Monday, March 8, 2010

Pearls Before Swine

I am a tight-wad.  I hate to pay for anything, especially morning coffee.  Shelling out for a cup is avoided when I "visit" my parents in the morning to check on them and see how they are doing.  Oh, wow.  Look at that.  You have coffee on?  Mind if I get a cup?
Once I sit down with "my" coffee (free...cha-ching), my mother has the floor.  Her favorite morning topic is "Pearls Before Swine," a daily comic strip about a couple of animals living together and acting like human beings.
The usual format is three panels.  Panels one and two set up the punch line for Panel 3.  Its well written and the drawings are funny.  It is the best comic going right now, no doubt.
However, the average daily episode of "Pearls Before Swine" takes about ten seconds to read (I just timed it.  It took me 8.5 seconds).
My mother's description of a single strip takes about fifteen minutes.  She details each and every panel, gives the background of every character, recites the dialogue by heart (to include her rendition of what she believes the characters should sound like), and laughs about it for a steady five minutes.  If it is a choice strip or the creme de la creme of the series, she then calls her older brother in Ohio and they both discuss it at length (her brother introduced her to it).
My family and my parents often go out for dinner together and my mom takes it as an opportunity to catch us up on the antics of all of the characters.  Sometimes she gets to laughing so hard she is unable to speak and this adds another ten minutes to her synopses.  If my son and nephew are present they begin to laugh with her, egg her on,  and ask her all kinds of questions about the Pearls Before Swine world.  They then will run around yelling out the catchphrases.
Pearls before Swine is a great comic strip.  I recommend you read it.  Of course, I never do.  As funny as the series is, it pales in comparison to the play-by-play that my mom gives.

2 comments:

  1. A truly hilarious,innovative and edgy strip....my favorite since the demise of Calvin & Hobbes.

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  2. I have to agree, as does my mother (mother always knows best)!
    Far Side replaced Bloom County for me and then came Calvin, the greatest ever. My eight year old loves Calvin and Hobbes so it is fun to relive their antics.

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