One of the best X-mas gifts anyone ever gave me was a desk calendar containing 365 of Gary Larson’s Far Side comics. I laughed every day of the year thanks to that calendar!
Today, we take a moment to say Happy 65th Birthday Gary Larson!
Here’s a little background on the man and his comic strip from The Writer’s Almanac:
It’s the birthday of American cartoonist Gary Larson, the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel comic that ran from 1980 to 1995 and became beloved for its anthropomorphic deer, birds, cats, dogs, dinosaurs, snakes, vipers, and cows, often drawn with cat-eye glasses and beehive hairdos. He grew up in Tacoma, Washington.
After college, he began drawing a comic called Nature’s Way for The Seattle Times. It displayed much of what The Far Side would perfect: a combination of attitude and irony tethered to the craft of comic art. And it had cows. Lots of cows. But it was placed next to a children’s crossword called “Junior Jumbo” and people complained, calling it “incomprehensible.” On vacation from his job as a cruelty investigator for the Humane Society, he drove to San Francisco and dropped his portfolio at the San Francisco Chronicle. They offered him a job, but wanted to change the title. “They could have called it Revenge of the Zucchini People for all I cared,” Larson said. A week later, he was dropped from The Seattle Times and The Far Side was born. Collections of Far Side cartoons have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.
I know, I have several on my bookshelves at Wolf’s Haven! But this cartoon below has always been my very favorite of all The Far Side cartoons.
What’s yours?
Omg, too many good ones to pick a favorite!!