granddaughter is soooo jealous!

Pokemon Go? Now adult coloring books? Isn’t that craze sort of over?

My wife swears by them (and at me and the children frequently and loudly) but I have not noticed any calming effect. I’ll stick with long bicycle rides, it’s less noisy.

But she’s wearing red shorts.

I could never stay in the lines as a kid. Now that I’m an adult (or so I’m told) nursing a 12 cuppa java a day habit there’s no way I would even attempt one of those adult coloring things.

Plus…there is life to live.

I’m with Goat. We’re @%&%!%# doomed!!!

Love that double facepalm. My wife’s sister can read like the wind, a good sized book in a day. She likes these coloring books, I think it lets her slow down and relax.

I learn better from just reading comic strips

Verbing weirds language.

I remember a girl in high school in the 70’s actually giving an oral report on DoodleArt. We snickered a little (but only a little…she was a really nice person), with no inklilng that she was so prescient?

According to the science behind them, adult coloring books have some value for quieting the mind in this busy world.

The newest trend is commercials aimed at adults for kids’ foods like Lucky Charms and Little Debbie snack cakes. This definitely doesn’t have nutritional science behind it.

Hey, ain’t none of you wise guys noticed how Pig has got himself a mess of smarts from Adult Coloring Books? And yet he attributes it to “reading”?We may be @#$%^&* doomed, but we will go out in a blaze of glorious color!

I bet Rat knew the answer before he asked the question

The infantilization of society continues.

I agree with Goat. Whenever I start to lose faith in Human Nature (which is a lot) I come across an inspirational story.xxx

There actually was an article from Smithsonian.com about reading books recently. Probably in Smithsonian Magazine too. One in Four Americans Didn’t Read a Book Last Year Cheer up, Goat. According to the article the number of published print books last year actually rose by 17 million from what it was in 2014. And the number of print book sales in the first half of this year was up by 6.1% compared to the first half of 2015. Also, 65% of Americans actually claimed to read a print book in 2015.

I’d like to know when Pastis’s adult coloring book is coming out.

Hey! Pig is left handed! I think I may have noticed this before.

What matters most is what people read. Modern novels are mostly a waste of time, not really better than TV. I wish more people would read history, philosophy, autobiographies and biographies, from reputable publishers (not Regnery, for example). More people should read the classics, too, as they are classics for a reason.

Well, what about ebook stats? Nowadays you’re doomed if you only read paper books.