Cover for 'Cows of Or Planet', a 1992 collection of Gary Larson cartoons. © FarWorks, Inc.
Gary Larson is an American cartoonist, most celebrated for his series 'The Far Side' (1980-1995). The cartoons broke new ground in the newspaper industry with their absurd, black, sometimes intellectual comedy. While polarizing readers, 'The Far Side' developed a large cult following. The series was translated in several languages, adapted in animated shorts and inspired various merchandising items. While most gags are one-panel cartoons, some use a sequential comic strip format. Since the conclusion of 'The Far Side', Larson has been mostly active as an animator, and he published one illustrated book, 'There's A Hair in My Dirt: A Worm Story' (1998).
Early life and career
Gary Larson was born in 1950 in Tacoma, Washington. His father was a car salesman and his mother a secretary. He often credited his morbid sense of humor to his older brother, who enjoyed playing pranks on him and scaring him senselessly. Larson enjoyed drawing, particularly animals and dinosaurs. As a child, he loved reading 'Tarzan' comics and Rex Maxon's 'Turok, Son of Stone'. Among his graphic influences were Charles Addams, Sergio Aragonés, George Booth, Edward Gorey, V. T. Hamlin, Al Jaffee, B. Kliban, Don Martin and Gahan Wilson. He also singled out an obscure, surreal children's book, 'Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat' by Morrell Gipson, as a direct inspiration. Interviewed by Dateline 20/20 in 1986, Larson said: "There was something so mezmerizing about the image of this big bear going through the forest and squashing all these little animals. I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world." Later in his career, Larson additionally expressed admiration for Bill Watterson and Berkeley Breathed.
In Larson's formative years, it never came to his mind to become a cartoonist. Instead, he studied Communication at Washington State University in Pulman, graduating in 1972. Yet his creative juices couldn't be contained. Instead of pursuing a career in communication, he played guitar as part of a jazz duo, Tom and Gary (1973-1976), and, between 1976 and 1977, earned his bread in a retail music store in Seattle, Washington. Nevertheless, he was still unsatisfied. On stage, he usually played "Miles Davis-style", with his back to the audience. Working in a record store wasn't a fun experience either, as he regarded such locations as "the graveyards of musicians".
Nature's Way
In 1976, Larson published his earliest cartoons in the Seattle magazine Pacific Search (later Pacific Northwest Magazine). His first series, 'Nature's Way' (1976-1980) appeared in the Pacific Search, after which, it was picked up by the Sumner News Review between 1976 and 1979. During its final year, the feature ran in the Seattle Times. In terms of comedy, 'Nature's Way' was an embryonal version of 'The Far Side', featuring similar absurd, dark comedy about a variety of topics. Examples of 'Nature's Way' have been reprinted in 'The Prehistory of The Far Side' (Andrews McMeel, 1989).
Although his cartooning career had been launched, Larson remained completely self-taught. He knew so little about professional cartooning that he was utterly clueless about the existence of white-out to fix up mistakes. In the early years, whenever a blot, scribble or wrong line "ruined" one of his drawings, he simply redrew the entire page all over again. Out of precaution, he deliberately didn't always fill up the backgrounds, leaving certain objects, like a rug in a living room, finished only halfway. Since Larson had to draw his single-panel gags into a vertical format, he was often faced with challenges on how to fit certain large creatures and objects inside these panels, for instance a cruise ship steering towards a lighthouse. His solutions were to shrink these colossal things down, or only show a part of them. Since Larson never attended Art Academy, it was sometimes difficult to convey a certain complicated visual perspective. As his career progressed, his graphic skills improved. For reprint collections, he often redrew certain gags of 'Nature's Way' or 'The Far Side' to make his previously clumsy artwork a bit better.
Another obstacle was his low payment. At Pacific Search, Larson received 15 dollars for each cartoon, but the Sumner News Review only paid him 3 dollars. To keep himself financially afloat, Larson still had to rely on a job as investigator of animal abuse for the Humane Society (1978-1979). On the day of his job interview, he accidentally hit a dog with his car. While the animal was only slightly hurt and Larson was hired, he still wondered whether this incident was an indication that he might have to reconsider his job path. When 'Nature's Way' moved to The Seattle Times in 1979, Larson was paid slightly better: 15 dollars per cartoon. Unfortunately, the editors printed his gags next to a children's crossword puzzle, the 'Junior Jumble'. Parents frequently wrote letters to complain about the inappropriate jokes, until the editors gave in and cancelled 'Nature's Way'.
Luckily, Larson had already been searching for a second paper willing to run his comic. During a holiday in San Francisco, he tried to get an appointment with the San Francisco Chronicle. He left his portfolio at the paper's offices, only realizing later that he couldn't apply to any other magazine without it. Therefore, he phoned and visited the San Francisco Chronicle twice a day. Literally on the final day of his vacation, when Larson had to return home, presumably without success, editor Stan Arnold told him that he had seen his cartoons, which he called "sick", but nevertheless liked. Larson was startled to hear that his comic was accepted for daily syndication to about 30 U.S. newspapers. In later interviews, the cartoonist admitted that if The San Francisco Chronicle hadn't accepted him, the cancellation in The Seattle Times would have devastated him so much, that he probably would have quit cartooning forever.
Cover for 'The Chickens are Restless', a 1993 collection of Gary Larson cartoons. © FarWorks, Inc.
The Far Side
Larson's comic, now retitled 'The Far Side', was announced in The San Francisco Chronicle on 31 December 1979 with six sample comic strips, though its official debut happened the next day, on 1 January 1980. Between 1980 and 1985, it was syndicated by Chronicle Features, followed by the Universal Press Syndicate during its final decade. In 1994, 13 exclusive 'Far Side' cartoons appeared in Last Chapter and Worse, with another six being specifically made for the 'Far Side of Science' section of The New York Times. Thematically, the format and comedy were mostly the same as 'Nature's Way', but now reaching a far larger audience. Like the title implies, 'The Far Side' takes a different, surreal look at the world. At the time, this made it stand out among other cartoon series. Most daily newspaper features in the early 1980s offered rather straightforward, mild comedy, acceptable to audiences of all ages. The gags typically centered on a recognizable cast of characters in a permanent setting (for instance, an office, school, home or forest).
'The Far Side', on the other hand, had no established cast, nor a specific setting. Each gag takes place in an entirely different location or even historic era, and there are no recurring characters. Depending on the situation, Larson simply used nameless and interchangeable humans, animals, plants, objects or fictional characters from different franchises. When Larson first met the editor who would syndicate his cartoons, he was asked whether 'The Far Side' was going to have an actual cast. Larson was glad that the man didn't make it an issue, because he wasn't interested in character-based comedy. Many other newspaper cartoons built around a specific setting or cast, typically ran out of steam after a few years, because the writers and artists had exhausted every possible idea. In 'The Far Side', Larson could do something completely different in each episode. The series has an inexhaustible range of potential topics, making it versatile and unpredictable.
By far, Larson's characters are recognizable by their designs. Many of his humans and animals tend to have eyes that are merely two stripes, without pupils. He has drawn several geeky boys, women with beehive hairdos and scientists, all with goggle glasses so thick one cannot make out any eyes. Larsons humans typically also have podgy bodies with a slight hunchback. The closest 'The Far Side' has ever come to a signature character are the numerous upright walking cows that inhabit Larson's cartoons. The first time he used talking cows was in a gag printed on 13 March 1980, but it wasn't until a 22 May 1980 gag that Larson realized their comedic potential. In that gag, he drew a cat with a fiddle and a cow practicing for a jump over the moon, a reference to the English nursery rhyme 'Hey Diddle Diddle'. Looking back, Larson reflected: "This was more than just a cow, this was a career I was looking at." The artist could never quite convey why cows were so funny to him. He liked their odd, physical appearance and even the word "cow "made him snicker. Apart from cows, many 'Far Side' cartoons also feature dogs.
It doesn't come as a surprise that many 'Far Side' cartoons revolve around animals. In childhood, Larson fished frogs and toads from lakes and rivers and kept them in a terrarium. As an adult, he owned more than 20 pets, including snakes, but later reduced the amount to only four or five. He has been a lifelong advocate of animal welfare and remained interested in biology. Various animal species in 'The Far Side' are quite exotic, even icky. While he portrays them with a goofy, cartoony look, he does depict nature's cruelty in a realistic manner. The survival of the fittest is in full effect: various beasts try to devour one another. Humans, with their awkward, nerdy, podgy bodies, are simply another easy prey. Many animal-themed jokes in 'The Far Side' reference the physical appearance, behavior or idioms associated with specific animals. In the 20 February 1984 gag, a crocodile defends his murder scheme in court: "Well, of course I did in cold blood, you idiot!... I'm a reptile." In another, printed on 29 March 1984, two cows stare at a ringing phone, but don't pick it up, since they don't have "opposable thumbs".
Having no recognizable permanent setting or cast, 'The Far Side' was already difficult for mainstream audiences to find something to cling on to. But the comedy is also far more absurd and dark than the average newspaper comic. In one cartoon, a one-legged frog has just shot a chef cook, gloating: "Ha! I knew he'd be back for the other one!" One of Larson's personal favorites depicts two spiders who built a web at the bottom of a playground slide: "If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings." Several jokes aim at the well-educated reader, since some punchlines requires preconceived knowledge about historical characters, animal species, literary works, films, TV shows, song lyrics, proverbs, comics and animated cartoons. For instance, Larson made a couple of gags about "rare phobia". Anatidaephobia, for instance, is the fear that "a duck is watching you", while luposlipaphobia is the "fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table, while wearing socks on a newly waxed floor." In another gag, two people on a deserted island are happy that so many oysters have come ashore, since they now will have "plenty to eat." The morbid underlying joke is that when oysters come ashore, high tide will come about, making the shipwreckers' situation more desperate.
Certain jokes also rely on pop culture reference comedy. In one cartoon (printed 7 March 1980), a frightened horse leaves the movie theater, while his partner reassures him that it "was only a movie". The film in question is 'The Godfather'. In a April Fool's Day gag from 1992, Pinocchio is portrayed on safari between a group of lions, having the misfortune of suddenly being turned into "a real boy". In another gag, police officers investigate a bar where a huge fight had broken out. A witness describes what happened: "So then this little sailor dude whips out a can of spinach this crazy music starts playin', and... well, just look at this place."Some gags could even be rendered obscure by some readers. A gag printed on 24 June 1994 depicts three frogs reminiscing about "Jerry. Good friend of mine... You know I never understood a single word he said, but he always had some mighty fine wine", referencing Jeremiah the Bullfrog from the song 'Joy to the World' by Three Dog Night. Interviewed by Sheridan Warrick for Pacific Discovery (October-December, 1985), Larson reflected: "I realize that some of my cartoons go over people's heads. But if out of ten people, I think that one will laugh and the other nine will be dumbfounded, I'll go for it. The one thing I try not to do is condescend to people. If you start doing cartoons that are too universal, you end up with something milked out and uninteresting. I'd rather be misunderstood."
Sometimes, Larson encountered problems with editors. Twice, in 1981 and 1983, they accidentally swapped the subtitles of a 'Far Side' gag with an episode of Hank Ketcham's 'Dennis the Menace', giving Ketcham's otherwise innocent family comic a surreal, macabre connotation, while ruining Larson's. Another time, Larson had made a black-and-white cartoon about a group of penguins, with one of them singing "I Gotta Be Me", despite looking exactly like all the others (printed on 9 August 1982). For reasons unclear to even Larson himself, this cartoon was picked out for a full-color poster, where the editors decide to make the arctic bird stand out more by making him yellow. Unknowingly, they had changed the entire meaning of the cartoon, basically ruining the joke. The situation got even stranger in 2021 when Belgian wildlife expert Yves Adams actually discovered a real-life yellow penguin on Antarctica. The bird had leucism, a genetic mutation leaving the body without most pigmentation.
As early as 1987, Larson had confessed to journalists that it became increasingly more difficult to keep up the quality level of his "seven cartoons a week" schedule. A year later, on 29 October 1988, he took a 14-month break from the comic to travel to Africa and the Amazon Forest. When 'The Far Side' returned on 1 January 1990, Larson reduced his publication rhythm to just five episodes a week. Still, five years later, on 1 January 1995, Larson took the decision to end 'The Far Side' altogether. He personally felt the quality went down and wanted to avoid it becoming just one another comic series that should have ended decades ago. The final gag spoofed the ending of the fantasy film 'The Wizard of Oz', with Larson waking up in bed and telling his family members that various women, cows, cavemen, nerdy kids, monsters, "stupid-looking things" and talking animals "looked like them."
A sequential 'Far Side' cartoon, 26 November 1981. © FarWorks, Inc.
Success
Soon after its debut, 'The Far Side' developed a cult following. It polarized readers to such a degree that some despised it, while others loved it. In polls, it just as often ended on the first spot as "Most Favorite Cartoon", as "Most Hated Cartoon". The black comedy appealed to audiences tired of the corny family-friendly humor in other newspaper comics. The geeky reference comedy was embraced by intellectuals, college students and, particularly remarkable, teachers and scientists. All over the world, 'Far Side' gags were cut out of papers and hung on bulletin boards in class rooms and laboratory halls. In some museums, they were put on display next to the exhibited objects. In the Brussels Museum for Natural History, close to their hall with dinosaur skeletons, Larson's famous 1982 "real reason why the dinosaurs went extinct" gag was exhibited to visitors. In 1985, the California Academy of Sciences created a traveling exhibition in various natural history museums across the USA, with more than 400 Larson cartoons on display. It later traveled to science venues across North America, including the Smithsonian Institute and American Museum of Natural History. In 1986, the Washington Park Zoo exhibited animal-themed 'Far Side' cartoons under the title 'The Far Side of the Zoo'. Science writer Stephen Jay Gould wrote the foreword to 'The Far Side Gallery 3', calling Larson "the national humorist of natural history".
Nevertheless, scientists did sometimes write the artist letters to point out mistakes. For instance, whenever Larson drew cavemen and dinosaurs together, some readers would instantly point out that this is an anachronism. If he drew an Arctic setting with polar bears and penguins together, he would be informed that this is a geographical inaccuracy. A gag printed on 22 December 1988, depicting a lab assistant accidentally drinking amoebic dysentry, resulted in a letter from a lab technologist informing Larson that eating and drinking isn't allowed in real-life labs. Another time Larson was scolded for drawing a mosquito husband returning home to his wife: "I must have spread malaria across half the country" (printed 26 August 1981), while in reality only female mosquitoes bite. Larson commented: "Of course, they have no problem that these mosquitoes also wear clothes, live in the suburbs, speak English, etc…"
'The Far Side' was translated in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish (as 'Kaukana Poissa') and Russian. In Norway, 'The Far Side' was so popular that it inspired its own magazine, Larsons Gale Verden. Among the local contributors were Tor Aerlig, Ellen Bergheim and Karine Haaland. The same happened in Sweden, where the magazine Larson (1988-2009) ran for over twenty years. In a Swedish translation of the 'Far Side' gag in which a whale sings 'Louie, Louie' in an underwater microphone, baffling scientists (printed 7 May 1984), the translators used 'Singin' in the Rain' instead, which Larson himself agreed was a better song choice. Larson was also shocked when a French book version of a 'Far Side' collection came out, which features an African buffalo ready to charge at two safari tourists in khaki uniform. On the French cover, the horns of the buffalo were inexplicably covered in blood.
By 1983, 'The Far Side' ran in more than 80 papers, rising to more than 200 by 1985. At the height of its success, they appeared in over 1,900 newspapers. Globally, gags were printed on calendars, mugs and T-shirts. In 1992, Larson also made special advertising art to promote the British National Savings Act. They were used in printed ads, but also animated advertising shorts. More than 23 book titles of 'The Far Side' are available, all of which entered the New York Times Bestseller List. The most complete collection was released as 'The Complete Far Side' (Andrews McMeel, 2003), with a foreword by Hollywood comedian Steve Martin. However, this book lacks a color comic by Larson, printed in 'The Curse of Madame C' (1994). The story is a horror spoof, with a cow putting an evil spell on a man.
Controversy
Just like Larson's previous comic 'Nature's Way', not every reader appreciated the black, absurd comedy in 'The Far Side'. Religion was obviously always a touchy subject. Several readers objected to a gag printed on 8 June 1986, depicting "Dog Hell", where all dogs are forced to be mailmen for eternity. One reader was offended about a gag (30 July 1986) spoofing faith healers, starring a televangelist performing an exorcism on a vacuum cleaner. Larson received another angry letter when he portrayed "acts of God", with God acting as a literal stage performer (5 December 1991).
Cruelty towards children or animals also made certain readers grab pen and ink. A gag about a crocodile being swept outside a maternity ward, who is implied to have already eaten a few babies before (printed on 1 April 1985), resulted in furious readers' letters. In another gag (11 June 1986), William Tell's "less fortunate son Warren" is portrayed, who happens to be a boy with a colossal head, who presumably didn't survive the "arrow through the apple" shot. One reader complained that Larson ridiculed people with hydrocephalus, which made the cartoonist wonder what he would think of Charles M. Schulz' similar big-headed character Charlie Brown. On 16 January 1987, a 'Far Side' cartoon was published in which a man discovers their new cat has been tied upside down outside the window. Several readers felt offended, but actually missed the fact that the family dog had treated the cat this way, not the pet owners themselves. All while the tagline actually stated: "Emma... the dog ain't goin' for the new cat." In book compilations, Larson actually took the precaution of explaining the joke to avoid readers misinterpreting it again. Similar objections rose about gags regarding "the torturer of the month" (13 January 1988) and a preserved child in a bottle in display on a fireplace mantel (12 February 1988)
In one gag, two dogs have tied a cat to a long rope, attached to a pole, smacking him around as a game, titled "tethercat". Many cat owners wrote furious letters. In his foreword to the compilation book 'The Prehistory of the Far Side', Larson attributed this outrage to the static nature of one-panel cartoons. All the reader sees is a permanent action-shot of the dogs abusing a cat, which, in contrast to the slapstick in a comic strip or an animated cartoon, never appears to end. In another gag, a pet owner torments her dog by ordering it to dash through a dog door, which has been completely hammered shut. Again, several readers felt this was incredibly cruel.
A few times, Larson was baffled about negative reactions. A cartoon about a model train enthusiast throwing out a miniature tramp from his toy trains (printed 30 April 1981) spawned a letter from a real-life model train fan who felt "offended". On 10 August 1987, Larson was mailed by the Wiffle company, regarding a gag in which characters use a Wiffle bat. They objected to a misspelling and inaccurate graphic visualisation of their registered brand name. On 11 November 1987, a 'Far Side' cartoon portrayed various major appliances "hidden" in a nature scene, inviting readers to "find" them. Although everything was obviously clear in view, one elementary school class group from Halltown, Missouri, didn't realize it was a joke and sent Larson a mail with "their answers". A 16 March 1994 gag in which a group of sandwiches, "part of the sandwich mafia", throw one of them from the ceiling into a school cafetaria, was criticized by the National Commission for Social Justice, because it invoked stereotypes about Italian-Americans. Larson sometimes even received letters from Amnesty International, because some of his gags involve people in torture cellars and dungeons. In a dry comment he wondered: "Does Johnny Hart and Brant Parker's 'The Wizard of Id' get these letters?".
Sometimes, tensions unexpectedly dissolved. In one gag, printed on 26 August 1987, a female ape searches for fleas on the back of her husband, getting angry because he hung around with "that Jane Goodall tramp", in reference to the famous primatologist. The Jane Goodall Institute wrote Larson a letter of complaint, describing the cartoon as an "atrocity". Yet Goodall herself found it actually very funny and later wrote the preface to 'The Far Side Gallery 5'. When Larson printed a T-shirt with the Goodall comic on it, he donated all profits to the Goodall Institute. In 1988, the cartoonist also visited Goodall's research facility in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, where - in some form of karmic poetic justice - he was attacked by a chimpanzee.
Sometimes readers weren't as much offended by a cartoon as they were confused. One infamous episode (printed 28 October 1982) featured a cow next to a group of strange-looking objects, with the subtitle "Cow Tools". For Larson, this was just a throwaway joke about animals with hooves using tools that would require opposable thumbs. But to his amazement, many readers were bewildered, asking him what the tools were for. One newspaper even held a readers' context, asking who could come up with the most plausible explanation. Eventually, the embarrassed cartoonist felt he "wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and die", and came forward and issue an official statement to explain his line of thought regarding this odd cartoon.
On 8 August 1983, he drew a gag with a cow looking into a freezer in shock, implying that it stares at frozen steaks. But someone wrote Larson a letter wondering whether the bovine happened to look at harvested bull semen, which would be another plausible way to interpret the cartoon. A similar unfortunate confusion occured when Larson drew a cartoon titled 'When car chasers dream' (printed on 25 January 1988), depicting a dog howling victoriously after having captured a car. But since Larson drew the dog in front of the car, it looked as if the animal was mating with the vehicle. Another time (4 February 1994), a gag was printed in which a group of young scarecrows claim that they'll be "strawbrothers", making a pun on a "blood brothers act". One reader, however, misinterpreted the gag as mocking Jesus' crucifixion and wrote a protest letter.
A few times, it was Larson who was surprised what he could get away with. He once submitted a cartoon in which a group of ants try to carry an elderly man to their nest, only to be criticized by another ant: "You idiots! We'll never get that thing down the hole!" His editors rejected the drawing, but when he replaced the old man with a goofy-looking baby (which Larson felt was far worse), the cartoon was greenlighted and printed on 15 February 1982. A similar surprise occured when he drew a mammoth looking at a squashed caveman on the bottom of his foot. The original caption read: "Well, what the… I thought I smelled something", but the cartoonist had to change it to: "Y'know, I thought I heard something squeak." Another time it was Larson who overreacted. After he had drawn the cover to 'In Search of the Far Side', on which a group of explorers see a huge head of a bespectacled woman with a beehive haircut, one of his friends felt that the women's haircut looked rather "phallic". The next day, he tried to discuss the matter with his editor, but she simply reacted: "So?". The cover was left the way it was and to Larson's relief nobody ever complained about it.
Only once in his long career, Larson offered a public apology for a cartoon. In the 25 September 1991 'Far Side' episode, Hell has a video store, but the only available movie is the notorious 1987 box office flop 'Ishtar'. At the time, 'Ishtar' had become a major punchline in Western pop culture, on par with other infamously expensive box office failures like 'Cleopatra', 'Heaven's Gate' and (later) 'Waterworld'. Larson therefore simply referenced 'Ishtar' based on this reputation, having never seen it. After a letter from a heartbroken reader, Larson effectively watched 'Ishtar' and discovered he actually liked the film, so he told the reader that he indeed regretted this joke.
Animation career
In 1994, Gary Larson made a Halloween special of 'The Far Side', titled 'Gary Larson's Tales From The Far Side', broadcast on CBS. The 22-minute short, mostly an adaptation of previously published gags, was directed by Marv Newland, the underground animator famous for 'Bambi vs. Godzilla' (1968). Avant-garde jazz guitarist Bill Frisell provided music. The cartoon won the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France. It also received a sequel, 'Gary Larson's Tales From The Far Side II' (1997).
Post-Far Side career
After 'The Far Side' turned over on its side, Larson went on to other endeavors. He wrote a children's book, 'There's A Hair in My Dirt: A Worm Story' (Harper Collins, 1998), with a foreword by E.O. Wilson. The book, centering around a romance between an earth worm and a typical Larson female with beehive and glasses is Larson's only attempt at creating a longer narrative. Since 1995, Larson didn't make much of his drawings public anymore, except for occasional exclusive Christmas cards. In a 1996 interview, he marvelled at the idea of "messing around with Bil Keane's 'The Family Circus' for a week", which he would consider fun. However, this opportunity never came. One thing that withheld him was that his pen always tended to clog, since he hadn't used it for so long. This discouraged him from making new cartoons, until he learned to draw with a digital tablet. His most notable graphic endeavor throughout this period was illustrating the 17 November 2003 cover of The New Yorker.
While in 2001 an official website for 'The Far Side' had gone online, it wasn't updated for decades, resulting in fans posting episodes online. After all, the one-panel format makes the gags very suitable for being shared in online media or Internet memes. Since Larson rarely gives interviews, unconfirmed rumors went about that he might have passed away. In reality, the cartoonist was still around and thinking about a way to keep creative control over digitalized version of his cartoons. In the early years of the Internet, his main problem was that low-resolution scans would ruin the finer details of his cartoons. Once high-resolution computer screens became the norm, his remaining complaint was that he wanted to control the use of his artwork online.
On 17 December 2019, Larson announced that all gags of The Far Side' would run exclusively on his website, TheFarSide.com. There he would have digital control over the content, while also making his sketch books available. Although the cartoonist was quick to point out that he wouldn't start publishing new episodes on the same daily deadline schedule as before, he did hint that he might post new gags from time to time. On 7 July 2020, he kept his promise, making his first new 'Far Side' cartoons in 25 years. They appeared on irregular moments, with the final new one running on 7 December 2023.
Graphic contributions
Drawings by Larson and B. Rodgers livened up the pages of Dee Scar's ocean wildlife book 'The Gentle Sea' (PADI, 1990). In 1998, Gary Larson illustrated the cover of the album 'Doggin' Around' (1988), by Herb Ellis and Red Mitchell. Ellis had been Larson's jazz guitarist teacher for years. Larson also was a special guest voice in the episode 'Once Upon a Time in Springfield' (2010) of Matt Groening's 'The Simpsons'.
Recognition
In 1985 and 1988, Larson was named "Best Syndicated Panel Cartoonist" by the National Cartoonists Society. In 1990, Larson received the Regents' Distinguished Alumnus Award at his former university, Washington State University. Twice, he received the Reuben Award for "Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year", in 1990 and 1994, handed out by the National Cartoonists Society. In 1993, he was also honored with the Max and Moritz Award for "Best International Comic Strip Panel". In 2020, 'The Far Side' received the Webby People's Voice Award for Humor in the category "Web".
Perhaps Larson's best-known cartoon, printed 15 December 1982. The 2011 Simpsons episode 'The Book Job' even referred to it. © FarWorks, Inc.
Legacy and influence
On 15 March 1989, the Committee on Evolutionary Biology named a species of the chewing lice, exclusively found on owls, after Gary Larson: "Strigiphilus garylarsoni". A species of Ecuadorian rainforest butterfly was also named after him: Serratoterga larsoni. In 1994, the museum of the Dinosaur National Monument named the stegosaurus tail spike a "thagomizer", in reference to a 'Far Side' cavemen gag printed on 27 May 1982.
In the 1990 episode 'Where Nobody Knows Your Name' of the TV sitcom 'Cheers', Woody casually mentions he "doesn't get 'The Far Side', whereupon Cliff and Norm explain the gag in which cows stand on their hind legs until a car passes by (originally printed on 6 January 1984). It then turns out Woody understood the joke: he was referring to the fact that 'The Far Side' doesn't appear in his local paper. In the 'Simpsons' Halloween episode 'Treehouse of Horror VIII' (1997), Homer flips through a 'Far Side' calendar, but gets none of the 365 jokes. In a 2011 'Simpsons' episode, 'The Book Job', the family walks backstage at a dinosaurus-themed show, where the cigarette-smoking dinosaurs from Larson's famous cartoon "The real reason dinosaurs became extinct" (printed 15 December 1982) can be seen in the background.
Gary Larson is one of the most influential newspaper cartoonists to emerge since 1980. Several historians credit him with bringing "geek comedy" more into the mainstream. In the United States, he influenced Ali Fitzgerald, Steve Langille, Steve Moore, Rich Powell, Dan Reynolds, Danny Shanahan and Andy Singer. Veteran artist Jack Davis expressed admiration for Larson, while Seth MacFarlane directly based the cutaway gags and pop culture jokes in 'Family Guy' on 'The Far Side'. In the United Kingdom, Larson was an inspiration to Tom Gauld. In the Netherlands, he ranks Michiel Van de Pol, Mark Retera, Marijn van der Waa and Toon van Driel among his disciples. In Belgium, Larson influenced Philippe Geluck and Steve Michiels. In Brazil, he was an influence on Raquel Gompy, in China on Alphonso Wong and in Australia on Martin Brown.
The earliest celebrity fan of Larson was drug guru Timothy Leary, who actually wrote him a letter on 13 December 1980, praising 'The Far Side' as "the best thing happening in American journalism" and Larson's "wit and insight" as a "good sign". On 23 January 1990, a 'Far Side' cartoon portrayed the public execution of the copywriter of the annoying advertising jingle 'Ring Around The Collar', originally recorded for the laundry cleaning product Wisk. After drawing the gag, Larson hoped he would never hear from the real-life copywriter. Six years later, that fear came true when the man actually wrote him a letter. But it turned out he was a fan and actually honored to be referenced in one of his cartoons. Another notable celebrity fan is the Belgian prince Laurent. According to the Belgian cartoonist Marec in his book 'De Keuze van Marec' (2019), the prince once showed him his 'Far Side' collection and recommended it strongly.
Since 1980, there have also been a number of one-panel gag cartoon series directly inspired by 'The Far Side' and its offbeat humor style, including Dan Piraro's 'Bizarro' (1985- ), Lance Aldrich and Gary Wise's 'Real Life Adventures' (1991- ), John McPherson's 'Close to Home' (1992- ) and Scott Hilburn's 'Argyle Sweater' (2008- ).
Self-portrait.