Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 20, 2004

It says “Pearls Before Swine. Copyright 2004 by Stephan T. Pastis. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate. Laughter not guaranteed. Not suitable for some readers who prefer 75 year-old strips drawn by the son of the son of the son of the original creator. Product not available in some cities where ‘Snuffy Smith’ still wins reader polls. Product may have limited availability in cities where editors choose comic strips based solely upon ? ? or ? demographic appeal. Check local listings. No animals were harmed in the making of this strip, although we ? the dumb pig a little bit. Our apologies to the ?”

That’s all I could do in one sitting…

Well, thank you, i was going to have to do all that myself

The full small text, as best as I can read it:

Pearls Before Swine, Copyright 2004 by Stephan T. Pastis, Distributed by United Feature Syndicate. Laughter not guarenteed. Not suitable for some readers who prefer 75 year-old strips drawn by the son of the son of the son of the original creator. Product not available in some cities where “Snuffy Smith”still wins reader polls. Product may have limited availability in cities where editors choose comic strips based soley upon potential social or ethnic demographic appeal. Check local listings. No animals were harmed in the making of this strip, although we roughed up the dumb pig a little bit. Our apologies to the editors throughout North America who are staying up late tonight perusing this text with a magnifying glass to ensure that this cartoonist did not bury any offending words or concepts in this small text. Okay – I’m tired now. To be perfectly frank, when I initially came up with the idea for “this tiny word” joke, I thought it would be really quick to do, but I now see that to make the joke work, the writing has to be really small, and it apparently takes a ton of tiny words to fill such a large space. Hence, I have run out of ideas. If you’d like, you can now move on to “Cathy” or “B.C.” and check in on their crazy antics, as I am totally out of funny stuff. Actually, so are they. So heck, maybe you ought to just put this newspaper downand gowatch a little TV. Geez, man, I STILL have more space to fill with this now tired joke. What to do… What to do…I suppose that a lesser cartoonist would use this space to promote his latest books, but I don’t think that either of my two books, “BLTs Taste So Darn Good” or “This Little Piggy Stayed Home”, both of which were published by Andrew’s McNeel Publishing, need that sort of cheap publicity. Their sales at Borders, Barnes & Nobel, Amazon.com, and your local bookstore have been tremendous and they don’t need more help from me here. Wow, finally…I’m done. I’m never doing this joke again.

-I agree, I’m never doing this again!

It says, “Pearls Before Swine Copyright 2004 by Stephan T. Pastis distributed by The United Feature Syndicate. Laughter not guaranteed. Not suitable for some readers who prefer 75-year-old strips drawn by the son of the son of the son of the original creator. Product not available in some cities where ‘Snuffy Smith’ still wins reader polls. Product may have limited availability in cities where editors chooses soley upon potential social or ethnic demographic appeal. Check local listings. No animals were harmed in the making of this strip, although we roughed up the dumb pig a little bit. Our apologies to the editors throughout North America who are staying up late tonight perusing this text with a magnifying glass to ensure that this cartoonist did not bury any offending words or concepts in this text. Okay… I’m tired now. To be perfectly frank, when I initially came up with this ‘tiny word’ joke, I thought it would be really quick to do, but I now see that to make this joke work, the writing has to be really small, and it takes a ton of tiny words to fill such a large space. Hence, I have run out of ideas. If you’d like, you can now move on to ‘Cathy’ or ‘B.C.’And check in on their crazy antics, as I am totally out of funny stuff. Actually, so are they. So heck, maybe you ought to put this newspaper down and watch a little TV. Geez, man, I STILL have more space to fill with this now tired joke. What to do… what to do…I suppose that a lesser cartoonist would use this space to promote his latest books, but I don’t think that either of my two books, ‘BLTs taste so darn good’ or ‘This little piggy stayed home’, both pf which were published by Andrews McMeel publishing need that sort of cheap publicity. Their sales at Borders, Barnes & Nobles, Amazon.com and your local bookstore have been tremendous and they don’t need more help from me here. Wow, finally…I’m done. I’m never doing this joke again.”

Oh my Gawd, I’m done! I am NEVER doing that again.

-By the way I did NOT copy bladeguy.

I got bored just reading it.. after the first word… yeah I don’t even want to know why you thought it would be fun to do that..

text is too small

Thanks. I enlarged the strip as much as my monitor would go and still could not read much of the tiny script.Yes I did read the entire reiteration of the tiny words. Now I can sleep tonight. ☻

Thank you bladeguy and miazma. My eyes are not what they once were.

But I agree. This one is awful. I bet newspaper readers needed a magnifying glass.