Pearls Gets Put in the Pokey (2024)

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Paronomasiacs, rejoice! Pearls Gets Put in the Pokey is the 14th Treasury of Pearls Before Swine comic strips, collecting both daily and Sunday funnies originally published in newspapers and online between October 11, 2021 through April 9, 2023. How can I say this with such chronological specificity? Because a helpful note says just that in the opening legalese, that’s why. Plus, if you look really closely, you can see the original date beside each comic. As usual, Pearls leads the way when it comes to comic strip preservation.

A recap: Andrews McMeel stopped publishing the familiar square-shaped paper collections of the comic a few years back, meaning the only way to continue “collecting” them in print is with these bigger, beefier, and taller treasuries. Honestly, it’s a solid trade up if you ask me; no more double-dipping, plus, you get colorful commentary from Pastis on every page and bonus content like travel photos, anecdotes, and plenty of snaps of the family dog. Isn’t that worth waiting just a little bit longer between your comics fix?

But you’re not here for all that, you’re here for the puns! Puns galore, of course, as clever (and abusive) wordplay and situational hijinks, led once again by Pastis’ anthropomorphic menagerie of characters: Pig, Rat, Goat, Zebra, and of course the hapless Crocodiles are here to make you laugh, cry, and maybe regret a few of your life choices. New characters are scant, but Barney Bone (a dog’s chew toy) and Gonesoon, a fatalistic snowman, do the job. The Great Wise Ass is a series regular at this point. There’s also a pollo in a levitating frying pan, but I’ll let you discover that one for yourselves.

Given these strips span the middle and ending gasps of the world-shuttering pandemic it’s no surprise so much attention focuses on Covid-19’s parting shots, and good riddance. But mostly the gags are par for the course as Pastis muses on the mundanities of life and trying to make sense of everything. Elsewhere we see plenty of shots directed at social media (Twitter and Facebook, especially), the increasingly scary-for-profit news cycles, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, homophones, fourth-wall breaks, and more. It’s a lot more interesting than Garfield, trust me.

The real highlight of this collection isn’t a single strip or collection of strips, but the way Pastis spreads his obvious love and affection for Peanuts creator Charles Schulz throughout, in both obvious and subtle ways. While longtime Pearls fans are no strangers to Pastis showcasing his debt to possibly the greatest comic strip artist who ever put pen to paper, the fact the original publication date for many of these strips took place during what would have been Schulz’s 100 birthday might have had something to do with it.

Pastis’ connections to the late, great Schulz are well documented within the comics community, having met him prior to the publication of Pearls and would eventually write a canonical Peanuts animated special (2011’s Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown). If he can’t seem to stop talking about Charles Schulz it’s probably because one can never really talk about Charles Schulz enough.

Those Pearls Before Swine fans missing their usual yearly dose of collectable comics should note that Pearls Gets Put in the Pokey will scratch the itch they’ve been nursing, giving them 270 pages (including the covers) of new funnies to glaze over in one giant rectangular treasury that slots perfectly next to last year’s equally-sized Pearls Seeks Enlightenment. Once again, Stephan Pastis proves that “living the dream” is less a destination and more a responsibility, one he handles well. Sparky would be proud.