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Pearls Before Swine (also known as Pearls) is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis. The series began on December 31, 2001. It chronicles the daily lives of an ensemble cast of suburban anthropomorphic animals: Pig, Rat, Zebra, Goat, and a fraternity of crocodiles, as well as a number of supporting characters, one of whom is Pastis himself. Each character represents an aspect of Pastis's personality and worldview. The daily and Sunday comic strip is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication (by United Feature Syndicate until 2011).

The strip's style is notable for its black comedy, simplistic artwork, self-deprecating fourth wall meta-humor, social commentary, mockery of itself or other comic strips, and occasional elaborate stories leading to a pun.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) All of the main characters are likable and have their own distinct personalities:
 * 2) * Rat is a cynical egotist who criticizes the strip itself and is fed up with the stupidity of the world.
 * 3) * Pig is an innocent, well-meaning pig who is Rat's best friend and tries to find the good in the world.
 * 4) * Goat is the intelligent foil to Rat and Pig who is easily annoyed and would rather be reading than appearing in a comic strip.
 * 5) * Guard Duck is a violent and protective duck who sees the world as his battlefield.
 * 6) * Zebra is a supportive and caring zebra who satirizes nature documentaries where zebras get killed by crocodiles.
 * 7) * The Crocs are a fraternity of predators who live next door to Zebra and are very bad at trying to catch him.
 * 8) The artwork is unique, yet simplistic, so all you have to focus on is the comedy. Stephan said this himself in the first treasury.
 * 9) The comedy is pleasantly dark, making this strip perfect for anyone who likes that genre. Plus, the strip is not all dark, there are some heartfelt moments thrown in.
 * 10) The strip constantly satirizes many topics. Examples include:
 * 11) * The overprotective censorship of syndicated comic strips.
 * 12) * Social justice warriors, which Stephan calls "easily offended people."
 * 13) * People who complain about the slightest little details, like errors in a comic strip.
 * 14) * Some bad or old strips on the comics page, such as The Family Circus. And to make it even better, Bil and Jeffy Keane really liked those strips and approved of them.
 * 15) * Current events.
 * 16) * How tech companies run out of natural resources, causing them to release a new iteration of their cellphones too early.
 * 17) * Cable companies (specifically Comcast).
 * 18) The pun strips, which are very clever, well thought-out, and may or may not be annoying.
 * 19) It knows how to make pop culture references at around the right time, because the strips don't take much time to draw.
 * 20) Stephan's commentaries in the treasuries are hilarious.
 * 21) The amazing series where Rat drove cross-country to find his girlfriend, but ended up at a Family Circus convention was one of the greatest series in the entire strip, and it blended multiple storylines together in a creative way.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Much like mh:besttvshows:South Park, the strip has gone too far in some places and made some offensive jokes.
 * 2) * In fact, Stephan even made a joke about Irish people being "too busy downing whiskey" to complain about his strip (though thankfully he apologized for it in that same treasury at request of his editor). He likely doesn't mean these.
 * 3) * There was even the strip where Stephan unknowingly insulted Mustafa Ataturk by using the name Ataturk for a llama who spits. This caused many people to insult him on sites like YouTube and Twitter, email death threats to him, and he even got a letter from the Turkish ambassador depending an apology!
 * 4) * In some occasions, the strip has run at around the wrong time and resulted in rather tasteless jokes, like the strip that depicted an armored police officer, but had nothing to do with police brutality. However, it was run around the time police brutality was in the news a lot, even though the strip was drawn six months prior, resulting in rather poor timing.
 * 5) The strip has been rather depressing and darker than usual in recent years, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 * 6) As mentioned before, the pun strips can be annoying, depending on your view.