Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for December 18, 2016

Good to know that Rat knows what his purpose is in this world.

Rat is so terrible, he’s stealing ideas from Al Bundy.

Rat is the anti-genius.

I wonder if this is based on the unauthorized sequel attempt to the real thing in which ZuZu tries to show George Bailey’s descendant how the world’s much better off without him.

Ah, what a wonderful world… Everyone is as “childlike” as Pig, and world leaders start pushing pretty buttons to see what they do, and…

:

Well, maybe we do need a Rat after all.

C’mon! Blatant rip-off of an old Howard the Duck comic!

Rat being rat………….

So you see, Rat, you really did have a wonderful life.

That’s the spirit Rat………

Before people throw around words like “blatant rip-off”,

or accuse cartoonists of “copying” some old Sherpa strip or web comic….

even before they criticise the drawing of some artifact ….

or mistake in arcane technical detail….

I wish they would stop and think!

Just because someone has a facility for making us laugh….

a noble trait, in my estimation…

and can cobble together some artwork to express it,

and give us a strip so consistently funny it has attained world wide popularity….

it does NOT mean that person has a duty to have read or seen every other comic strip….every movie…. every television show….

read every book, in the history of the world.

He or she doesn’t have to have a degree in English,

spell every word correctly,

know every tool, method or device to do every job in the world.

Just because you’ve seen something before doesn’t mean every cartoonist is familiar with it….

And a great idea, a good joke, or a perfect pun….

Stephan Pastis is still in his 40’s,and spent a good part of his life as a working lawyer….

He may never have had time to read every “old Howard the Duck comic” to see whether he’s doing something similar.

Or to check his work against every parody ever written of “it’s a Wonderful Life.”

He’s a darn funny guy….and I’m sure he didn’t need help.

I don’t want Mr. Rat to jump off a cliff but there will always be idiotic religions and idiotic religious violence. It’s going to get worse. The ridiculous god fantasy was the human’s greatest mistake.

There was a “Johnny Bravo” cartoon on this subject. As it turned out, EVERYONE Johnny had ever met was better off without him in their lives.My favorite part: seeing the angel descend from heaven and mistakenly pass through high-voltage wires. Crisp!

GET BACK HERE RAT! (Grabs a sword) I REALLY NEED WORLD PEACE RIGHT NOW!

Rat’s evidently efficient at his job…..since there’s an awful lot of disruption out there.

And THAT, little children, is why we have liberals.

Motivation is where you find it. Location, location, location.

now that’s a guardian angel who should be fired.

Beavis and Butthead did this too. The world was so wonderful in the version were Butthead had never been born, that his guardian angel urged him do away with himself.

Plagiarism police are the lowest of intellectual bottom feeders.

Wait a minute; I thought we – well, they – elected that other rat to handle disrupting all that stuff.

There are a lot of people like Rat who would be better off dead.

xxx

Sigh I wonder what the world would be like if Trump never existed ?

Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu.

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75

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People starve.

The rulers consume too much with their taxes.

That is why people starve.

.

People are hard to govern.

The rulers interfere with too much.

That is why people are hard to govern.

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People take death lightly.

They expect too much of life.

That is why people take death lightly.

Do it, Rat! Jump!

Every time Rat jumps, Cartoon-Boy dodges a blow to the head!

A minor quibble on my part, but….Rat is not saying he wishes he had never been born, he is merely saying he is going to jump. There is a pretty big difference between the two.

Rat reminds me of a few people who do seem more interested on making the world a worse place to be.

Guess Clarence ain’t getting his wings anytime soon.