Watterson's comic art to benefit Parkinsons research in honor of Richard Thompson

Bill Watterson's return to comics: Pearls Before Swine comic art auctioned for Parkinson's research

The reclusive creator's artwork from the recently finished three-day collaboration with Stephen Pastis on Pearls Before Swine will sell Aug. 8, 2014 at Heritage Auctions, proceeds to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

DALLAS – The original artwork for the recent three comic strip collaboration between Bill Watterson, the cartooning genius behind the much-loved Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, and Pearls Before Swine cartoonist Stephen Pastis – taking place in a three day run in June 2014 in Pearls – will be sold at Heritage Auctions on Aug. 8, 2014, with proceeds from the sale benefiting The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

"Anytime original Bill Watterson comic art shows up for auction it's a huge deal," said Todd Hignite, Vice President at Heritage Auctions. "His collaboration with Stephan Pastis was an unexpected treat for his millions of fans. Now, thanks to this auction, fans will get to take the original art home while raising money for a great cause."

The collaboration between the two artists came at the suggestion of Watterson and was immediately embraced by an overwhelmed Pastis, who, like some many modern cartoonists, was greatly influenced by Watterson and Calvin and Hobbes. The trajectory of the three strip arc follows Pastis' comic strip alter-ego as he turns the drawing of the comic over to a precocious second-grader named Libby for three days. The results are both wickedly funny and uniquely Watterson, while remaining true to the sharp humor that defines the Pearls Before Swine strip.

At Watterson's request, the artwork is being sold on behalf of Team Cul de Sac, a non-profit charity established by editor/designer Chris Sparks on behalf of  Cul de Sac cartoonist Richard Thompson, who is battling Parkinson's Disease – a piece of artwork done by Watterson depicting one of Thompson's Cul de Sac characters sold in 2012 as part of a charity auction to benefit Team Cul de Sac – and the profits from the sale of the original art (Heritage is waiving the seller's fee on the artwork and will also contribute half of the Buyer's Premium) will be donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

Heritage Auctions is the largest auction house founded in the United States and the world's third largest, with annual sales of more than $900 million, and 850,000+ online bidder members. For more information about Heritage Auctions, and to join and receive access to a complete record of prices realized, with full-color, enlargeable photos of each lot, please visit HA.com.

Stephan Pastis at Politics and Prose Bookstore (October 6, 2012)

Cartoonist Stephan Pastis speaks about his comic strip "Pearls Before Swine" at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, DC.

More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42072348@N00/sets/72157631708410406/with/8061262204/
Audio: http://archive.org/details/StephanPastisAtPoliticsAndProseBookstore

Cul de Sac slips into Pearls

Stephan Pastis gave a tip of the hat to some of the cartoonists he'll be meeting in San Diego - including Our Man Thompson.

Stephan "Pearls before Swine" Pastis on Richard Thompson's medical issue

Stephan "Pearls before Swine" Pastis has a blog entry on Richard Thompson's medical issue. This is well-said (written, proclaimed, what-have-you) - Some News About Courage, Official Pearls Before Swine blog July 18, 2009.

Richard's probably just about to panic about deadlines before San Diego right about ...
NOW ... so hopefully he's seen this bit.

Washington Times reviews Pearls Before Swine collection

You don't see this type of review very often, but check it out at "BOOKS: 'The Saturday Evening Pearls: A Pearls Before Swine Collection': Scandals and mayhem collected, By Jeremy Lott, Washington Times Sunday, May 10, 2009.

Comic Riffs on characters crossing between strips

I'd noted this and planned on posting on it, but Michael beat me to it - "Barrel of Laughs: Why Dennis Is Buck-Nekkid In TWO Strips Today," by Michael Cavna, April 28, 2009.

Weingarten's comic strip picked up, opinions on other comics cease

From the April 7th chat, Gene Weingarten says,

I have a wonderful announcement about how Chatological Humor is going to get even better! This is exactly like announcements you've been seeing in other newspapers practically every day now about how they are cutting costs, paper quality, paper size, staff and features in order to bring to you, the reader, an EVEN BETTER, MORE STREAMLINED PRODUCT!

Well, this is the last week Chatological Humor will offer its picks for the best comics of the previous week. Yes, the CPOW [Comic Pick of the Week] is dead. All for your benefit!

Okay, as it happens, there is nothing dastardly or craven behind this decision and no one I can yell at self-righteously. Last week, the Washington Post Writers Group syndicate picked up its option on "Barney and Clyde," the comic strip being developed by me, my son, Dan, and cartoonist David Clark. Editors at The Writers Group feel that I can no longer offer my half-assed, semi-knowledgeable opinions about other comic strips that might, in the future, compete for space with mine. I hate to admit it, but they have a point.

_______________________

Alexandria: So, when does Barney and Clyde's run begin? And what will it replace? (this is news, not commentary, I'm asking for)

Gene Weingarten: No clear answer to either question; no way of knowing even if The Washington Post will run it. There are no obligations in any direction.

_______________________

Comics abomination: Gene, I noticed on Sunday that while some of the regular strips seem to have shrunk or the panels squeezed together oddly (Pearls especially got the short end of the stick), the Slylock Fox panel has grown significantly.

I'm all for encouraging youngsters' abilities to solve petty crimes through observation, but does it really need to be larger than most of the other strips?

Gene Weingarten: This may be deliberate, and smart. Pearls Before Swine (Pastis will hate me for this) seems to be drawn shrewdly, to deter shrinkage. Its characters are simple, dialogue simple, spaces big. It can shrink without injury more than most can.

_______________________

Re: Pearls Before Swine: I disagree with Pastis' strategy - I think he is inadvertently enabling shrinkage instead of deterring it. A comic editor might see his strip and assume that shrinking all comics won't hurt the content. What if the comics fought shrinkage by adding more art and content, so that readers would complain to the comics editors?

Gene Weingarten: Uh, that would be a lot of nose-cutting for face-spiting.

_______________________

Pearls shrinkage: I think you might be missing the point. Whether or not Pastis is deliberately drawing his strip to survive the Great Comic Shrink of 2009 or not, SLYLOCK FOX IS GETTING BIGGER!

Surely another comic deserves enlargement before Slylock.

Gene Weingarten: If you are going to run Slylock, you need to give it space! A lot of stuff is going on in there.

New York Times on future of comic strips

This is a pretty good article - "Prototype: The Comics Are Feeling the Pain of Print," By LESLIE BERLIN, New York Times December 28, 2008.

New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff is quoted in this article about financial humor - "I’m Penniless, but the Laugh’s on Them," By LIZ ALDERMAN, New York Times December 28, 2008.

Comic Riffs anecdotes from Walker and Pastis

Fave Fan Anecdotes: 'Pearls Before Swine' & 'Hi and Lois'
By Michael Cavna | December 25, 2008;

Pearls Before Felines?

Today's Pearls Before Swine may look oddly familiar - it's "in tribute to George Herriman (1880-1944)." Herriman created Krazy Kat for decades, and reprints are now being done by Fantagraphics.

http://members.comics.com/members/common/affiliateArchive.do?site=washpost&comic=pearls

Comic Riffs interviews Stephan Pastis

Online today - "Interview With the Artist: "Pearls Before Swine's" Stephan Pastis," By Michael Cavna, Washington Post's Comic Riffs blog July 31, 2008.

And note this teaser at the end:

COMING SUNDAY IN THE POST'S STYLE&ARTS SECTION: We chat up some of the nation's leading political cartoonists.

Self-referentialism in today's Post comic strips

Three comic strips today benefited from some inside knowledge of reading them regularly perhaps.

Today's Pearls Before Swine builds on a week of Pastis referring to deaths in comic strips - after taking a passing swipe at Family Circus, Pastis killed himself in the strip - today he meets his syndicate rep as a giant floating head in heaven who tells him he can't kill the strip because of the ancillary products making money.

Candorville's been doing a tribute to the late comedian George Carlin all week, but today he got into criticizing obituary editorial cartoons which frequently feature a character at heaven's pearly gates. This almost certainly comes off a discussion at the Associations of American Editorial Cartoonists that Dave Astor covered.

Finally, Agnes (pick the July 12th one) is on the fact that Peanuts is still appearing in reruns years after Schulz's death.

Weingarten corrupted three comic strips for Post Hunt

Gene Weingarten's May 20th chat had some comments about a 'comics' clue to the Post Hunt.

Arlington: G-Dub. How in THE hell can anyone claim that the "Comics" clue was hard? The comedians made it obvious what the topic was, Liz and Ginger walking around with the comics pages made it obvious where to look (not to mention that everyone was reading the Comics section) and the numbers weren't terribly hard to find. What was hard about it?

(Every other clue was @#$! impossible, btw.)

washingtonpost.com: And yet there were people who -- when offered a Comics section -- declined, saying "I have one at home."

Gene Weingarten: Heh heh.

As Tom said yesterday, the monitors at the fortune cookie site watched several times as small children were tugging at parents' clothing saying, "It tastes like coconut!" and the parents said, "Ssh. We're trying to solve the puzzle."

and later...

Consiracy Theories: It's bad enough that clueless Post readers may be misled by the clues planted in the magazine and comics, but what about the rest of the country? Is there an army of folks coming up with diabolical explanations for the numbers appearing in the three comics? Or do they get an explanation somewhere somehow (without stumbling on the Post)?

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, I owe a great thank you to Stephan Pastis, Jef Mallett, and Berkeley Breathed. They were great sports about it. I'm sure they're getting dozens of letters from elsewhere in the country asking, yknow, what that "nine" was about.

and...

Opus Hunt: Gene,

A friend was telling me about Hunt (she went, I couldn't) and when I looked at the Opus strip, the first thing I thought of when she pointed it out was Al Hirschfeld. Did Breathed do that on purpose? And were the other numbers in the strip used as decoys?

Gene Weingarten: Yep, it was an homage to Hirschfeld, I believe. "Nine" was done exactly the way Hirschfeld did "Nina."

The other numbers were coincidence! He wasn't trying to be deceptive.

...with some debate over that...

Washington, D.C.: Did you notice that both Breathed and Mallet hid other numerals in their strips? The s in the title "OPUS" was a 5. In Frazz, the word "school" had both a 5 instead of an s, and an 8 instead of the two o's. The second occurrence of that word didn't have the 5, but it did have the 8. So we weren't sure which hidden numbers to use, until we finally noticed the "nine" on the doctor's coat, and decided to use the spelled-out numbers "six," "eight," and "nine," and ignore the hidden numerals 5, 8, 8 and 5.

Gene Weingarten: I disagree about the S being a 5.

But we noticed the "oo" looking like an eight. We noticed this at the very last minute. It turns out that is simply how Patty Mallett (who inks Jef's art) makes a double o! If the hidden number had been anything but eight, we'd a been scrood!

This is all nonsensical, until you go to the Post website. This video explains that Weingarten's friends Stephan (Pearls Before Swine), Berkeley (Opus) Breathed and Jeff (Frazz) Mallett snuck in clues for the Post Hunt.

Today's comics weren't all comic

Richard Thompson has a hilarious sendup of Free Comic Book Day that about 37 readers of the Post will get and appreciate. In their continuing effort to combat e-piracy, the Post hasn't put it online yet, although you can see last week's panel.

Meanwhile a few other strips in the Post are worth noting today (that's the May 5th strips).

Bud Grace goes for a dose of reality in the Piranha Club.

Bill Griffith's History of the washing machine in Zippy was just lovely.

Pearls before Swine breaks the 4th wall in a graphically-amusing way.

Speaking of graphic, what's the deal with yesterday's Baldo? First his aunt walks in on him naked in the bathroom and seems to suggest a Red Hot Chili Peppers fashion, and then we get this strip. Am I reading too much into this or is there a "size of his dick" joke here? For Better or For Worse had a PMS joke today, and Brewster Rockit had a fart joke with spiderwebs coming out of a character's ass (a Spider-Man 3 tip of the hat).

Finally on Monday, two diametrically-opposed cartoonists ran similar strips on the Virginia Tech murders right next to each other: Prickly City vs Candorville.

Washington Post doesn't censor comic!

Dave Astor reported that newspapers were given an advance warning that "Pearls Before Swine" used the phrase...

...wait for it...

...'BITE ME' on December 2 in case newspapers wanted to pull the strip. Amazingly enough, the censorship-heavy Post ran the strip - if anyone cares, I'll try to dig up the cases where they did censor the comics.

Believe it or not!