The Fab Four of the funny pages come together again-this time in their first book treasury.

Rat, Pig, Zebra, and Goat, the central characters of Pearls Before Swine, are back in Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic, the first Pearls Before Swine treasury-supersized for your enjoyment.

But this is no ordinary cartoon treasury. Like the influential Beatles album that inspired the book's title, Sgt. Piggy is full of surprises. In addition to collecting all of the Pearls cartoons that appeared in BLTs Taste So Darn Good and This Little Piggy Stayed Home, cartoonist Stephan Pastis takes readers on a VIP backstage tour of one of the most successful comic strips in newspapers today.

In Sgt. Piggy, Pastis explains the genesis of Pearls (hint: it didn't begin at an artist's easel), why he was initially reluctant to show it to newspaper syndicates (and the surprising reason he changed his mind), the unexpected responses from readers to his work, and which Pearls strips worked and which ones didn't (and how he would have corrected the ones that didn't). The result is a rare and revealing glimpse into the world of Rat, Pig, Goat and Zebra. Full of humor and insight, sardonic asides and unexpected truths, Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic is a book that comics fans everywhere can enjoy anytime-even when they're 64!

You have to wonder what kind of pets cartoonist Darby Conley had as a child. If they were anything like Bucky Katt and Satchel Pooch. . . well, life in the Conley house must have been interesting to say the least. The wacky triumvirate of Bucky, Satchel, and Rob are back in this Get Fuzzy collection,

Rob Wilco is the mild-mannered ad executive caretaker of Bucky and Satchel. Satchel is a sweet and naïve shar-pei-yellow-Lab cross, while Bucky is a Siamese with "cat-titude" to spare. Bucky and Satchel get along like, well, like cats and dogs. Like a beleaguered parent, Rob constantly must thwart Bucky's schemes and protect the unsuspecting Satchel. His pets' mischief continually disrupts his attempts to meet women. You try explaining to your date why your cat thinks he's a gangsta rapper and your dog is filming his ";crib" for MTV. Would anyone live with humans who behaved like this?

Bitingly funny with a wry sense of the absurdity of life with pets, Get Fuzzy appeals to everyone who has ever lived in a mixed-species household.

The Los Angeles Times calls Zits "one of the freshest and most imaginative comic strips." The world of sixteen-year-old Jeremy Duncan revolves around his insatiable "growing boy" appetite, lip-locking with squeeze Sarah, keeping his jerry-rigged vehicle roadworthy, and playing with his band, Goat Cheese Pizza. Somewhere in the background, he's vaguely aware of some muted voices, constantly beseeching him to pick up his Matterhorn-sized clothes pile, to be home on time (so lame!), and to (God forbid!) communicate with them. The disembodied voices are those of Connie and Walt, his mostly patient, but sometimes frustrated to exploding, parents. In Zits, they portray a hilarious view of coping with a teenager and with being a teenager. Created in 1997 by Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman and Reuben Award-winning cartoonist/writer Jerry Scott, Zits appears in more than 1,600 newspapers worldwide in 45 countries and is translated into 15 different languages. The comic has an estimated daily readership of more than 200 million readers.

"The humor is a wickedly authentic blend of young-professional-bachelor shtick and pets-from-hell high jinks. . . . And, perhaps best of all, the strip keeps getting better." Indeed, Get Fuzzy has rocketed to the top of the list of syndicated newspaper strips. It now appears in 250 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Examiner, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Detroit Free Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Seattle Times. Readers can't get enough of the goofy trio that populate this hilarious strip: Rob Wilco, the single, mild-mannered advertising executive, and his two rambunctious pets, Bucky, the sharp-fanged, self-absorbed cat, and Satchel, the easygoing mixed-breed dog who ends up on the receiving end of Bucky's mischief. The combination creates Get Fuzzy's astutely witty take on relationships between the species.

Now, in a size and format that's perfect for die-hard fans and those looking for the perfect gift, I Would Have Bought You a Cat, But . . . will become the must-have little treasure for everyone who craves a bit more of the trademark Get Fuzzy foolishness, or just enjoys a good chuckle.