Stephan Pastis Books in Order

Nighthogs is an early Pearls Before Swine collection built around a late night diner setting. Under the fluorescent lights Rat, Pig, Goat and Zebra trade insults, stories and confessions, proving that the strip’s blend of bleak humor and odd warmth works even after dark.

When Pigs Fly focuses on sports themed Pearls Before Swine strips, with Pig improbably cast as a star player. Courtside action, locker room jokes and the usual Croc disasters blend together as Pastis uses games to poke at pride, failure and fans who take everything too seriously.

Eleven year old Timmy Failure runs Total Failure Inc, a detective agency staffed by himself and his giant polar bear partner, Total. When he loses his mom’s treasured Segway on a routine case, his attempt to recover it sends his schoolwork and home life spinning out of control.

Rat’s Wars is a Pearls Before Swine collection where Rat seems determined to pick fights with everyone. From petty neighborhood disputes to overblown crusades, he drags Pig, Goat, Zebra and the Crocs into one losing battle after another, all played for sharp, absurd laughs.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct collects Pearls Before Swine strips that use sports as a backdrop for bad behavior. Rat rants about fans and athletes, Pig misunderstands every rule, Zebra writes letters from the sidelines, and the series’ usual cynicism takes aim at competition and fandom.

Breaking Stephan serves up another round of Pearls Before Swine strips, this time riffing on crime dramas and pop culture. Rat directs his own movie, “Rat Kicks Pig,” the Crocs look for work, and the whole cast takes turns mocking their creator’s ego and bad decisions.

In his second adventure, Timmy enters a school wide contest to solve the mystery of a stolen globe, convinced it will launch his detective empire worldwide. With lazy polar bear Total and eccentric Great Aunt Colander helping, he stumbles through schemes, rivals and looming academic trouble.

Pearls Blows Up gathers strips from the collections 50,000,000 Pearls Fans Can’t Be Wrong and When Pigs Fly. Explosions, sports, office life and neighborhood feuds all show up as Rat, Pig, Goat, Zebra and the Crocs lampoon human nature in Pastis’s combustible style.

This treasury pairs the Unsportsmanlike Conduct and Rat’s Wars collections, letting readers binge through a dense run of Pearls Before Swine. Rat bullies Pig, Goat sighs, Zebra dodges predators and the Crocs fail again, with Pastis’s annotations adding extra jokes between strips.

The Croc Ate My Homework is a Pearls Before Swine Kids collection built around the hopelessly hungry crocodile family. Selected strips highlight their schemes to eat Rat, Pig, Goat and Zebra, along with plenty of dark humor and quick puns tailored for middle grade readers.

Timmy’s detective agency is on the brink of global fame, but first he has to survive academic probation. To earn a crucial “Miracle Report” and stay in school, he juggles a new enemy, old grudges and another supposedly brilliant plan that keeps drifting further from reality.

In King of the Comics, Pastis gathers a run of Pearls Before Swine strips that play with the idea of cartoonists as minor celebrities. Rat declares himself king, Pig blunders into trouble, and Goat and Zebra offer commentary on pop culture, politics and everyday disasters.

Pearls Gets Sacrificed is a thick treasury that combines earlier collections and adds stickers and commentary. The cover joke about angry readers burning Pastis at the stake sets the tone for strips that push puns, make fun of other comics and occasionally bite the hand that feeds them.

Forced onto a cross country trip with his mom, Doorman Dave, Molly Moskins and Total the polar bear, Timmy treats vacation as just another mission. Missing charity money, suspicious adults and Molly’s tangerine scented plots give him a fresh conspiracy to investigate from the back seat.

Skip School, Fly to Space is a kids focused Pearls collection where imagination keeps outrunning adults’ expectations. Pig and a boy named Willy build cardboard rockets, the Crocs plot as usual, and the strip’s mix of sarcasm and daydreams makes skipping ahead through the pages irresistible.

I’m Only in This for Me collects strips where Rat’s selfish streak and the strip’s political edge are on full display. Campaign rallies, cheese obsessions, angry readers and bungling Crocs share the page, while occasional warmth and friendship peek through the cynicism.

Stephan’s Web is a Pearls Before Swine collection that turns the spotlight on the cartoonist himself. Rat, Pig, Goat and Zebra keep needling Pastis as he spins stories about self righteous vegans, cyclists, fruitarians and anyone else unlucky enough to wander into his web of jokes.

After his latest disaster, Timmy’s mom bans all detective work and demands good behavior, better grades and piano practice. Timmy secretly relocates his office to a hardware store shed, chronicles everything in a private notebook and investigates a teachers’ strike and a missing friend behind her back.

Created for younger readers, When Crocs Fly focuses on the eternally hungry crocodiles and their doomed plots to reach Zebra. Zip lines, walls and gravity all work against them as Rat, Pig and Goat react from the sidelines in a fast moving, full color collection.

This collection leans hard into Pearls Before Swine’s love of wordplay. Rat dabbles in judging and politics, Goat battles internet trolls, Pig mourns the lack of a real city called Hamsterdam, and every elaborate setup threatens to end in one more groan worthy punch line.

This bind up volume collects the first two Timmy Failure books, Mistakes Were Made and Now Look What You’ve Done. Readers can follow Timmy’s earliest cases back to back, from the lost Segway to the stolen globe contest that he is sure will make his detective agency a global empire.

Pearls Hogs the Road is a large treasury that showcases the strip at full throttle, including a brief collaboration with Bill Watterson. Rat, Pig and friends clash with baristas, bureaucrats and each other while Pastis annotates the strips and explains how some of the wildest ideas began.

Aimed at middle grade readers, Suit Your Selfie gathers Pearls Before Swine strips about smartphones, selfies and everyday kid concerns. Rat and Pig mug for the camera, Zebra dodges predators and Goat tries to stay sane, all in a kid friendly package full of fast jokes.

Timmy heads to Key West for what might be his mom and Doorman Dave’s honeymoon, though he doubts they actually married. Crime follows him anyway. With Total hiding in Cuba, a six toed cat swiping his pants and new partner Emilio in tow, he bumbles through tropical trouble and family surprises.

Floundering Fathers is a Pearls Before Swine collection that leans into politics and history gags. Rat runs for office, Goat swipes through modern life, and the Crocs keep plotting against Zebra while Pastis skewers patriotism, outrage and everyday absurdities with his usual pun heavy bite.

In the final Timmy Failure book, Timmy must help Total search for his missing polar bear brother just as his class is assigned to make a movie. With a new director, a reappearing father and a holiday deadline, his last case turns into a chaotic test of loyalty and growing up.

In this Pearls Before Swine collection, nearly every plan goes sideways. Road trips derail, simple errands turn surreal and even the strip’s own storylines wander off course. Rat, Pig, Goat, Zebra and the Crocs keep marching forward anyway, grumbling and riffing as they go.

Pearls Goes Hollywood collects eighteen months of strips plus commentary as Pastis flirts with the world of movies and television. The gang’s usual misadventures mix with show business jokes, failed pitches and the cartoonist’s own stories about trying to write for the screen.

This prequel reveals how an ordinary kid became the Timmy Failure readers know. Through misfired schemes, awkward crushes and one very important red scarf, Timmy stumbles toward his first meeting with Total and discovers that telling his story as if he is a legend feels better than facing the truth.

This Pearls Before Swine treasury gathers a long stretch of recent strips, complete with Pastis’s introductions, essays and strip by strip notes. Rat, Pig, Goat, Zebra and the Crocs face modern annoyances, terrible puns and occasional moments of sincerity in a beach sized volume of black humor.

Wendy the Wanderer finally slips away from her overprotective dad and feeds a chocolatey snack to a squirrel in the park. That tiny choice sets off exploding houses, runaway animals and a town ready to blame Squirrely McSquirrel for everything, unless Wendy can clear his name.

In the second Trubble Town graphic novel, aliens abduct all the adults, leaving kids in charge of every job in town. Wendy the Wanderer and her friends try to keep things running, but their fixes only make the chaos stranger in this slapstick look at responsibility and power.

Saint lives with her mom in a run down part of town that is slowly being replaced by shiny condos and coffee shops. When her favorite old toy store is torn down, she teams up with quiet neighbor Chance to fight for what remains, in a funny, bittersweet middle grade story about loss and hope.

Pearls Seeks Enlightenment gathers recent strips from 2020 and 2021 and adds commentary on nearly every page. Pastis writes about creative burnout, strange times and small joys while Rat, Pig, Zebra, Goat and the Crocs keep stumbling through the news cycle in search of a punch line.

Pearls Gets Put in the Pokey is a treasury that corrals a new run of Pearls Before Swine strips into one volume. With a prison themed cover and plenty of behind the scenes notes, it showcases storylines about being stuck, locked in and still finding something to laugh about.

Pearls Gets Plastered collects the strip’s most recent years into a barroom themed treasury. Rat, Pig, Goat, Zebra and the Crocs crowd into an old style pub as Pastis annotates strips about aging, burnout, friendship and the absurd ways people try to escape their own problems.