Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 09, 2016

My, Rat has big feet.

Paris, put on a pair of rat-stabbers and kick him.

Rat’s always willing to spoil what others are doing.

Rat just can’t bear it.

Should have been a fourth and fifth panels where the tardigrade proved it not only adapts to Rat’s shoe but beats the crud out of Rat for doing that.

Stick legs and feet. Where did the shoe come from?

This coming from a species that constantly gets fooled by a piece of cheese on a spring trap.

Rat never said that it was HIS shoe. Probably stolen from Stephan.

Tardigrade doesn’t look hurt. Rat’s shoe is too soft to exert “extremely high pressure”. Rat had best be hoping that tardigrades are advanced and peaceable beings.

Since tardigrades can survive 6,000 times atmospheric pressure, good luck with that, Rat.

And another one bites the dust !

I very much doubt that rat’s action could hurt a tardigrade, unless both the sole of the shoe and the surface of the table were perfectly hard and smooth. It would be like trying to crush a single grain of sand, only even more difficult because a tardigrade is smaller. It would just become wedged in some literally microscopic cranny in the shoe.

Near absolute zero, goat, and only for a limited time.

I just checked out Wikipedia, and there’s nothing about a Tardigrade’s resistance to shoe squishing. Must not be a common environmental hazard.

Where did Goat get a tardigrade, Tardigrade are US?

@F6F5Hellcat — We think alike on this one.

This reminds me of an old Bloom County cartoon where a cockroach is boasting to Opus of how indestructible he and his kind are, only to have Opus step on him.

Many years ago, there was one like this in Bloom County, Milo, Binkley and, Opus went to a college to participate in a nuclear energy protest (and pick up college women). Opus is on the ivy covered walls, when he’s approached by a cockroach (not milquetoast). The cockroach preceded to brag about its survival skills, when Opus simply put his foot down and uttered “survive this!”

Neither Paris nor Rat realize that the tardigrade escaped, and she will soon be back with millions of reinforcements!

Well, it WOULD make a great cartoon!

Big talk from a wire-chewing plague reservoir.

Oh just you wait rat, evolution or a mutation will cause one to grow to the size of a horse, then you’ll be in trouble.

They would look like scary monsters for sure

Congratulations to Stephan for the sale of his fifth TIMMY FAILURE book!

http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/stephan-pastis-to-create-the-fifth-timmy-failure-book/115966

nobody else noticed today’s exceptionally TALL and SKINNY opening dialog balloon??

Oh I noticed, Cupertino Jay.

I have new found respect for Rat after seeing his shoe size.

Shame, tardigrades are kind of cute. Say Cartoon Boy, you should introduce Tommy Tardigrade as the revenge seeking microscopic animal.

I, too, struggle to figure out the shoe, Rat! Where the heck did it come from, since you don’t wear such shoes? Don’t tell me Cartoon-Boy just conveniently whipped one up out of clean air and ink!Tardigrades, on the other hand, may be everywhere, all the time. That’s icky….

Goat’s face in the 2nd panel.

xxx

Further proof that Stephan understands our universe better than the Pope AND Neil DeGrasse Tyson

That has got to be one helluva magnifying glass held by Goat!

I love tardigrades!

… I thought a tardigrade was something you received for being late to class? :P

@Rat … just because tardigrades are slow steppers, doesn’t mean they haven’t figured out the shoe … it’s deliberate spitefulness they’ll never completely wrap their brains and hearts around.

I hate to say it, Goat, but you set yourself up for that one.

Tardigrades (or water bear) can’t be seen through a magnifying glass, can’t be seen as a dot on the comics page, and you’ll survive a whack from a shoe. Other than that, it’s perfectly accurate.

they survive in space too

Why iz crosshare on strip

Water bears (or tardigrades, as goat called them) are to small to get crushed by a shoe.