Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for March 10, 2019

I hope he’s a successful writer so he can afford the good booze.

Shoot Rat.

That would make everyone happy.

Pastis, is this a self-discovery project assigned by your analyst?

I hate these stories

It’s common for an artist and his work to be appreciated after his death.

Rat says he has explained all writers, but we see the same writer in each panel of the strip. I think he has explained that writer.

I think that’s more “all people explained”, rather than just the subset who happen to write.

What he’s asking is what a lot of people today seem to think the government is responsible for.

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?It took me years to write, will you take a look?It’s based on a novel by a man named LearAnd I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writerPaperback writer

“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.” Ernest Hemingway

“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” Ernest Hemingway

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Ernest Hemingway

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” Ernest Hemingway

“When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.” Ernest Hemingway

“Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.” Ernest Hemingway

“A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.” Ernest Hemingway

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” Ernest Hemingway

“A man’s got to know his limitations.” – “Dirty” Harry Callahan

Ha ha ha! That’s perfectly correct! It’s called writing! And it’s called biking! Haw haw haw haw!

Croc Power !

All writers….all actors….all musicians….basically, everyone who needs an audience to validate their work.

I could go for a drink right now.

haha, oh god. So true that it hurts. Right down to the part with the booze. How many great writers AREN’T tragic alcoholics?

When Patsis was writing strips the other day, he had a case of “writer’s block.” In a metonomic twist, he wrote, “pen is stuck.” Unfortunately, his message was misinterpreted!

This includes comic strip writers, too, I assume.

One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family. —Pat Conroy

Well, I like reading PBS. You’re my top strip writer!

Hmmmm! Wonder who this poor guy was? Anybody?

aaah… poor Pastis

Is this the life of George Thorogood?

Amazing how a guy with the simple and ordinary name of Howard Jones wrote and performed a song that was so emotional and powerful. What is love anyway?

Wow how sad

Booze is the best friend you’ll ever have. Never dumps you, always there and never judges.

He drank alone

Yah, with nobody else

You know when he drank alone

He preferred to be by himself.

Hemmingway could afford an adequate shotgun

Does this explain cartoonists also, Stephan? :)

I thought this was the explanation for cartoonists. But, without the booze.

I know hundreds of writers, primarily novelists, and we are no more likely to be needy than the general population. If anything, we know that we must find our inner worth from the inside, and not from other people.

Is the lowest of the low the comic strip writers?

Writers only? Nah. Every entertainer ever. Not to mention all the rest of us who are both needy and untalented.

wow… dark.

First step: recognize the worth of others instead of repeating the parents’ mistake.

The leads naturally to the second step of being cared about in return.

Hmmmmm, did most people miss that the man is repeating the behavior of his parents? He is not interested in the needs of others, only of himself.

By caring too much about oneself a person misses out on caring about others, which naturally leads to people not caring about the person who is too wrapped up in herself or himself.

Volunteer work would go a long way toward correcting the problem.

“Alas, poor Pastis, I knew him, Rat: a fellow

of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy….Where be your gibes now? your

gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,

that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one

now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?”

—William Shakespeare (obsequious apologies!)

Sorry for saving this one, but this one is a keeper. I’m going to frame it, and six hundred others and put them on every square inch of every wall in my house.

I’d like to try some of this ‘Alone’, but no liquor store has heard of it..

“You are worthless scum! Go home and drink yourself to death!”

I will not.

I will survive. [Thank you, Gloria.]

Truth is, Cartoon-Boy likes to bend his elbow, now and again….

Perhaps the first part of G M Hopkin’s “Carrion Comfort” might help some readers?

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;

Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man

In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;

Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

Pastis does his best work on Sundays

Can anybody help meeee