In case you wondered …

… The Dirt on Pig-Pen | Elif Batuman. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In the 1954 strips, Schultz establishes the basic rules of Pig-Pen’s dirtiness. Pig-Pen doesn’t dislike baths; he just prefers getting dirty. He doesn’t try to get dirty; he just doesn’t go out of his way to stay clean. Dirtiness, if not precisely an elected state, is one Pig-Pen can initially control — sometimes to fantastical precision. At one point he tricks Patty into leaving him alone by seeming to have washed his face; when she walks away, we see that the other half of his face is dirty.