Sally Forth and Pearls Before Swine engage in new kind of cross-over (UPDATED, again)

Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis is know for his crossing over other comic strip characters and parodies of other strips. Today’s PBS brings in Ted Forth of Sally Forth asking the concierge of a hotel about finding a “date” as his wife is “homely and bland.” What may not be apparent is that Francesco Marciuliano and Craig Macintosh, knowing that Stephan was going to run this parody, purposefully placed Ted and Sally in a hotel in today’s strip. For those paying attention, it’s like finding out what happens after the first joke.

From Stephan:

i think this is an entirely new kind of crossover….one strip makes fun of another, and the parodied strip is done that day in such a way that it makes it look like the parody was a realistic possibility in the context of the parodied strip….it’s great, because i get to be edgy, the parodied strip stays clean, and anyone paying attention reads both strips and says, “how the hell did that just happen?”….

Nicely done, gentlemen.

UPDATE: I asked Stephan about how the collaboration, he says that after he drew the cartoon he contacted Ces (Francesco) and asked if he could place Ted and Sally in a hotel in their strip for that day. Ces went one step further and actually had Ted talk to a concierge out of ear shot of Sally.

UPDATE: Ces has posted the original email exchange between he and Stephan on getting this planned.