Cartoonist Stephan Pastis is the creator and artist behind Pearls Before Swine. The horizontal paneled humor strip is published in newspapers around the US by the United Media syndicate and features a talking rat and pig. The strip dated March 23 is of special note since it contains a pretty biting remark on the current state of comic strips in print. Check it out while you can, Comics.com only keeps individual strips up for a month.
The sentiment expressed here is quickly becoming a common criticism of the state of the printed comic strip industry, however it’s rare to see it pointed out within the very medium being criticized. I certainly couldn’t have said it better myself.
Meh. It\’s the same routine that\’s been done in eighteen billion webcomics not to mention BLOOM COUNTY and CALVIN AND HOBBES. Just comic-strip navel-gazing. Easy stuff.