
‘The Far Side’ Is Back, Sort Of - cstuder
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/arts/far-side-gary-larson.html
======
JoblessWonder
It is impossible to overstate how much laughter and joy 'The Far Side' brought
me growing up. Between 'The Far Side' and 'Calvin and Hobbes' I was set.

~~~
m463
"Blah blah blah Ginger blah blah"

"Oh wait! wait! Looks like we're coming into some more Turbulence!"

"Everything's squared away, yessir, squaaaaaaared away."

~~~
teddyh
“The dam bursts”

------
dgenzale
OK, for even more awesome, check out the site's console output when you try to
right click an image (better with fixed-width of course):

    
    
                      .    .
                  ,:'`      `':,
                  ":._.-""-._.:"
                   ===  __  ===
                    .|      |.
                  :` |      | `:
                :`   |      | xx:
              : `     : o  o :  xxxx:
            .`        '----'   `xxxx`.
           : `                    ``  `:
          : ` :'                    ': `:
         : ` :x.                     `: `:
        .` .xxx`. `.
        :  : xxx:  :
       .` .xxx`                       `. `.
       :  : `                          :  :
       :  :                            :  :
       :  :                            :  :
       :  :                        .xxx:  :
        vv                      .xxxxxxxvv
         :                    .xxxxxxxxx:

o\\-`o`: .xxxxxxxxx:` ` xxxxxxxxxx`

~~~
Vogtinator
Mainly to prevent opening the context menu - probably to make copying images
harder...

~~~
generalpass
> Mainly to prevent opening the context menu - probably to make copying images
> harder...

I feel like Gary Larson is still new to the Internet. I mean, the prevalence
of Twitter screenshots _alone_ should demonstrate the futility of such
efforts. Though it may be that he just doesn't want to tell with supporting
the image link traffic.

However, given that uMatrix reports blocking >5K, my suspicion is that he or
whoever he has doing his site may not be all that clever. (I haven't any plans
to dig into why uMatrix is reporting so much.)

~~~
huebomont
The idea that Gary Larson made any decision about context menus or tracking on
this site is hilarious. He was definitely not involved in that way.

------
sprice
A Far Side comic led to the naming of a part of the Stegosaurus' tail.

"Now this end is called the thagomizer... after the late Thag Simmons"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer)

~~~
davidw
Yeah I think that's somehow cooler than the species. There are a lot of
obscure species that get named for someone, but being the guy who named
something that every kid is familiar with... that's pretty cool! (And I came
here to post about that too).

~~~
dmix
This one is a goodie
[https://shoeuntied.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/fs16.jpg](https://shoeuntied.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/fs16.jpg)

------
jacquesm
Never enough :) My favorite:

[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/75/31/d77531ddeaf83c8375c2...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/75/31/d77531ddeaf83c8375c2f70a972189b3.jpg)

~~~
pjmorris
My favorite is 'old dog new trick.' I won't post a link myself because I once
spent a long email thread with Larson's secretary trying, and failing, to get
permission to use the cartoon in a slide deck. He has described that he thinks
of the cartoons as his children and that, like children, he wants to know
where they are. I respect that, though I wish he felt differently.

~~~
paulddraper
If used for educational purposes, it would probably fall under fair use.

~~~
lilyball
Being legally okay isn't the same thing as being right.

For a similar reason, Weird Al Yankovic always gets permission before
publishing his parodies even though he doesn't have to.

~~~
27182818284
For what it is worth, Yankovick has done the opposite of your comment at least
once.

Yankovic specifically got _legal_ permission for his song Amish Paradise but
not what was arguably "right" meaning permission _from the artist_ Coolio who
said no. Yankovic did it anyway.

Years later, they are reportedly "cool" now according to Yankovic:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1h7afc/i_am_weird_al_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1h7afc/i_am_weird_al_yankovic_ask_me_anything/carj75a/)

~~~
teach
That's pretty misrepresentative of the events.

Yankovic _thought_ he had gotten permission and when he later found out Coolio
hadn't been consulted he was mortified.

~~~
27182818284
From what I've read he _knew_ he had permission from the record label, and
_knew_ he didn't have Coolio's blessing. I wasn't there, but it seems unlikely
that if he immediately had turned around like "wow I didn't know" the so-
called beef wouldn't have lasted years until they made nice.

From: [https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bp/coolio-did-not-
want-w...](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bp/coolio-did-not-want-weird-
al-spoof-gangsta-205954306.html)

>Coolio said when Weird Al initially requested to remake the song, he said,
"No," but later realized that, due to the fair use copyright laws, he could
not stop the production.

>Coolio later reconsidered Weird Al's proposal. "I sat down, and I really
thought it out," he told the students at IPR. "I was like, 'Wait a minute.' I
was like, 'Coolio, who the f—k do you think you are? He did Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson didn't get mad.'"

~~~
lilyball
You're citing an interview with Coolio, which doesn't reflect Weird Al's
experience. I don't have a citation on hand, but the story I've always read is
Weird Al asked Coolio's label, got a "yes" back, and believed that the label
had asked Coolio. Ever since then he made sure to get the answer directly from
the artist in question.

------
cwp
How is this not called "The Far Site"?

~~~
dmix
Not everyone can be as clever as your Mr. cwb

~~~
dsr_
You mean qmo, xiwp.

------
neonate
[http://archive.md/1l8Ww](http://archive.md/1l8Ww)

------
madrox
When my dad passed away, I inherited all his old The Far Side books. Seeing
this article made me pull them out, and they've aged surprisingly well.

That said, comics have changed a lot since those books were published, and
part of me wonders if The Far Side would've succeeded today.

Considering most active internet-dwellers these days have no memory of The Far
Side, I guess we'll find out.

------
ncmncm
I remember the first one I ever saw. It was a bunch of porcupines standing
around looking at a mattress with a porcupine lying on it. I didn't see
another for months. I am embarrassed at how long it took me to get it, but it
stuck with me until I did. I haven't seen it in any of the books.

The article should have mentioned the Thagomizer ("after the late Thag
Simmons"). Hmm, another obscure mattress reference I never noticed before this
moment, 35 years later...

------
sp332
I'm not sure if this is the "open letter" referred to, but it's what Larson
sent to at least a couple of people with cease & desist orders.
[https://www.comicmix.com/2008/03/07/gary-larson-and-our-
far-...](https://www.comicmix.com/2008/03/07/gary-larson-and-our-far-side-
cease-and-desist/)

------
generalpass
[https://www.thefarside.com/](https://www.thefarside.com/)

------
ergothus
You know how people always say "back in my day, things were better!" (in
between saying "you kids don't know how easy you have it")? For me, while
there are plenty of differences between now and when I grew up, and these
differences are sometimes good and sometimes bad, there are only two things
I've been solid on.

The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes.

The bad part is that we aren't getting more. The good part is that we still
have access to them.

~~~
cgh
I'd add Bloom County in there too. The '80s had great syndicated comics.

~~~
sp332
A couple years ago, Berkeley Breathed also decided that making comics was
pretty enjoyable if he didn't have to meet deadlines. He's been posting new
strips intermittently on Facebook.
[https://facebook.com/berkeleybreathed/](https://facebook.com/berkeleybreathed/)

~~~
selimthegrim
When I saw him talk at the National Book Fair in DC in 2016 shortly after he
resumed, he explicitly blamed Harvey and Bob Weinstein for the lack of a
movie.

------
eindiran
Why was this link changed? Most of the time that the moderators switch in a
link, they are functionally the same, but this is an interview rather than a
direct link to the content of the email that was sent out, hosted on the site
discussed in the email. Also, the New York Times is paywalled, which is fine
by HN policy, but its one thing when the only source of a particular article
is paywalled. Its another thing to change the link _to_ the paywalled
version...

For reference, this used to point to:

[https://www.thefarside.com/about/48/a-letter-from-gary-
larso...](https://www.thefarside.com/about/48/a-letter-from-gary-larson)

It currently points to:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/arts/far-side-gary-
larson...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/arts/far-side-gary-larson.html)

EDIT: Looking through what happened, I think the two were merged together as a
dupe, but the interview was chosen over the letter itself.

~~~
noneeeed
Also the official site appears to be struggling with all the interest, so
perhaps the mods decided to go with the working NYT.

------
cwkoss
I hope he makes a twitter account that tweets one comic a day.

------
jdofaz
anyone find a rss/atom feed on thefarside.com?

------
emmelaich
I love Larsen.

Similar but darker and weirder was
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Kliban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Kliban)

Nice essay -
[http://www.thepaincomics.com/Kliban.pdf](http://www.thepaincomics.com/Kliban.pdf)

Just as funny to me.

Do a web search for Kliban without "cat" for a taste.

~~~
ElCapitanMarkla
Some of these are right up my alley. This one is a favourite so far

[https://i.imgur.com/xTrQtPo.png](https://i.imgur.com/xTrQtPo.png)

------
acqq
> I’ll forever be grateful to fans, who in those early days often rescued “The
> Far Side” from cancellation

I'd like to read more about the "controversies" and the complaints against his
cartoons then. It's probably instructive to see how easy people can be
offended and an author becoming a target of forces that he couldn't perceive.

------
ggm
Rotring pens were the best. I used a mechanical drawing 0.2 for a while as an
every-day. At high school the 'devo' hat end-clip hid my tiny stash..

------
zmix
My all time favorite: "How nature says: 'Do not touch!'"

Though, there are so many favorites, it's difficult not to come up with a long
list.

------
aaron695
[https://www.thefarside.com/about/48/a-letter-from-gary-
larso...](https://www.thefarside.com/about/48/a-letter-from-gary-larson)

Good to see he still doesn't get it. The Far Side really is about nostalgia
now so I kinda like that too.

Very interested to see if he will adapt to the new evolved playing field of
humour or will stick with nostalgia. Both have value. From the letter it seems
like the later.

------
Agathos
Got to tip your cap to him for selecting "Cow Tools" for the first day's front
page.

------
anjel
Spamelopes

