Pearls Hogs the Road: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury is just that, a collection of the Pearls Before Swine comic strips. Stephan Pastis, however, has commentary after several of the strips. Sometimes they are comments on the strip itself and sometimes it is something completely random. Therefore, it is exactly what you would expect from a Pearls Before Swine comic strip treasury.
This commentary by the author/illustrator at times can be funnier than the strips themselves (usually he comments on the strip, but he does have some randomness such as a child that was sitting in front of him on an airplane, who might have farted, but to be fair, it could have been Stephan. His words, not mine). The fact the commentary is funnier (for me) is hard to do. I like the strip. With that said, I am like an aunt of his, I am not always sure what he is talking about. Some of the jokes are not funny. Some are. Some have a commentary on life and others just accidentally happened to have commentary (there is a strip he did where a police officer is dressed as if he was about to do battle and it came out during a time with extreme police violence occurring. Yet, he had written it months before this happened. It was just bad timing).
Some of the history of Pearls is included as well as some of his complaint letters from readers. He has a piece in the introduction about how Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbs fame wrote three of the strips (and comments about the type of person Watterson is). There are nods to other artists (he has a few nods to Peanuts), and he has puns and just barely legally able to get pass the censors jokes. Again, this is what you would expect from Pastis. It would be a great gift for fans or aspiring artists who are slightly older (though I am sure today’s kids have seen worse). He is also the author of Timmy Failure.
