Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for May 16, 2021

They have a pill for that.

This is amazing—Pig is actually the smart one today!

Did Rat just pirate it?

I’m with Pig on this. Whenever I need a book (usually for a birthday or Christmas) Barnes & Noble has been my go-to.

Well done, Pig. Every bookstore is a little library. I love the smell of paper in the morning

I like interacting w/ the folks at the bookstore. And the odor. And seeing something I didn’t come in to get, but boy oh BOY am I going to get that one too!

If you browse a bookstore, you might find something you weren’t looking for such as a book about art illusions.

Is there a book that hasn’t been made into an e-book?

Not very long ago there was a book shop in every mall. Now, in the twin cities of Kitchener and Waterloo, combined population about half a million, there are two!

I’d rather buy books at a bookstore. The smell of printed paper bound together is a wonderful aroma. I really miss Borders. I could spend hours in there, just browsing.

Borders was my go-to and with them gone I’m not particular as to where it comes from.

I still depressed the public libraries are closed, have read that New York City libraries are reopening hopefully New Jersey libraries soon.

While I appreciate the meaningfulness behind this strip, it has been overshadowed by how unintentionally dirty Pig’s last line is. And yes, I’m ashamed that my mind immediately went there…after a good giggle.

I understand the love of bookstores, but for self-published authors like me, who don’t want to write the kind of drivel that publishers want – e.g.bodice rippers – electronic publishing has been a godsend. I write what I want and make it free on my website, but I also upload them to Amazon or Audible.com. The digital world has evolved so much now that through Amazon at least, authors get paid on a per page basis when readers borrow a digital book. Bookstores rarely let self-published authors put their stuff in the stores, and when they do, it’s stuck way in the back, never on a display table. They’re under contract to the big publishing houses as to what can be on the front tables and racks. You may be giving a clerk a minimum wage job by buying in a local bookstore, but you may be giving a local author an even-lower-than-minimum wage job by borrowing a Kindle book. You get one free from Amazon each month if you’re a Prime member.

You are the voice of the artists’ better nature Pig!

Same here, Pig.

Chris Moore is a great author and funny as heck. “Lamb” is probably the funniest book I’ve ever read. Stephan, good plug!

Pig, where were you when some idiot misinterpreted the call to “Close the BORDERS!”

New Christopher Moore? Newer than “Shakespeare for Squiirrels”? :D

Obviously an attack on Amazon, and I concur, but he’s not willing to go all the way with it because he’d never be able to publish a book. Technically speaking, it’s called monopsony. Publishers only make money on bestsellers, and these days no book can be a bestseller without Amazon’s support. Bezos has pretty much finished destroying the bookstores and I’m wondering when he’ll start going after the libraries for “stealing” his sales.

I didn’t even realize that Chris is still writing. I’ll have to check them out.

I’m glad he’s still open

It would take me less time to go to the book store and buy the book I want than to download it.

I like books to be made of paper, the way God intended.

Paper feels good to hold. Plus, if you decide while reading to put the book down and come back to it in over a month or more, you don’t have to worry about it having lost its charge. You can pick it up and resume where you left off.

Three cheers for Pig today.

I much prefer to read a physical book. I find scrolling pages irritating, especially since my hands shake.

Only one drawback- books are heavy.

I love how Pig is supporting to the local bookstore! I enjoy perusing the used bookstores here in my part of Florida, quite inexpensive and you find all sorts of interesting reads! I get how some people, particularly the Millennials and those younger love the digital book and cite how environmentally friendly they are but there is something to be said about having a real book in your hand. For new books I may swing by Books a Million but also take advantage of the local library. Good for Pig for supporting small business!.

Kudos to Sam. Today he survives being Amazoned. Yesterday he survived being swallowed up by Barnes and Noble.

Pig got the hard copy.

I’m with Pig on this one. With an added bonus that physical books can’t be changed or withdrawn on the fly. Once you own it, it is yours. Immutable.

I’m with PIG! There’s nothing like holding a real book, turning pages and drinking a cup of tea!

In New York City, the local chain Shakespeare & Company has EXPANDED. They have a knowledgeable staff, book clubs that meet at the store. And if you have a book on your Kindle, they’ll turn it into a paper book for you.

I think the Kindle is great. I ALSO think my shelves are great.

Pig should clarify his last comment

What fun to find out Pastis is a Christopher Moore fan! (I think that’s “Fool” in the last panel.)

Wasn’t Rat knocking over bookshelves on customers who went to bookstores and then ordered the book online? https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2018/05/15

Spoiler: All Christopher Moore books are good.

Great message brought to everyone by Pig.

Searching for Chris Moore comes up with a film producer and an NFL player, presumably two different people. Also a writer who has published as Christopher Moore, which I’ll guess is the one Pastis means.

And then your book gets stolen. Or (as in my case) your whole book collection, that you spent 30 years of your life putting together, gets stolen. And you realise that with ebooks you could simply restore it from a backup.

That’s what SHE said…

I’ve spent too much of the last 50 years staring at screens, so I’ll stick with dead* tree books. *dead tree materials come from wood pulp farms, just like kale is grow on dedicated land.

And just remember… you don’t have to worry about your BOOK’S batteries running low, or dropping it and cracking the screen, or having to eventually upgrade to “Book 2.0” or being able to read it outside if the sun’s too bright, or…

We always support our local businesses first.

Man, if that, i.e., a real life book store, isn’t something that is gone with the gin. Lordy, Miss Scarlett I don’t know how to birthin’ any those toons cause the swine aka pulled pork BBQ needs some extra mustard based sauce.

That’s a great choice, Pig.

No e-books for me, it’s kind of funny to say it and who would have thought but just a few years ago but I will traditionally read either hard cover or soft cover as a matter of principle.

All of the above is true but I love being able to immediately get a definition of a word or location of a place or history of an event and especially to find out who a character is because i can never remember proper nouns.

Support your local businesses, a lot were killed by the lockdown, and the rest are making a slow recovery…

That’s what she said.

Support your small local businesses when ever you can.

Nobody finds it hard to believe rat is a reader?

Still love going into bookstores and browsing.

Love local bookstores. Our local, independent Tattered Cover is still going strong! It is where Pastis signed my XSHYSTR license plate

And usually, it’s quicker.

Stop by the gas station and pick up a road map while you are out.

Good for you pig.

An example for us all. Buy local when you can…..

Yay! Support small independant bookstores!

I’m somewhat surprised it isn’t Goat “making it hard.” He’s certainly spoken in the past about preferring physical books.

I remember when there was a big push to use acid-free paper in books, to increase the chances that more of them will survive into the future. Now with ebooks, more “books” only exist on servers and flash memory, a most volatile form of existence. Progress does not move in a straight line.

It’s interesting, I became of fan of A Late Show with Stephen Cobert over the past year, but only on YouTube because I can’t stay up late. I did watch the show on TV after the Superbowl because it was on at a reasonable time, and they did a surprise advertisement for a small, independent bookstore. Then this Friday I couldn’t get to sleep, so I watched my second over-the-air episode, and it featured their second small business ad, for a candy and ice cream store on Lopez Island that I had actually been too. Strange world.

E-books do have some advantages: for practical purposes, everything that’s in the public domain (which is the vast majority of what’s worth reading) is available via Project Gutenberg for free. If you already have 2,000 physical books in your (small) house, you’ll appreciate the space savings of hundreds more in e-book format, all in the space of one physical book. I’ve already mentioned (somewhere above) the vitrue of portability, i.e. carry something the size of one book, but it contains hundreds of books (and magazines, if that’s your jam).

That said, I still buy (second-hand) and read paper books, when they’re cheaper than the e-book version, or for any of the (many, many) worthwhile books that aren’t digitized. I miss used bookstores. There is only one independent bookseller in my city (pop. ~325,000); I remember there being half a dozen. I will never buy anything via Amazon (for a lot of reasons). Etc.

Things are never as simple as a comic strip (even a good one) makes them look.

To quote Cardi B, “EAT LOCAL!!!!”

I love Christopher Moore…. and my audible books (and Chirp to be fair)

That’ll do Pig. That will do. I try to get to the locally owned book stores often.

When I’m done with a book on paper, I can give it to someone else! That doesn’t really help the booksellers, of course…

I used to be adamantly anti-ebook, but it ended up being the quickest and easiest way to read Terry Pratchett’s entire Discworld series in order. When I’m looking for something specific, electronic books are really useful. But if I’m looking for something specific in a bookstore and they don’t have it, I’ll usually find something else that I otherwise wouldn’t have thought of.

When you go to someone’s house or apartment, you look at the books on their shelves and learn who they are. When you ask to see your date’s e-reader so you can look at all her downloads, you never see her again.

All my comic books are hard copies.

Good move, Pig!

That’s what she said!

LOVE Christopher Moore books!

You’re so funny. A pig after my own heart.

Plugging Christopher Moore? I’ll forgive your last 3 puns.

Give me old book fragrance over new car smell any day!

Here’s what I find interesting: I recently purchased two ink-on-paper books through Amazon* which I was unable to buy at a bookstore. The books aren’t “out of print,” but they’re printed and bound as-ordered. There’s a squib at the very back of one saying it was “Made April 22, 2021,” about a week before I had it in my hand, and it’s indistinguishable from any other paperback book. The technology required to make this a viable business model would seem to be recent, but it’s welcome.

*Presumably I could have been able to place such an order through a brick-and-mortar bookstore as well, but I periodically receive Amazon giftcards, and this is the sort of thing I use them for.

1968? Wow, that’s when I bough my first new car.

Running your fingers over the surface of a page, feeling its smoothness, or along the pages’ edges…there ISN’T an app for that!

Ebooks are good for library rentals. Fast, and you never forget to return them. Paper books are best for owning because they are actually yours. You can mark them, lend them, crease and smell. And you don’t have to worry over passwords, device changes, and platforms going belly up. The only downside is finding enough shelf space.

Pig prefers to visit Ye Olde Bookkee Shoppee.

I read some stuff … OK—a lot of stuff … online. However, for longer novels, I greatly prefer printed books. Something about the physical feel adds so much to the reading experience. Technology changes, but hopefully the traditional book will prevail.

Bless you, Pig! You are doing God’s Work.

I miss bookstores more than I can say. From the most renowned and biggest Downtown in the city with at one time numerous branches, now all gone, to the various smaller franchises, also all or almost all gone, to the local small retailers, all gone. Almost the only place where I can still reliably find real books nowadays is at major airports.

It takes a real book, not just pictures of pages on an electronic device that you can’t even dog-ear (not that I’d do that to a real book)….

I’m with you Pig. There are certain things that I have to buy in person, and a book is one of them.

You go, Pig!

Once I wanted to read Pride and Prejudice – so i just watched the movie with CC on…

The internet makes the younger generations lazy, and it sucks for all of us.

I have a used book store close to me that I got to a ton.

Well, if ebooks weren’t so darn handy.

ebooks just aren’t the same

sadly enough, all of the places in my city aren’t locally owned, all Barnes and noble and stuff. I’ve found that publicly owned book stores are a rare but enjoyable experience whenever we set out into the suburbs. its sad to see, because an electronic device really IS more convenient, which makes me sad. i own my fair collection of books, (two bookshelves of them in only my room,) but late at night and even in a car i find myself reading on my kindle. it is sad, for a multitude of reasons. it is taking away money from an independent bookstore, and is also taking money from the author. and you just cant beat the feel of a real, physical book in my opinion; it makes it even sadder at the age on where teens like me are not only reading less, if they do read then its on a kindle or other electronic device. this isnt right, and honestly it is disheartening. your probably thinking “but random person on the internet, this isnt that big of a deal.” your right, but i have been a prolific reading since a young age, and i might sound like a 70 year old grandpa, (back in my day we would read on a BOOK, dang it!!!) and there isnt much i can do to defend your case, as your right, i DO sound like one, but that’s just my opinion. if you have actually for some reason read this far, have a great day/night, and thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Good for you pig, you read physical books instead of online books or comics like the scum out there(Looks in mirror)Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm