Pearls Blows Up: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury [Paperback]

Stephan Pastis (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 1, 2011 | Series: Pearls Before Swine

Smart, sharp, and sometimes cynical, Pearls Before Swine is the fastest growing cartoon property in the universe.

Stephan Pastis offers Pearls Before Swine fans a combustible collection brimming with explosive action inside Pearls Blows Up. Collecting every cartoon from 50,000,000 Pearls Fans Can't Be Wrong and When Pigs Fly, this hot-to-the-touch, volatile edition also includes annotated thoughts reflecting Pastis's searing wit.

Offering blistering commentary on hot-button topics related to recent news events, popular culture, cartoon-page contemporaries, and more, Pearls Before Swine expertly illustrates the flaws and shortcomings of human nature through Pastis's mindful menagerie of fiery and feisty characters. Arrogant, self-centered, and totally hilarious Rat stars in misadventure after misadventure with his four-legged friends, 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.

Catch the dynamite action inside this hot-off-the-press edition of Pearls Blows Up. With multiple honors as Best Comic Strip of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society, and an international fan base that follows the strip's appearance in more than 600 newspapers worldwide, Pearls Blows Up is guaranteed to be a blast.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephan Pastis is an attorney turned cartoonist. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and the UCLA School of Law, he worked as a lawyer before trying his hand at cartooning. Pastis lives in the Bay Area, with his wife and two children.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing; Original edition (March 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449401066
• ISBN-13: 978-1449401061
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephan Pastis took an unusual route to becoming a number-one best-selling comics creator: he went to law school. It's not that he didn't want to become a cartoonist - as a child growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of San Marino, he spent many happy hours off by himself drawing. He was routinely called on to create cartoons for his school newspapers. But by the time he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in political science, Pastis - a completely self-taught artist - felt it unlikely that his cartoons would ever be syndicated.

So he found himself sitting in class at UCLA Law School, hopelessly bored, sketching the character Rat (who would later become a mainstay of all his future comic strips). Creative inspiration followed him through graduation in 1993 to his first law firm job in San Francisco, where by 1996 he finally started submitting his comics to syndicates. Persisting through an initial spate of rejections, Stephan Pastis created his signature strip Pearls Before Swine and eventually signed on with his syndicate in 1999. Pearls was off and running, making appearances on the web, in newspapers, and in many best-selling books.

In 2013, inspired to break out of the box of a daily comic strip, Pastis took on the new challenge of becoming a children's author, penning the first book in a projected middle grade series called Timmy Failure, about an inept kid detective and his sidekick polar bear. Fail it did not; receiving stellar reviews and becoming an instant New York Times and National Indie bestseller. Now published in nearly 40 languages worldwide, Pastis' defective detective is poised to become the next big breakout children's book character.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars All Hail Pearls! Another great treasury from Stephan Pastis March 6, 2011

By JD Willis III

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The new Pearls Before Swine treasury is such fun to read. Not only are the strips outstanding, but it's fun to double-dip on the creator's commentary and background on each strip in the book. It's great to read Stephan Pastis' take on his characters and how his humor develops.

Thank you Mr Pastis for continuing to deliver hilarious characters and strips for over seven years. Love the rat, pig, goat, zebra, crocs, guard duck, Snuffles the cat, and of course, Danny Donkey!

Andy the dog is one of my all-time favorite characters, who is featured heavily in this book.

The fun continues unabated in "Pearls Blows Up"!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pearls is a Comic Strip for the Intelligent March 21, 2011

By SAHM

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Pearls Before Swine is definitely a comic strip for readers who like something different, interesting, unique, and FUNNY!

The treasuries are great. I love the creator's comments underneath each strip. Buying it for the comments alone is worth it, they are often times as funny as the strip.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this comic! February 8, 2012

By Voz

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been a fan of Pearls Before Swine since it first appeared in our local paper. This treasury happens to contain the strips from a period of time when I'd stopped getting the paper, so the selections were all new to me. Pastis has a sharp sense of humor, and is not afraid to make fun of his own efforts, even when it comes to violating the "rules" of drawing comic strips.

Also, as a bonus, the "treasuries" like "Pearls Blows Up" include commentary from Stephan Pastis that brings to life the background of his creativity, explains some plot-lines, or even outright apologizes when he realizes that a joke just plain flopped!

Please note- a large part of the value of the "treasuries" vs. the "collections" is the commentary by Stephan Pastis. When someone has rated a book like this lower as it presents "no new material", I think they are missing this point. The description of the books clearly states if the material is drawn from previous collections, so I think it unfair that the treasuries might be criticized in this respect. Well worth buying!