Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist who created The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years. the son of Verner, a car salesman, and Doris, a secretary. During high school and college, he played jazz guitar Dan played pranks on Gary, for example by taking advantage of his fear of monsters under the bed by waiting in the closet for the right moment to pounce. Dan "scared the hell out of me" whenever he could, Addams died in 1988.
Larson is an environmentalist. "Protecting wildlife is 'at the top of my list', he says." he was working in a music store Goodall wrote a preface to The Far Side Gallery 5, detailing her version of the "Jane Goodall Tramp" controversy. She praised Larson's creative ideas, which often compare and contrast the behavior of humans and animals.
Larson's The Far Side cartoons were syndicated worldwide and published in many collections. They were also reproduced extensively on greeting cards which were very popular, but these were discontinued in March 2009. Two animated versions were produced for television: Tales from the Far Side (1994) and Tales from the Far Side II (1997). A 2007 The Far Side calendar donated all author royalties to Conservation International.
The significance of many of Larson's cartoons resulted in a major display of over 400 of his original works at the California Academy of Sciences in 1985.
Retirement
By late 1994, Larson thought the series was getting repetitive and did not want to enter what he called the "Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons."
In 2020, Larson began sporadically posting new cartoons on his website; he attributed the appearance of new material to his newfound motivation gained by using a graphics tablet.
There's a Hair in My Dirt!: A Worm's Story
In 1998, Larson published his first post-The Far Side book There's a Hair in My Dirt!: A Worm's Story, an illustrated book with thematic similarities to The Far Side. The short book tells the story of an earthworm who feels that his life is insignificant. The main plot is told by the young worm's father and follows the beautiful (but slightly dim) human maiden Harriet, who takes a stroll across a woodland trail, encountering different aspects of the ecological world. She admires it but knows little about the land around her, and that eventually leads to her downfall.
The story became a New York Times Best Seller on May 24, 1998.
Other works and interests
Larson has been playing jazz guitar since his teen years. He took advanced lessons from jazz guitarists Remo Palmier and Herb Ellis. In exchange for guitar lessons from Ellis, Larson provided him with the cover illustration for the album Doggin' Around (Concord, 1988) by Ellis and bassist Red Mitchell.
Larson drew a cover for the November 17, 2003, edition of The New Yorker magazine, an offer he felt was too prestigious to refuse.
Larson voices himself in The Simpsons 2010 episode "Once Upon a Time in Springfield".
Awards and honors
Larson was awarded the Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award by the National Cartoonists Society in 1985 and 1988, earned the society's Reuben Award for 1990 and 1994, and has been recognized for various individual strips by the National Cartoonists Society in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1995.
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On March 15, 1989, a newly discovered insect species was named after Larson by Dale H. Clayton, head of the Committee of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. The Strigiphilus garylarsoni is a chewing louse
Online presence
Since 1999, Larson has objected to his work being displayed on the internet, and has been sending takedown notices to owners of fan websites and users posting his cartoons. In a personal letter included with the requests, Larson claimed that his work is too personal and important to him to have others "take control of it".
In September 2019, The Far Side website stated that "a new online era of the Far Side is coming!" On December 17, 2019, www.thefarside.com, authorized by Larson and dedicated to The Far Side cartoon series, went live on the internet. On July 8, 2020, Larson released a new section of The Far Side website titled "New Stuff".
See also
- Cow Tools, a notorious Larson cartoon
- Thagomizer, a scientific term derived from a Larson cartoon