Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 01, 2018

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    Templo S.U.D.  over 6 years ago

    I honestly did not see “I pledge a leech, aunts, to the flake of the United States of America” coming before I got to the second to the last panel. Happy Independence Day, fellow American readers of “Pearls Before Swine.”

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    oldpine52  over 6 years ago

    I think that Stephan has set a new low with this one.

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    ShawnJovian  over 6 years ago

    Thanks for ruining Independence Day, Stephan

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    Liverlips McCracken Premium Member over 6 years ago

    That didn’t just come out of left field. It came from at least halfway up the grandstands.

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    GeifuKe  over 6 years ago

    Someone is leeching the comedy here. And that is no flaky fluke. So says my ant from who is in an independent state this day.

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    SomeOtherGocomicsGuy  over 6 years ago

    “AHH! LEECHES!” “Oh, that’s only comedy leeches, they feed on the comics section of the newpaper.”

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    peggykb9  over 6 years ago

    And Happy Canada Day to our Canadian neighbors.

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    BE THIS GUY  over 6 years ago

    This comic is being bled to death.

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    blunebottle  over 6 years ago

    Boy, Pastis, you must have worked hard on that one. Did you pull a muscle with that stretch?

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    Display  over 6 years ago

    Thank you for making a sucker out of all of us.

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    Trilobyte Premium Member over 6 years ago

    I was sure we were headed for “its the leach I could do.”

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    ND Cool Z  over 6 years ago

    Happy 4th of July!!!! (3 days early)

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    HeckleMeElmo  over 6 years ago

    We can see the truck stopping across the tracks; we can hear the train horn blowing; everyone knows what’s coming, but all we can do is sit there and watch it happen.

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    Miss Buttinsky Premium Member over 6 years ago

    Miss Buttinsky wants you to live a long, rewarding life with your crazy column. Give Pig, Gators, Goat, and everyone else who struggles with you my everlasting thanks. M.P.

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    Bilan  over 6 years ago

    You have to admit, this is the first time anyone has used a leech in a punchline.

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    NeedaChuckle Premium Member over 6 years ago

    To preserve it they should use a non-nutritive cereal varnish.

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    Spence12 Premium Member over 6 years ago

    For all the work it took to contrive this punchline, wouldn’t it be easier to think up something that’s actually funny?

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    Masterskrain  over 6 years ago

    Toon’ boy, that’s SO BAD that it’s actually good!!

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    John Smith  over 6 years ago

    worst ever and that’s saying a lot

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    Willywise52 Premium Member over 6 years ago

    omg.

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    Ontman  over 6 years ago

    I hope you won’t be accused of being un-American because of this.

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    F-Flash  over 6 years ago

    Pig’s aunts may be very patriotic, but I would want some very good documentation on that flake before I make a donation. It sounds flakey to me.

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    ArtyD2 Premium Member over 6 years ago

    My Corn Tree ’tis of thee

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    tripwire45  over 6 years ago

    Stephan actually worked hard on that one and it came way out of left field. Oy.

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    Little Caesar  over 6 years ago

    “Get a job, sir. Do what your parents did” – Mr Lebowski

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    mail2jbl  over 6 years ago

    P.B.S. has hit a new low in bad puns…

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    vics_machine Premium Member over 6 years ago

    I await Pastis to have someone reminiscing about early history of Ling Ling and Ping Ping. You know…“In the panda’s day”.

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    Masterskrain  over 6 years ago

    Wouldn’t the “Flake of the United States” be the current occupant?? I’ve never seen anyone flakier…

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    TedTheCustodianOfSpaceAndTime  over 6 years ago

    Reading this strip often reminds me of two individuals that I like to refer to as “The Brain Trust”. These two would often discuss American History. Listening to these two would make your head explode. These two think that George Jefferson was either the first or second president. They also seem to forget that Independence Day (4th Of July) and Thanksgiving are American Holidays. They would often wonder if other nations celebrated Independence Day and Thanksgiving like “us Americans” or if “they exploded something else” or “ate something other than Turkey.”

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    winston5610  over 6 years ago

    It is said that on 4 July, 1776, George III recorded in his diary that nothing important had happened that day.

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    paullp Premium Member over 6 years ago

    Ignore the naysayers, Stephan. Nothing like a good shaggy dog story to start the day. And I pledge to substitute this new and improved opening line the next time I find myself reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

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    JPuzzleWhiz  over 6 years ago

    As Obi-Wan Kenobi might have said, “May the Fourth be with you!”

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    Flatlander, purveyor of fine covfefe  over 6 years ago

    I though the flake of the United States had orange hair?

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    BiathlonNut  over 6 years ago

    I thought that was how native speakers of Castilian Spanish said it.

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    backyardcowboy  over 6 years ago

    Crunch, crunch, crunch.Tastes more like a Nacho to me.

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    Obi-Haiv  over 6 years ago

    I know that a lot of people don’t like the “punny” strips Pastis does, but really, they’re some of my favorites. As a dad, the puns are usually the groan-inducing kind told by fathers everywhere, and I love them!

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    jdbligh  over 6 years ago

    So much effort for so little reward.

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    A_NY_Outlaw  over 6 years ago

    almost had me as confused as to whether THIS was the holiday weekend or if next weekend is.

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    Packratjohn Premium Member over 6 years ago

    “If there’s anythin’ I hate in this world it’s leeches—filthy devils,” – Bogart in “The African Queen” (One of several amazing things produced in 1951)

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    TracyKlujian  over 6 years ago

    I can leach some of the fun out of this:1776 Declaration of Independence signed1894 Corn flakes invented

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    kd1sq Premium Member over 6 years ago

    I still say that “Ferret’s Elf” was his best ever worst!

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    Carl Rennhack Premium Member over 6 years ago

    I think THE Flake of the United States of America wears a blue cap!

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    WCraft Premium Member over 6 years ago

    What say we all show up at Pastis’s studio to show our appreciation of his latest pun? I’ll bring the water balloons if someone else will bring the cream pies…

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    Packratjohn Premium Member over 6 years ago

    I took a Hispanic friend to his first baseball game. Afterwards, when his wife asked how he liked it, he said, “It was Great! Before the game started, everyone stood up and sang, ‘Oh, Jose, can you see?’”

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    MeanBob Premium Member over 6 years ago

    I’m certain now, Pastis will die alone and unloved.

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    Jesy Bertz Premium Member over 6 years ago

    I took a knee for this pun.

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    Gent  over 6 years ago

    But Rat, that doesn’t look like Batiuk.

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    SukieCrandall Premium Member over 6 years ago

    Only a leech will attach to the flake…

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    Darque Hellmutt  over 6 years ago

    They say a pun is the lowest form of humor. It may have hit a new low.

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    SukieCrandall Premium Member over 6 years ago

    The current pledge is rather different from the original, and that itself is quite recent.

    Original from the very tail end of the 19th century:

    “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

    The words “under God” varied by location for when they were added. The earliest did so as early as 1954, but I can not recall that being said in our school till almost ten years afterward.

    History:

    http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/11/03/the-ugly-history-of-the-pledge-of-allegiance-and-why-it-matters/?utm_term=.56aaceda87e7

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-man-who-wrote-the-pledge-of-allegiance-93907224/

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    Bookworm  over 6 years ago

    I thought it was actually pretty funny. But I’m old and senile.

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    B UTTONS  over 6 years ago

    What lucky individual of the 535 members of Congress (or 192 Democrat members) is Pig pledging to Trump?

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    Sue Ellen  over 6 years ago

    You’d be surprised how many kids think the pledge includes the phrases, “I led the pigeons,” “to the wee puppet for Richard Stands” and “one nation and a vegetable.” I’m not kidding! There’s even a book.

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    nickelwooden737  over 6 years ago

    Oh good, Stefan! You received the “Songs of the Season” collection Hatchet Jack’s hapless final victim managed to send out 8 sets of from BMG before Redford filed his most recent block buster claim.

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    Sisyphos  over 6 years ago

    I guess it would be wrong to want to see Cartoon-Boy not only drawn but also drawn-and-quartered? That a pun was coming was totally obvious from panel 1; the only suspense was, how BAD would it be? And this one really was pretty bad….

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    rgcviper  almost 5 years ago

    Ahh, Pastis … you continue to outdo yourself with these puns. Please do not stop! [smile]

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    PBS1!  over 4 years ago

    What if the strip used a seemingly meaningless situation to make us expect a pun, and then did something completely different?

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    Dragongirl55  about 4 years ago

    First Pearls I ever saw. Been a fan ever since.

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