Book Review: Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out by Stephan Pastis

There are plenty of comic strips that make you smile, a few that make you laugh, and then there’s Pearls Before Swine, which occasionally makes you wonder how Stephan Pastis managed to get away with publishing some of this stuff in a newspaper. Naturally, I mean that as a compliment.

Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out: A (Freaky) Pearls Before Swine Treasury by Stephan Pastis

Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out is another wonderfully irreverent collection from Pastis, bringing together the strips from Larry in Wonderland and Because Sometimes You Just Gotta Draw a Cover with Your Left Hand. Featuring the usual assortment of misanthropic rodents, dimwitted pigs, philosophically inclined goats, and perpetually endangered zebras, this treasury delivers precisely what I’ve come to expect from Pearls Before Swine: dark humor, biting sarcasm, ridiculous wordplay, and an almost impressive disregard for good taste. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rat remains the star of the show for me. He’s arrogant, selfish, cynical, and frequently downright awful, which makes him an excellent vehicle for exposing the more unpleasant aspects of human nature. He’s the sort of character who reminds you that people can be selfish, irrational, and spectacularly stupid, then makes you laugh at the realization that you’re probably guilty of at least one of those things yourself. Pig provides the lovable, well-meaning counterbalance, while Goat’s intelligence and Zebra’s earnest activism give Pastis plenty of opportunities to poke fun at everything from social conventions to humanity’s endless capacity for self-importance. And the Crocs? Well, their continued inability to successfully eat a zebra is a running joke that never seems to run out of ridiculous possibilities.

What makes Pastis particularly effective is his willingness to embrace the absurd. He isn’t interested in delivering a tidy moral lesson or making sure everyone comes away feeling warm and fuzzy. His humor can be juvenile, mean-spirited, occasionally groan-inducing, and unapologetically dark. But beneath all that nonsense is a sharp satirical eye. Pastis understands that some of the funniest observations about society come from taking its logic, institutions, and self-seriousness to their most ridiculous conclusions. Sometimes the best way to expose the absurdity of the world is to draw a talking rat who behaves worse than most of the people he’s mocking.

The author commentary is another major selling point. Pastis doesn’t simply reprint his cartoons and leave readers to fend for themselves; he offers little explanations, anecdotes, and additional jokes about the strips and the reactions they generated. It’s rather like getting the director’s commentary on a comedy film, except the director is just as willing to mock himself as he is everyone else. These notes provide a welcome glimpse into the creative process and often deliver laughs of their own. They also remind us that behind the deliberately crude drawings and outrageous punchlines is a cartoonist who understands his craft and knows exactly what he’s trying to accomplish.

Of course, not every joke lands with equal force. Some of the puns are so terrible that you can practically hear the collective groan of an entire newspaper readership, and certain running gags inevitably become more predictable with repetition. The occasional joke also depends on familiarity with the characters or the broader world of newspaper comics. But these are minor complaints in a collection that consistently understands its audience and rarely loses its mischievous spirit.

There’s something refreshing about Pearls Before Swine in a world where so much humor seems designed to be agreeable to absolutely everyone. Pastis isn’t trying to win a popularity contest with his fictional animals. He’s content to be weird, cynical, offensive when the joke calls for it, and occasionally profound when you least expect it. His comics can make you laugh at humanity’s shortcomings without pretending that he’s somehow exempt from them.

Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out is a thoroughly entertaining treasury and another reminder of why Stephan Pastis remains one of my favorite newspaper cartoonists. It’s funny, irreverent, and gloriously ridiculous, with enough clever satire and behind-the-scenes commentary to make it more than just a collection of recycled comic strips.

If you enjoy dark humor, absurdity, terrible puns, and the occasional reminder that humanity might not be quite as intelligent as it thinks it is, this book belongs on your shelf. Just don’t expect Rat to offer you any meaningful life advice. If he does, you should probably do the opposite.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

GoodReads Back of the Book Blurb

An author-annotated Pearls Before Swine treasury featuring cartoons from Larry in Wonderland and Because Sometimes You Just Have to Draw a Cover with Your Left Hand.

From fire-breathing jugglers to sword-swallowing illusionists, this treasury showcases all strips from Larry in Wonderland and Because Sometimes You Just Gotta Draw a Cover with Your Left Hand , along with Pastis’s original commentary, which provides insight into what Pastis was thinking at the time random strips were conceived, and also fan reactions.

Tackling topics ranging from current events and modern technology to human and croc nature, Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out offers up a sideshow of feisty characters, including arrogant, self-centered, and totally hilarious Rat, who leads his four-legged collection of freakish friends through a carnival of misadventure. Joining the circuslike cavalcade are Pig, the slow but good-hearted conscience of the strip; Goat, the voice of reason that often goes unheard; Zebra, the activist; and those eternally inept carnivorous Crocs, who we learn happen to taste a lot like chicken. Pastis’s cynical humor and sharp wit imbue this entertaining vaudevillian collection.

– Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out by Stephan Pastis (GoodReads)

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