Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My!, 6: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury

This collection is great. My newspaper picked up Pearls Before Swine a little while ago and i've been a huge fan since. Get this book, as it contains previous collections (other books of strips that stephan pastis has already printed). This is the 2nd Treasury by Stephan Pastis and his characters are lovable and strangely dark and humourous. This is a great read for young teens to adults. It provided many hours of reading, including hilarious commentary. I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone, including people who haven't read it before. Pig and Rat are great and adorable. This is a must for any and all fans of comics. Would definetly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes.

I bought this book for my boyfriend for Christmas and I am the only one that read it. I loved it! Its great for those who don't mind the cynical humor.

This comic isn't to everyone's taste. Let's get that right out of the way. It likes to talk about what the comics usually doesn't - death, sex, cynicism, other comics - and yet it does so in a way that you can't help but love. Stephen Pastis is a genious. There are themes he sometimes beats to heck, but just when something is about to get tiresome, he pulls out another refreshing zinger that makes it truly new and bold. In many ways, I hold him up to Scott Adams, another minimalist artists who refreshed the funnies by going after subjects that were usually not that amusing. Pastis and his editor's take on the large treasury collections are also unique in that they take the "DVD" approach. Rather than merely reprinting the two or three other books in large format, he adds commentary (yet another bold steal from Adams, but he dares to do it every time), and always adds some kind of neat bonus material. In this one, he gives us something of an inside look at how a comic is created in the introduction and shows us how some strips were changed to avoid too much criticism in "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" section at the end. Yes, these things have been done in other collections by other artists, but the difference with Pastis is that he dares to criticize himself unmercifully (and equally funny). He's as unsparing about himself as he is about subjects he lampoons. Pastis also dares to be touching while being controversial - see the "School Bus in Jeruselem" Sunday panel near the end of the book for that. In short, another winner for Pastis, and yet another reason to continue reading the comics pages.

This had to be great. I mean just the cover made me laugh and with Stephan Pastis's commentary and introduction, it was about the best comic treasury i have ever read. I have forty different comic treasuries and this is the crown of my collection. Thank you Stephan Pastis; you have made me laugh uncontrollably several times! Something that only the sarcasm, exagerration, and satire in Pearles Before Swine can do.