New Cartoon: Pearls Before Swine
© Stu Rees
The banter among the main characters is very fast and tends to be either about something of philosophical importance or about a trivial word play. I rarely know which until I'm done reading it and have considered the punch line for a moment. The fast pace, snappy dialogue, and equal chance of a real message or a pun (sometimes both) means that the feature is unusually engaging. Also, it's in the need for a moment of reflection that Pearls distinguishes itself.
Pearls is described on the site as, At its heart, Pearls Before Swine is the comic strip tale of two friends: a megalomaniacal Rat who thinks he knows it all and a slow-witted Pig who doesn't know any better. Together, this pair offers caustic commentary on humanity's quest for the unattainable. The title of the strip comes from the New Testament, and is taken from the phrase, "Don't cast your pearls before swine." In this case, Rat believes that he is an endless source of wisdom, and that it is wasted upon Pig, who is rather slow. In truth, neither of them is very smart, but while Pig is content with his humble status in life, Rat is always on a futile search for fame, riches and immortality.
Personally, my favorite character is Zebra. This earnest little guy is always trying to figure out a way to thwart his herd's position on the food chain, but failing.
Don't be distracted by the minimalist art. In my opinion, the simplicity of the art helps Pearls because the reader is not distracted my visual detail. This feature's humor is in the writing, and anything that distracts from that is counterproductive. Also, I think that the art conveys each character's emotion and attitude extremely well, so I consider Pearls' art better at getting the job done than many other comics.
Pearls is an interesting success story for the internet. This feature has been published online for nearly two years by United. The visitor traffic was MUCH higher than the syndicate expected, so Pearls was given a green light for newspapers. The internet leading to such a success is quite rare. It will be interesting to see whether print readers like Pearls as much as online readers do.
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