Revolutionary Rat

Today I complained about stupid editors who boost bad comic strips for political reasons. In a comment, a reader steered me to a Pearls Before Swine strip, in which Stephan Pastis (the cartoonist) makes fun of the morons who buy strips for syndicates. Take a look.

I knew Pastis was critical of the industry, but I didn't know he had done a strip on the subject this past weekend.

If you like that one, you should see how he reams out bad old strips that clutter the comics page. He has really savaged Cathy Guisewite, whose strip Cathy ceased being funny a long time ago. I was surprised to see him do that, because Cathy was a good strip back in the Eighties, and it might be good again some day.

He's wasting his time, I think. People want to wake up in the morning and see Dagwood and Blondie and all their old favorites, even if they're about as funny as a cancer relapse. And syndicate editors want to stock what sells.