Pearls Hogs the Road: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury by Stephan Pastis

Pearls Hogs the Road: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury
by Stephan Pastis
Pages: 264
Date: April 25 2017
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Series: Pearls Before Swine

Review
Rating: 4.44
Read: 4/8/2017-4/9/2017

*I received this book from the publisher and Netgalley in return for a fair review.*


This is a Treasury instead of a Collection which means that it contains two of the smaller 'collections'. Which two? hmms. Not sure. I do know that it contains "18 months' worth of Pearls strips." because the introduction says so. That tidbit plus the part wherein three of the comic strips were "drawn by Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, who, in 2014, ended a 19-year hiatus fromt eh comics page to draw three Pearls Before Swine strips."So, if nothing else, this Treasury contains that important bit of comics - three Waterson drawn comic strips. - And then I read the introduction. And it was hilarious. All about attempting to contact Bill Watterson, workign with him, etc. And then the introduction indicated where I could find the Watterson strips so obviously . . . I finished reaing the introduction. But once that was done, I hurriedly turned to those pages and gazed upon them (okay, I wrote that I did. Now I'll go gaze upon them; and so I read those three strips, and they were brilliant). And then I read the rest of the book. The end. Yay screamed . . . um . . . something screaming.

That was a neat hook to use, to pull myself into and through writing something, anything. Otherwise . . . what exactly do I write? 'The comic strips were good, they were funny - when the were, occasionally flat, enjoyable experience' - seems the safest without me going line by line and writing a 900 page treastise on Stephan Pastis's comic book. Because that's what I tend to do when I review comic books I pick up from Netgalley - ramble in a text box while reading. Occasionally inserting things like '*giggles* - you had to be there'. Fun, right? So - glad I had a hook to sink into the fish shaped . . . um . . . I need another word than hook, I already used it. mmphs.

Well, there is obviously something else I could mention - there are little wiggly lines underneath the comic strips - they form letters/words/sentences - Pastis has left thoughts on his comic strips. I do not recall if I've seen his thoughts before in such a manner. This is what I get for reading collections instead of treasuries, I assume. And there are some rather hilarious bits in those sentences (as, for example: "Whenever I'm unsure about something in the strip, I check Wikipedia, because whoever does the page for Pearls knows more about the strip than I do."). Occasionally I found myself laughing loudly - and realize that it wasn't because of the comic but because of the words under it. And then I'll giggle a few times, later, and realize it was because of the comic and not the words (see, this is what I was saying earlier, this is kind of boring. I stop now).

Rating: 4.44

April 8 2017