Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis has released his first iPad app called “Only the Pearls.” The app contains 250 of his favorite strips with 125 audio commentaries, 22 videos of himself and 12 animated strips.
Here’s part of the description:
For Only the Pearls, Pastis personally selected his favorite 250 strips. More than half of the strips in this dynamic app include the cartoonist’s funny and irreverent audio and video commentary, created exclusively for the app. All strips are presented here in color (many for the first time), and a dozen are animated to bring the Pearls characters to life.
This guided tour of the very best of the Reuben Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling strip is a rich, immersive experience for fans and a fun introduction for newcomers to Pastis’s work.
And the teaser/trailer:
I notice posts like this don’t attract much discussion yet a brand new 25 paper launch or the “John Nagy Lighthouse Award for Lumberjack Realism” is met w/ “attaboys”.
Full disclosure: I don’t know SP from Adams’ house cat and if I taped a pencil to my electric sander it could draw better -but it stands to reason that this (and similar efforts) is/are good for cartooning and should be applauded and ultimately emulated. This is cheesy but good stuff. He’s not only broadening HIS audience but ours by association and I’m glad that’s his mug on camera -not mine. If it helps, think of yourself as Cleopatra and SP as the monkey: he’s making you look better.
Conversations threads among cartoonists tend to become so insular we lose the big picture: this ain’t art, this is commerce. And it’s the future.
Maybe everyone is waiting to comment until they’ve seen the app. I downloaded it yesterday, and I have to say it has set the bar pretty darn high.
@Mike – My thoughts FWTW. As an iPad owner, I can see this it as the future. It’s got the right form factor for consuming media (comics) and a wonderful interactive experience.
That said, I’ve been watching to see how well comics are performing in the terms of downloads or revenue. Aside from established book publishers, I haven’t of any independant comics performing well ($$) with the app store.
I think Stephan has better potential than others because he’s good at generating viral marketing and the app has other a lot of material beyond his comic that might generate interest.
I got it yesterday and it’s great! Tons of content, videos, neat things like an interactive bulletin board and a wall full of drawings to scan through. And the comic strips look really clean and crisp. Lots and lots of work went into this. If this succeeds it’s going to be great for all of us! New life for the comic strip format. Congratulations, Stephan. I hope you sell a million and app builders are screaming for content!
By the way, Mike Lester, I dub thee sage of this board.
I’m very excited about this app. What I’ve been able to find for comic strips has been scarce I hope this paves the way for more.
I was going to buy it today, but now I’m wondering if I should pay Mike to draw with a pencil taped to an electric sander. I want to see that.
And it’s not for nothing that SP tours, is a character in his own strip, breaks the 4th wall regularly and is a better promo vid actor than draftsman -it’s pro-active, assertive, entrepreneurial and I hope -quite selfishly, that it works.
Another full disclosure: when I mentioned it might help to think of oneself as “Cleopatra”, I was looking at you MT.
I disagree about Stephan’s draftsmanship. I think his artwork fits his writing perfectly, quite successfully so as many readers love his style. In my humble opinion, it’s brilliant. A more traditional artwork style would be inappropriate and clutter his writing, the star of his comic.
Point taken and I agree; probably took the joke a gag too far.