Rats I Have Known

The world is full of rats. 

In fiction, rats take many different forms.  They can be portrayed more or less realistically, like Templeton from the classic children's book Charlotte's Web:


Who are you calling center square, duckie?

Or they can be extremely stylized, as in the comic strip "Pearls Before Swine":

My hero

Recently, the "Dick Tracy" comic has guest-starred some of the more interesting rats I've seen (and by "interesting," I mean "drawn as if the artist had never actually seen one but had heard them described by someone with a debilitating rodent phobia):



Sweet dreams.

In real life, rats all look pretty much alike:

Some have Afros

 

Some need corrective lenses



Some are a disgrace to rathood

 

Some, despite stylish headgear, call to mind...

...rats of a different time.

Charlie Sheen is not a rat.  I'm not sure what he is.


Forgive my crude Photoshopping.