Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for May 15, 2022

I’m hiding my tomato soup cans.

Watch out for those squirrels.

Hands off my mama!

Tomato Soup Cans?! All The World’s Squirrels?! LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY

FAR too consistent with reality to attract REAL conspiracy theorists.

Panel A is missing the Conspiracy Theorists’ main target, Nancy Pelosi.

Not funny. Not funny one bit. Much too real…

I think there’s a conspiracy to steal all my candy!

Breaking News! Unnamed but reliable sources tell CNN+ that we’ll all be forced to read tomato soup cans by Russian oligarchs controlling all the world’s squirrels who want nothing more than to orchestrate a coup to try and topple your mama. And it all starts at noon tomorrow! Non-members must sign up to access the rest of the story.

perhaps America’s greatest threat, is the social media control of the internet.

Just when I though it was safe to go back on public media, they post an idiots version that anyone can follow.

Space Aliens living in Roswell are Orchestrating a Coup to topple Tomato Soup Cans and we’ll all be forced to read more ‘Pearls before Swine’ comics.

What about people who are secretly not dead?

That frightening option isn’t really comical.

Technology companies want nothing more than to destroy our way of life and we’ll all be forced to read more Pearls before Swine comics.

Gonna save a lot of time.

Finally. Now we know the source of all those conspiracy theories: PBS.

I’m reminded of the old Steve Jackson game Illuminati, where you could prove that for example the Boy Scouts controlled the Bilderbergers.

Good Party Pastis but no Whiskey (Or Crocs) we go home ;-)

DevOps applied to conspiracy theories.

There is a conspiracy theory that the government or someone is trying to create a food shortage by causing food processing plants to close via fires or other damage. This because something like 20 of them have had incidents over about six, eight months.

But it falls apart when you find out that A: there’s over 36,000 such plants in the US (you could blow one up every day for a year and only get 1% of them), B: some of the plants they list are already open again (and one never shut down at all) and C: some on their list aren’t even food plants. For instance a corn processing plant had an explosion the other day… turns out they processed corn for ethanol.

There’s more, but some people just want to be in a panic or something and you can’t get through to them. The same people insist there’s a great conspiracy of pedos grooming kids to become gay …. adults?

Rat has a gravity defying pencil BELOW his ear! Looks like the space aliens are a top option.

The internet is a powerful muse.

I just love the " RAT " in the glasses and his tie : )

Awww, squirrels are cool. Curse those Roswell aliens for wanting to destroy them all tomorrow at noon.

Which is apparently the whole point of “Truth Social”. Anything anyone posts automatically becomes a “truth”.

Here you go: https://dissentpins.com/products/conspiracy-theory-kit

Don’t target all of the squirrels like that!

Last panel, Rat sort of makes a point, everything online is suspect , lots of total untruths there!

and the Washington Times, Onan(sp?), Trump Social, NY Post…

People are quick to label anything they don’t agree with as being a conspiracy theory. Just as with science, some theories are pure rot but many are very true. Don’t be too quick to dismiss something just because it goes against your grain.

No, that’s CNN at it’s finest.

Don’t take Rat’s method seriously – it is useful only as a guide for beginners. It is a very weak process that can only produce 256 distinct theories. With imagination and practice, the possibilities are endless. Learn from the professionals in the media.

No kidding! Comics Kingdom is trying to force me to get a PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION. Not in my lifetime!

Technology companies want nothing more than to destroy tomato soup cans. Well, at least the “we’re all gonna die” bit is accurate.

You die only if you are lucky.

I remember MAD Magazine doing something very similar years ago with several “All Purpose” fill in the blank speeches.

A2, B3, C1, and D2. Clears that up.

Unfortunately many of the Conspiracy Theories are becoming Conspiracy Facts. Panel ‘A’, Option 1, Panel ‘B’, All 4 Options, Panel ‘C’, Option 1, Panel ‘D’, Option 1.

stephan, you forgot fox’s favorite – illegal aliens that aren’t from space!

I just ruined my monitor trying to cut out the options. :(

All I can come up with from those sets of options are true facts. How can any of those be conspiracy theories?

Best strip since “Dunk rye for me Arch and Tina!”

You missed how Elon Musk and the Supreme Court were creating this slippery slope.

Welcome to Night Vale’s plot algorithm?

Nailed it!

Wait are we limited to only one option per box?

Rat is so cute with his tie, spectacles, and pencil while poor Pig’s eyeballs will soon bounce across the table!

Take A1, B2, and C3. change squirrel to bird and you have “Birds Aren’t Real.”

They’ll never topple my mama, she’s too bottom-heavy.

At least FOX admits their evening shows are opinion.

A-4 B-2 C-3 D-1

Did they have the internet when someone imagined the Big Bang theory?

Conspiracy “proofs” are extremely fungible!

The U.S. has invented a spray that makes all blood types incompatible.

Cute……

The “our way of life” option is often used as a justification for racial prejudice.

Space aliens living in Roswell are collecting data on all the world’s squirrels. And that’s just the beginning!

And if you’re reading this comic, it’s already too late.

Where does JFK Jr fit in to all this?

I get a good laugh out of the programs in which the people try so very hard to find proof that aliens did this or that. They always preface their findings with something like, “Could it be that…?” or “It’s possible that…?” Then, at the end of the program, their summation is usually “While we didn’t find definite proof, we wonder if…” LOL!

“Members of a shadow US government now control tomato soup cans and that’s just the beginning.” Ok, so I was just at the grocery store, and you guys aren’t gonna believe this, but…

I couldn’t help myself … I built a randomizer in Excel and put the phrases in it with a button to update … (Stephan, if you want me to send it to you, just let me know).

Russian Oligarchs now control all the world’s squirrels and it starts at noon tomorrow!

Technology Companies now control your mama and that’s just the beginning!

Space Aliens Living in Roswell are orchestrating a coup to try and topple your mama and we’ll all be forced to read more ‘pearls before swine’ comics.

253 more of them to go …

I ver MEC tin! clap,clap clap,clap,clap!

Repeat 10 times.

Very Clever!

Sorry, Stephan Pastis — but MAD Magazine beat you to the concept 40 years ago:

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/MAD/Issue-153?id=72889#26

This would be great on kitchen magnets…

…or dare I say…“MAGAnets”?

…heh heh…

Space aliens living in Roswell are collecting data on our way of life and it starts at noon tomorrow.

Members of a shadow US Government want nothing more than to destroy tomato soup cans and we’ll all be forced to read more Pearls before Swine comics.

Not sure which die rolls I like better

When did Rat start wearing reading glasses?

So many good choices!

Yeah, but, I understand they use a dartboard blindfolded! Yes, the dartboard is blindfollded!( Sheesh! )

Thanks a heap for cheering up my grungy day, Cartoon-Boy! [heavy sarcasm]

May a flea fly up your nose and lay eggs in your sinus!

Something for everyone! I love it!

Episode 200

So you are telling me… Space Aliens Living In Roswell do not Control All The World’s Squirrels and we are not going to be Forced To Read More Pearls Before Swine’ Comics?

That’s a relief… And that is what THEY want me to think! In that case, I am more of in their control than my own!

OK, I understand why my local paper didn’t publish this one and ran an innocuous re-run instead!

Russian oligarchs are collecting data on all the world’s squirrels and that’s just the beginning! Somehow with everything going on over the last few years this doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

256 different conspiracies

using random number generator i got:

Members of a shadow US government are orchestrating a coup to try and topple tomato soup cans and we’ll all be forced to read pearls before swine comics

AHA! See, aliens are living in Roswell…

I get all my headlines and news from The Onion.

And btw, Mark Twain while away on sabbatical, learned to draw, and came back to Earth in 1999 reincarnated as Stephan Pastis

A-4, B-3, C-2 and D-1 make the most sense to me.

2-1-3-1.

Actor Fred Ward died recently.Starred in REMO WILLIAMS:THE ADVENTURE BEGINS.Actually,the adventure never got started.

Famous line from Joel Grey(as a martial arts guru)

“You move like a pregnant yak!!”

In short: ‘What I see is an illusion. What I can’t see is reality.’ Sounds like a religion to me.

I’m tempted to post one of the combos on r/conspiracy just to see what happens.

256 different conspiracy theories

I’ve created an application that generates conspiracy theories. http://robertperlberg.com/pearls_conspiracy