Morning Quickie: Fear & Abject Terror Before Breakfast

I had the opportunity to read today's "Pearls Before Swine" and "Dilbert" in advance, 'round midnight, and let's just say: I slept nary a wink.

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In this economy, the job security for ink-stained wretches (journos) and ink-stained kvetchers (print cartoonists) must fall somewhere between Detroit autoworker and greeter at Circuit City. So I seek sanctuary in my daily funnies, only to find that Stephan Pastis and Scott Adams, respectively, have rendered eerily on-target strips that promise to haunt my waking hours and spoil my little slumberland. (Next up: "Mother Goose & Grimm" morphs into the Brothers Grimm.)

Forget tiny plastic magnifying glasses. These days, the comics should come bundled with Costco-sized portions of Ambien.

Today's "Pearls," particularly, cuts to the heart of what many journos endlessly yammer about. Everyone from Walter Isaacson to Steve Brill to Steve Coll has proffered would-be panaceas for remedying a badly broken business model for newspapers. Now comes the keen-eyed Pastis, whose commentary is so unalloyed, he practically breaks the fourth wall (if not the online "pay wall").

Ah, for relief, at least we can turn to the intergalactic adventures of "Brewster Rockit," where our favorite lunk-in-space is ... witnessing alien layoffs!!

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If you'll excuse me, I'm going to flip to the Business news now. There, at least the grim news comes packaged with bigger pretty pictures.