Recent Comments

1. about 6 hours ago on Pearls Before Swine

   … song lyrics, contortedly set up with made-up words or names to fit the syllables thereof. I have said so many times. They are certainly not puns. Yes, on Sundays, I can usually see the gag (there’s my pun) coming and skip as well.

   Most Americans dislike puns; I figured out decades ago that that’s because Americans are so bad at punning, and-or have distorted ideas of what a pun is. People from other English-speaking places are much better at it, and the puns in, say, Ireland, are sometimes worth hearing.

2. 1 day ago on Pearls Before Swine

   What are you talking about?

3. 1 day ago on Pearls Before Swine

   No. They are excruciating, full stop. If a “joke” makes its audience groan, then that is a bad joke that one should not have told. Why do some jokers take a groan as a compliment?

4. 2 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   What puns? There is no pun in the strip we were talking about, and I don’t recall ever seeing a pun in a Pastis strip. Elaborately and artificially set-up syllable-play, yes. Never a pun.

5. 2 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Please trust me: I try not to. I’m normally careful when I look at the first few panels of the Sunday “Pearls,” but this time I wasn’t sufficiantly vigilant.

6. 2 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   You have a point, but thios pattern wore out its welcome for me the second time he ever did it. I understand it as an homage to Krazy Kat, which was the exact same gag every single time, the difference beiong that George Harriman could pull that off, and Pastis, as much as I admire his usual work, can’t pull it off as often as he tried it. Or maybe it’s that those elaborate pun-like gags have never seemed funny to me.

7. 2 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   What are you talkking about? “Jealous” of what?

8. 2 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   You’re right: I didn’t say it correctly. It’s the exact same strip whenever he does one of elaborate pun-like gags.

9. 3 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Dreadful. Worthless. It’s the exact same strip every time: “Pastis” does a terrible gag, and in the last panel, one of his characters insults (or physically abuses) him for it. Why would you do that same strip more than once ever? Why would he do that like every third Sunday when he’s capable of doing a strip that’s actually entertaining instead?

10. 4 days ago on Jeff Danziger

    Of course “we” did. Minimum wage plus tips was not even approaching a livelihood, and still isn’t.