Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 12, 2020

I’m sure Dolly will recover.

This one actually made me laugh out loud. I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read it.

They actually cover their noses. I never see that anymore.

Thank you, Stephan; it’s been so long since we’ve seen the Pearls cast interact with the other strips.

Sing along with Sherlock: “Ham hocks are fallin’ on my head…”

well, that’s one way to get rid of that pain in the butt.

You take off your mask, you’ve got nothing to use as a parachute!

“Oh, Billy! You kids and your slang! Is ‘God dropped a pig’ a new dance…?”

Is what Jeffy said slang for getting arrested while protesting?

Know of any other comics that are just one panel and don’t have speech balloons, but rather have under-panel quotes? “Dennis the Menace” comes to mind.

OK, best of the year!

You can just coast till next January.

I love these PEARLS X Family Circus comics

Did Jeff Keane do a guest appearance or did Stephan finally learn to draw?

I guess the day “when pigs fly” hasn’t arrived yet.

Good shot, Pig. I trust that you DID aim for Dolly…

Well hello, Dolly.

The subtle things count, too. Stephen hanging on to the frame at one point, for instance…

“Who dropped a pig?”

“Ida Know”

Daddy, You can buy me that hot rod now – a pig was flying

Senator Belfry has the technique mastered.

…And circle gets the square.

Very clever, Stephan

To be fair, it’s not Dolly’s first experience of this sort.

Talk pig talk!!!

“Breaking the Nth Wall.” As N → ∞, Hilarity increases proportionately.

Nice. I love it when you ham it up with some light humor.

Okay, I laughed.

Good one!

See, Jeff Keane! That’s how you make your comic funny!

Mmmm, bacon from heaven!

I like this one! Stupid Family Circus kids!

Does this explain how cows fall on Vern in Over the Hedge?

It’s like a live Pink Floyd show

Oh Pig… Santa Rosa ordinance says don’t take your mask off,

if you can’t stay 6 feet from Dolly.

Absolutely the best use of a pig I’ve seen today.

Best. Pearls. Ever. And the bar is dam high.

They weren’t six feet apart

Look at the bright side, Jeffy. You got free pork for dinner tonight.

Dolly be glad it was “Pig” and not the Cow that falls on Verne from OTH ! … Croc Power !

Yesss! I love Pearls strips that interfere with other strips!

I snotted coffee. Thanks, Pastis.

Clever, Steph. Clever.

I keep talking but I can’t find my balloon!

Love it when he does crossovers.

I know a guy who would be great at this. He never shuts up.

psst…kid. Pig’s got parts to die for….baby back ribs, pulled pork, chops, pork loin roast. Better yet kid you go tell Mommy while I have just a little nibble.

Good stuff.

As comics go, this was rather funny.

Moon over Mi-hammy.

I wonder what would happen if he landed in Garfield.

Gosh, I hope Pig wasn’t hurt!

I needed that. Thank you Pastis

Home run, Stephan, home run!

“Apologies to my ever-patient friend, Jeff Keane. Please do not sue.” beside the panels. Stephan was a lawyer in another life and Family Circus is in another syndicate.

I’ll have whatever Scott’s having for breakfast.

Best one yet!

I meant to say, I’ll have whatever Stephan is having for breakfast.

I hope we see pig wandering through several comics trying to find his way back.

That last panel! I was drinking tea and nearly ruined my keyboard when I got there!

This one made me lol! Been a while on this strip too, was getting depressing!

Wow, also reference Pearl before Swine, and slightly the French strip Invincible, though that individual mild looking individual cuts back among panels and alters the future by doing so. (It is very clever so I wanted to find a link for you but was not able to do so. There is another character who deals with size perspective scross panels and can alter the story line in that way.) The authors name is Jous[something] if memory serves.

One to save on the fridge.

OMG this is hysterical! Dollys been on a pig out…of words…experience…

he should have told him that before he grabbed on.

The crossovers on a whole tend to be the most funny…. this one is indeed among your best ever Mr. Pastis, including the use of the artwork. Only thing lacking was a croc….but thats just me I find the crocs to be more of the ‘fall guys’ and pig to be the sweet one…

Our paper didn’t show the punchline.

Right on target!

He’s not hurt, just a little bacon shaken.

Excellent.

Dolly was always a squealer, that’s what tattle-tales get!

Inspired….love it! Clever in so many ways.

Oh no, is it Swine Flew season already?!

We don’t get The Family Circus here in Sweden, so the only contact I’ve had with it has been parodies in MAD magazine and Pearls Before Swine.

Thank you! That’s the first laugh I’ve had in months.

LOL

“Jeffy looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

“Oh the inhumanity”……So “Goodbye dolly……..”

Bizarro.

Now this is funny!

The Gods Must be Crazy

One down. Two to go.

Way too clever, my brain just exploded. Or, I could lay off my morning coffee.

Love it. I never liked those kids.

RATS! Billy and Dolly don’t even bother me that much! Jeffy makes me FURIOUS.

Jeffy next.

Stephan, you have a warped mind, love it, keep up the good work.

Pure genius. Best/funniest/smartest strip I’ve ever encountered.

wonderful! she deserved it (she knows what she did).

Is Dolly wearing sunscreen? Looks like she’s bacon outside.

One down…

I’ll admit Pastis has gotten much better at copying the signature Keane style. He’s even got the really awkward perspective (the woman on the sidewalk looks far too small).

I haven’t laughed at this strip in a long time, but this one was great.

And to top it all off, in my physical Sunday paper, PBS was printed just above Family Circus. It looked like the last panel actually was part of FC!

Somebody’s been reading old “Krazy Kat” strips….

Coming soon to Patreon, pay Pastis and Pig to off your least favorite comics character.

This was a PBS to beat all PBS’s. Absurd on so many levels. Got a good laugh out of me. Well done, Mr Pastis. Some of the comments here really cracked me up too. Always fun to see Family Circus get flamed.

Thank you, Stephan! You made the Family Circus funny for the first time in god knows when!

It’s Sunday…shouldn’t there be one of those complicated dotted-line odysseys of Billy’s?

Thank you! What a delightful ride!

When pigs fly it always ends in disaster.

Well, that’s the funniest comic strip I’ve seen in a long time.

Bill Keane once wrote the foreward to a ‘Pearls’ collection that was quite critical of Pastis, especially in how Pastis made fun of his own work. Even after Keane has passed on, Pastis is still at it.

Great strip. And the only funny Family Circus episode I’ve ever seen.

Yup—this one made me, too, laugh out loud. A pig flying … the, uh, unforeseen fate of the Family Circus character … great stuff.

I FRICKIN LOVE PEARLS!!! THIS ONE IS A CLASSIC!

♪ ♪ It’s raining pigs. Halleluja ♪ ♪

“When the Pig from the sky / Hits a kid on the fly / That’s a Funny . . .” (Just think Dean Martin’s theme song – you’ll get it. Or not.)

That about sums it all up perfectly….

I really don’t know why – but I always love when they poke at the 4th wall in comics (heck in almost any media) and in this one we get the bonus of a peek at cartoon physics!

@StevenPastis, your imagination astounds me. Not only was this funny, but you also poked through an unknown wall with this one – transcended virtuality. You are blowing minds wide open with your characters’ capability to interact with the medium upon which they are created. BRAVO!

HAWHAWHAW HEEHEEHEE Snork, OMG OMG, Hilarious. Couldn’t happen to a nicer family.

Now I wonder if Pastis picked Family Circus for art, or is FC located directly below Pearls in his local dead tree paper?

LMAO!!!

This strip makes up for all of the bad puns (almost)

If you talk real fast, you go up. If you talk slower, you start to drop. Navigation! But it does require that you be able to think while speaking and vice versa. Something that we’ve all noticed is rarer than one might wish.

Monty Python pig squash available on YouTube

The Decline and Fall of Pig. I blame Cartoon-Boy (a.k.a. “Steph”). Better than that Family Circus punk blaming God!

BTW, I note that Pig lost his mask in his balloon ascent and descent….

Thanks after the kind of day I had I needed a good laugh

Mommy, God dropped a pig on Dolly. I’m going to have that stuck in my head for a long time. I can’t stop laughing

Oh Lord, this one brought tears to my eyes! Almost dangerously close to Monty Python’s “The Joke That Won the War.”

Today’s was a stand-out strip, one of the best I’ve seen. Whatever juice you were drinking, keep it around.

Surprised it wasn’t the damned dotted line wandering through the neighborhood before he finally meandered home to break the news of the broken fall.

This is my favorite comic of the year!

Best cross over since Brethed first closed the lid on Bloom County. If you know what I’m talking about, you are old.

“And that’s why you’re supposed to wear a mask, Jeffy.”

In between the panels it says “Apologies to my ever patient friend Jeff Keane Please do not --” I am not sure what the last word is.

where did his mask go? it just dissapeared.

haha