The Far Side is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from January 1, 1980 to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world, logical fallacies, impending bizarre disasters, (often twisted) references to proverbs, or the search for meaning in life. Larson's frequent use of animals and nature in the comic is popularly attributed to his background in biology. The Far Side was ultimately carried by more than 1,900 daily newspapers, translated into 17 languages, and collected into calendars, greeting cards, and 23 compilation books, and reruns are still carried in many newspapers. After a 25-year hiatus, in July 2020, Larson began drawing new Far Side strips offered through the comic's official website.
Larson was recognized for his work on the strip with the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for 1985 and 1988, and with their Reuben Award for 1990 and 1994. The Far Side won the 2020 Webby People's Voice Award for Humor in the category Web.
History
Creation (1979)
The Far Side was created by Gary Larson, a cartoonist based in Seattle, Washington. Larson enjoyed drawing as a child but never thought he would become a cartoonist; thus, he never studied art in school outside of required classes. Larson had been inspired to draw comics when he was younger from the strip Alley Oop, and later drew further inspiration from MAD Magazine and the work of Don Martin. when he realized how much he hated his job. Two days into this "career crisis", Larson sat down at his kitchen table and drew six cartoons. The next day, he showed the cartoons to an editor at the local magazine Pacific Search. The editor was impressed and paid him 90, so Larson quit his job to start cartooning and created Nature's Way, a single-panel comic strip that served as the basis for The Far Side. Larson showed Nature's Way to the editor of the weekly newspaper Summer News Review, who began to publish it on a regular basis.
Although Larson was initially excited to be published, he was only paid 3 a cartoon. Eventually, he stopped and became an investigator for the local humane society. In 1979, a reporter for the Seattle Times who had met Larson while investigating "pony abuse" After several days, Larson was informed that editor Stan Arnold wanted to speak with him. Arnold was impressed by his work and mentioned that, should the Chronicle be interested in Larson's work, it could become syndicated.
When Larson returned to Seattle, he received a letter informing him Nature's Way had been canceled because it generated too many complaints; he attributes this to the fact it ran next to a crossword puzzle aimed at children. Larson believes had this happened a week before, he would not have gone to San Francisco. The next day, Arnold called Larson and told him the syndicate affiliate of the Chronicle decided to syndicate his work. The affiliate, Chronicle Features, coined the name The Far Side; Larson joked Chronicle "could have called it Revenge of the Zucchini People for all I cared." Larson's initial contract for The Far Side called for it to have a cast of recurring characters (like how Peanuts had Charlie Brown), because Chronicle believed newspaper comics needed familiar characters to be successful. However, Larson disagreed, feeling it would be limiting and diminish the humor of the strip. In his first month of syndication, Larson made about 100. and many newspapers still publish reprints. For this reason, Universal's online service GoComics does not offer Far Side cartoons. In at least one case, he had sent out a cease and desist letter to a comics-aggregation site for reproducing The Far Side online. (the Cartoon Issue), a prestigious offer he said he could not refuse.
Online revival (2019–present)
On September 13, 2019, the official Far Side site was updated with a major redesign, teasing that "[a] new online era of The Far Side" would be forthcoming. The full site was launched on December 17, 2019. It features a "daily dose" of several randomly selected Far Side comics, a weekly themed collection, and additional material including art from Larson's sketchbooks. Larson wrote in an open letter announcing the site that he hoped that the official online presence of The Far Side would encourage sites presently hosting his comics to take them down and direct readers to the official site. Larson said that while he does not plan to draw regular Far Side comics, he may include new material every once in a while when updating the site.
On July 7, 2020, Larson released new Far Side strips for the first time in 25 years on the website. Unlike his previous work with pen and paper, Larson transitioned to using a graphics tablet for the comic. In an accompanying post, Larson explained that frustration with his pens clogging from disuse on the rare occasions when he drew following his retirement (primarily for his annual Christmas card) led him to try working on a digital tablet. The new freedom and possibilities offered by the digital medium meant that he soon found he "was having fun drawing again". Larson made it clear that he was not resuming production of a daily cartoon, but was "exploring, experimenting and trying stuff."
Design and themes
The Far Side is primarily told through the use of a single, vertical, rectangular panel, and ComicsAlliance wrote it was "surreal, random, and occasionally very dark". He also drew inspiration from personal experience, Mad, and his favorite childhood book, Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat. Larson sought to mock the human condition, often by placing animals in human positions. Fear is also recurring in the strip;
Recurring themes in The Far Side include people stranded on desert islands, aliens, Heaven, Hell, the life of cavemen, and medieval dungeons. Animals—especially cows—are also common. Larson focused on subjects he considered taboo because he wanted his cartoons to be personal statements. Larson said in Prehistory of the Far Side that he had so much mail from this strip he had to issue a press release to explain that there was nothing to explain about the Cow Tools comic.
Jane Goodall cartoon
One The Far Side cartoon shows two chimpanzees grooming. One finds a blonde human hair on the other and inquires, "Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?" Goodall herself was in Africa at the time, and the Jane Goodall Institute felt the cartoon was in bad taste; the organization had its lawyers draft a letter to Larson and his distribution syndicate, in which the cartoon was labeled an "atrocity." These efforts were stymied by Goodall herself when she returned and saw the cartoon and stated that she found it amusing, She praised Larson's creative ideas, which often compare and contrast the behavior of humans and animals.
The Thagomizer
In 1982, Larson published a comic in which a prehistoric lecturer refers to the then previously unnamed tail spikes of the Stegosaurus as the "thagomizer" because, according to the prehistoric lecturer, a caveman named Thag Simmons had been killed by those spikes. The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name, but Larson's neologism was adopted gradually by paleontologists and has been used in scientific literature.
Protests against certain cartoons
The Complete Far Side and The Prehistory of The Far Side include letters from angry readers alongside the comics that prompted them. The letters were written to newspaper publishers and often demanded the removal of The Far Side. Despite these protests, The Far Side remained popular and continued to run in many newspapers. Larson often laughs at the controversies as evidenced in The Prehistory of The Far Side, in which he writes that the people complaining have usually misunderstood the cartoon. The books are published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, an affiliate of Universal. Andrews McMeel acquired the rights to publish collected editions of the series in 1982, the year the first Far Side book was released. It was surprisingly successful, which influenced Larson's decision to sign on with Universal after his contract with Chronicle expired. In January 1985, the four Far Side books out at the time—The Far Side, The Far Side Gallery, Beyond the Far Side and In Search of the Far Side—were simultaneous bestsellers; Jim Davis's Garfield was the only newspaper comic that had previously accomplished this feat. It sold 350,000 copies and at the time was the most expensive New York Times bestseller. A new, lighter edition of The Complete Far Side was released in 2014. Larson stated in 1987 he was personally embarrassed by how much money he made from Far Side merchandise.
There was a Far Side gallery at the California Academy of Sciences that featured some of Larson's panels. The exhibit included a giant microscope under which visitors could stand, based on one of Larson's cartoons. Looking up through the objective lens revealed a giant blinking eyeball. The building was torn down and replaced and the exhibit is no longer in the new facility.
Legacy
As described by Sarah Larson (who is unrelated to creator Gary Larson) for The New Yorker, The Far Sides initial run came at a time when newspaper comics were generally more grounded, such as Peanuts, Garfield, For Better or For Worse and Doonesbury. The comic also helped introduce more modern and surreal humor into the comic pages that influenced other strips such as Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County; it also has brought nerd humor to the forefront, reflected in series like The Simpsons.
See also
- Bizarro
- Rhymes with Orange
- Non Sequitur
- Serratoterga larsoni
- Strigiphilus garylarsoni