Stephan Pastis's Blog, page 22

The Barber of Da Grill

My friend Tim never combed his hair.

The front of it looked like a tangled bird's nest dangling from his forehead.

And though he was smart, he had no common sense.

In short, not a guy you want to see try and operate a propane barbecue.

But try it he did one summer in Los Angeles when we were both in our twenties.

Tim wanted to grill a plate-load of hamburger patties for a party he was having that night.  So he turned up the gas and pushed the igniter button, but the barbecue wouldn't light.  So...

Mr. Pastis…Tear Down That Wall

I am constantly confused by the rules of etiquette for the little plastic dividers you use to separate your groceries from the other guy's groceries on the conveyor belt at checkout.

I never know if it's my responsibility to lay it down behind my own groceries, or if it's my responsibility to lay it down behind the guy's groceries ahead of me.

Sometimes I end up doing both, guarding the front and the rear.  That makes me mad, because it means someone in line has shirked their...

When You Complain About Pearls, You Just Might Get a Musical Response

All cartoonists get complaints.  I probably get a few more than most simply because my strip is considered "edgy."  That's a joke to me because compared to what's out there, I feel about as edgy as Captain Kangaroo.

In any event, although I rarely respond to these complaints, I did to this one.  And in a musical fashion, no less.  It is my singing and guitar-playing debut.  And when I say guitar-playing, I mean that last month I taught myself three chords.

So have a look by clicking HERE.

Oh...

And You Thought Lindsey Vonn's Slalom Fall Was Bad

When I was a little boy, my family used to take long car trips from Los Angeles to Yuba City, California, a distance of about 450 miles.

Despite the hours I had to kill, I didn't bring books.  I didn't bring anything.  I just stared out the window.

My parents found this odd because all there was to see were miles and miles of agricultural land.

But I wasn't focusing on the crops.

In my mind, I had created a little man.  And he was on skis.  And he was trying to ski through these fields.

But...

I'm So Tired of the Weirdos

Standing in line at Starbucks this morning, I started staring at the ceiling, wondering what would happen if the earth lost its gravitational pull.

Starbucks has all these floating wooden platforms that hang about a foot below the ceiling, attached by narrow metal rods.   All I could think was that if we all floated up to them, some of the customers would get wedged between the platforms and the ceilings.  Which would probably be the safest place to be, because everyone's hot lattes would be p...

Buy this Pearls Drawing, Because I May Die Soon.

I have a gray, four-door Honda Accord.  It's a nice car.  But it's a boring car.  Except for one thing.

It goes 160 miles per hour.

How do I know that?

Because I looked at the speedometer. And that's how high the numbers go.

Fine, I haven't tried it yet.  But I plan to.

And I don't want to hear your explanations for why a speedometer might go that high even if the car can't go that fast.  If my speedometer goes to 160 mph, the car can go 160 mph.

It's basically a Lamborghini hiding in the body of a...

The Son, The Backpack and the Angry Parents

Every morning, I drive my 12-year-old son Thomas to middle school.  He sits in the front seat with me.  He keeps his weighty backpack in the backseat.

When we get to the school, he gets out of the car, shuts his door, and opens the door to the backseat to reach for his backpack.

That's when I reach over the front seat and grab one of the backpack straps.  When he pulls on the backpack, it doesn't move.

A tug of war ensues.

This is a little embarrassing for him because he's in junior high and...

Save the Zebras! (And Improve Your Love Life)

You may have seen this story this morning.

The headline says it all:

Kenya rounds up zebras for starving lions

Yes, the country of Kenya says its lions are starving.  So they're herding up zebras to feed to the lions.  That is going to ruin many a zebra Valentine's Day.

Little did I know the message on my Valentine's Day crocodile would be so prophetic:

Not to mention the message carried by Rat:

Then there's poor Zebra, begging for peace in light of Kenya's decision:

And angelic Cupid Pig, hoping...

When Is the Right Time To Retire a Comic Strip?

It's always tough to know when to retire a strip.  If you use as your example Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side or Bloom County, the right amount seems to be somewhere between ten and fifteen years.

But if Peanuts had retired at that point, we'd have no Flying Ace or Woodstock or Peppermint Patty. In fact, Schulz's most famous Sunday strip, the one with the characters lying on their backs identifying cloud formations, did not even come until the 10th year of the strip.

For me, the decision is a...

Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say Saints gonna win Super Bowl back in his book introduction in 2006?

Four years ago, in February, 2006, I wrote an introduction for my treasury, "Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My", in which I discussed my inability to predict whether a given strip I write will be liked or not.  I added, "I could better predict the winner of the 2010 Super Bowl than I could the funniness factor of an unpublished Pearls strip."

And then I added a footnote.  I'll let you look at it yourself.   It's at the bottom of the page.

I suppose there are a whole host of possible...