Larry in Wonderland: A Pearls Before Swine Collection

Pearls Before Swine #11

by Stephan Pastis

One of the best-selling cartoons today. Offering blistering commentary on hot-button topics related to recent news events, popular culture, cartoon-page contemporaries, and more, Pearls Before Swine expertly illustrates the flaws and shortcomings of human nature through Pastis’s mindful menagerie of fiery and feisty characters.

Stephan Pastis offers Pearls Before Swine fans a visit to the other side of the looking glass with his latest collection, Larry in Wonderland . Collecting almost a year's worth of strips, Larry in Wonderland offers cutting-edge commentary on recent news events, popular culture, and cartoon-page contemporaries, and imparts the knowledge that in Wonderland, crocodiles taste a lot like chicken.

Through Pastis's mindful menagerie of characters, including the Mad Ducker, Cheshire Snuffles, Tweedledum Pig, and Tweedledee Idiot Pig, along with Raterpillar, Zebra, and Larry the Croc, Pearls Before Swine expertly illustrates the flaws and shortcomings of human nature, while remaining "indifferent" to conventional cartoon molds such as plotline "continuity." In the words of Raterpillar, "Plotline schmotline."

With multiple honors as Best Comic Strip of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society, and an international fan base that follows the strip's appearance in more than 600 newspapers worldwide, Pearls Before Swine transports readers to a world of shifting perspectives and alternate realities, like the one presented inside Larry in Wonderland .

Genres: Comics, Humor, Comic Strips, Graphic Novels, Cartoon, Adult, Graphic Novels Comics

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2011

About the author

Stephan Pastis was born in 1968 and raised in San Marino, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989 with a degree in political science. Although he had always wanted to be a syndicated cartoonist, Pastis realized that the odds of syndication were slim, so he entered UCLA Law School in 1990 and became an attorney instead. He practiced law in the San Francisco Bay area from 1993 to 2002. While an attorney, he began submitting various comic strip concepts to all of the syndicates, and, like virtually all beginning cartoonists, got his fair share of rejection slips. Then, in 1997, he began drawing Pearls Before Swine, which he submitted to the syndicates in mid-1999. In December, 1999, he signed a contract with United.
Pearls Before Swine debuted in newspapers in January, 2002, and Pastis left his law practice in August of that year. Pearls Before Swine was nominated in 2003, 2004 and 2007 as "Best Newspaper Comic Strip" by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) and won the award in 2004 and 2007. Pastis lives with his family in Northern California.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Pearls Before Swine. It's an exceedingly clever comic strip that never takes itself too seriously.

[Jason Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good Pearl's Before Swine collection. Not a stellar offering, but still plenty of wit. The book's dedication is touching (Pastis dedicates it to himself because he's never seen anyone that vain before.) Also the introduction with letters to the editor was great.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just makes me laugh. Love the puns. The craziness. Disappointed my local paper doesn't carry this strip.

[David Erkale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has got to be a great Pearls Before Swine collection. You can already see the absurdity of it with Rat smoking a hookah pipe on the front. And the comics are pretty wild, too. The introduction even points out how people dislike the comic. So that makes me love it. Wish that Pastis would add some spice to his current ones, now that I think of it. These are gold.

[Musiquedevie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite part was the series of Rat working as the Walmotopia greeter.

[Laurla2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

read in Pearls Freaks the #*%# Out: A (Freaky) Pearls Before Swine Treasury

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and funny read.

[Katariina Kottonen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The latest comics collection by Pastis—bearing in mind that I've just read his very first one, it is quite interesting to see how the style has developed so far. These days the author is much more apt at both drawing (sorry!) and making up complicated, contrived even, plots.

That said, there are quite a few repetitions of earlier jokes in the book. Still, Larry in Wonderland is a joyful read, and I've especially enjoyed the Wonderland part of the comic series (e.g. see here).

[Matti Karjalainen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stephan Pastisin "Pearls Before Swine" eli meille suomalaisille tutummin "Helmiä sioille" on ollut pitemmän aikaa yksi suurimmista suosikeistani strippisarjakuvan puolelta, mutta ikävä kyllä mikään hauska ei kestä loputtomiin. Uusin englanninkielinen kokoelma "Larry in Wonderland" (Andrews McMeel, 2011) alkaa osoittaa jo vakavia hyytymisen merkkejä, vaikka joukkoon toki mahtuukin, no, helmiä.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great installment of Pearls. This one did seem a bit thinner than the previous issues I have read. The strips sometimes seemed to jump the stories around a bit and did not contain the same substance. However this is still Pearls and has some great characters and some really twisted humor. So that makes it a definite four stars for this reader.

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

[Nancy DeVries · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was funny and a good easy read,