In a world gone crazy, at last a real ray of sunshine…
Gary Larson’s The Far Side is returning! In an online form.
The official website hasn’t been updated in around 25 years, but now it has the image above – the first new Larson cartoon since 1995, I believe – with the words: Uncommon, unreal, and (soon-to-be) unfrozen. A new online era of The Far Side is coming!
Larson’s cartoon strip became a staple of calendars and greetings cards for years, having been a successful strip between January 1st 1980 until January 1st 1995 wen Larson decided to pull the plug and it was, literally, the end of an ear with his trademark cows, aliens, dogs, elderly people and kids just…. vanished.
Larson, however, was always very protective of his material online, issuing letters to anyone reproducing any of it online (hope we don’t get one): “I’m walking a fine line here,” one such letter read, “on the one hand, I confess to finding it quite flattering that some of my fans have created websites displaying and/or distributing my work on the Internet. And, on the other, I’m struggling to find the words that convincingly but sensitively persuade these Far Side enthusiasts to ‘cease and desist’ before they have to read these words from some lawyer.”
“These cartoons are my “children,” of sorts, and like a parent, I’m concerned about where they go at night without telling me,” he added.
Well, hopefully Mr Larson won’t send me a lawyer letter as I hope he knows that the image above is reproduced solely out of love, as someone who owns all his work that was ever published, who regularly revisits it and who shares the mutual love of The Far Side with my kids, the strips may not be my kids, but they are very important to me… and my kids.
Whatever form this comeback takes – Larson is 69 now – the internet needs it, but more than that, in a world without Douglas Adams or the likes of Bill Hicks or George Carlin (although Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr are fighting hard), we all need to laugh and think and Larson was always the comic strip king of that.
The world isn’t just ready, it needs this.
Welcome back, Gary. We missed you.
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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