
“The Far Side” Returns to a Weird World - vo2maxer
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-far-side-returns-to-a-weird-world
======
hairofadog
I'm a middle-aged (or depending on your perspective, SUPER OLD) guy. I had the
good fortune to work with some bright young millennials at my last job, and we
sometimes talked about pop culture. I really had a hard time conveying how
subversive and groundbreaking Gary Larson and David Letterman were in their
time.

Their sensibilities are ubiquitous now and so if you grew up in the 2000’s it
would be easy to look at them and say, what's the big deal? But at the time
their absurdist humor felt rebellious, new, and important.

~~~
audiometry
A permanent high school memory is returning from my job at McDonald’s around
midnight. Was tired but turned on David Letterman. Voices were all dubbed over
in Spanish, with English subtitles. No one onscreen acted unusual. I was dying
to go to bed but stayed up till the end to hear the punch line or payoff. Then
the show finished without a single reference to it. I was awestruck. I’ve
never heard anyone remark about this — I wonder if I imagined this or it just
didn’t shock/impress people like it did me.

~~~
mynameishere
Wait, some guy on youtube made the same comment seven years ago. Is this some
absurd long-con of yours?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDBZpBgBsWI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDBZpBgBsWI)

 _oh man. I remember coming home from my job at McDonald 's (!) and this
episode was playing. I was dead tired but stayed up to see how they'd finally
stop the subtitling thing. They never did -- the kept it up throughout the
show and never made a single mention of it. That made it 10x more hilarious.
Wonder when this aired? must have been 1989 or 1990ish_

~~~
tomcam
What impresses me is that you have an encyclopedic memory of comments found on
relatively forgettable YouTube videos! Not being facetious here, but I have to
say I’m gobsmacked.

~~~
sseagull
I figured mynameishere just searched youtube to find what episode audiometry
was talking about and happened to see the comment.

Although your idea is cooler :)

------
chasd00
I found the madness unleashed by the "Cow tools" panel hilarious. No one got
the joke and it generated so much confusion the strip made the news. Larson
talks about it The Prehistory of The Far Side.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Tools?wprov=sfla1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Tools?wprov=sfla1)

~~~
m463
I never saw that one, and the controversy is hilarious.

"Larson took the unusual step of issuing a press release, explaining the joke
and apologizing for the confusion caused:

 _The cartoon was intended to be an exercise in silliness. While I have never
met a cow who could make tools, I felt sure that if I did, they (the tools)
would lack something in sophistication and resemble the sorry specimens shown
in this cartoon. I regret that my fondness for cows, combined with an
overactive imagination, may have carried me beyond what is comprehensible to
the average Far Side reader._

Larson further explained that he was inspired by the idea that tool use was
the characteristic that separated mankind from the rest of the animal
kingdom."

~~~
chrisseaton
...but is his explanation genuine, or a further part of the joke? We can never
know, as any further explanation could also be part of the joke...

~~~
m463
It also said:

"Reflecting on the cartoon's reception, Larson suggested he had erred in
making one of the tools resemble a saw, which misled many readers into
believing that to understand the cartoon's message, they needed to decipher
the identities of the other three tools."

and that mirrored exactly my train of thought looking at the cartoon.

------
spats1990
I'm extremely glad he's back. I'm sure some part of why my brain is the way it
is in 2020 is due to reading old collections of Far Side cartoons as a kid.
Some of them I didn't understand properly until years later, but others (like
the all-time classic where the cows are in the field standing on their hind
legs, until one cow yells "Car!", and they all stand on all fours until the
car is past, or "when potato salad goes bad", or the "Llamas at home" one) are
the kind of thing that goes straight into your little-kid psyche and stays
there.

~~~
arbuge
Even though he's active again now, which is great, I suspect the one about
curiosity and the dead cats* will remain forever my favorite.

This one on the other hand, might be oddly prescient in hindsight:
[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/423056958717553865/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/423056958717553865/)

* "Notice all the computations, theoretical scribblings, and lab equipment, Norm. ... Yes, curiosity killed these cats."

------
tomcam
As good as Larson is, and he’s superb, his style is strongly reminiscent of B.
Kliban, who predated him[1]. Kliban was funnier, often X-rated, and infinitely
more transgressive. While Kliban was famous for his innocuous cat cartoons the
adult material is IMHO as gut-bustingly funny as it is obscene.

[https://www.gocomics.com/kliban/2012/03/19](https://www.gocomics.com/kliban/2012/03/19)

~~~
o_____________o
Can you show some examples of Kliban being funnier? Genuine interest.

~~~
tomcam
I only know them from books of his that are now out of print, such as Never
Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Own Head.

~~~
antod
I had no idea who was being talked about until I saw the reference to "Never
Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Own Head".

As a kid in the 70s/80s, my Dad had a bunch of those books. I still remember
some of them too - like the man sitting across a restaurant table from a human
sized blowfly saying to the waiter "... and some shit for my fly".

I suppose you had to be there. I still much preferred The Far Side though.

------
jedberg
I really hope he keeps making more, given the response to these first few
comics.

I grew up reading the Far Side in the newspaper every day. I remember the
excitement of running out to get the paper to grab the comics before anyone
else.

Today I follow some comics on Instagram, which gives that same sort of
excitement. I load up Instagram and among the pictures of my friends are some
comics that I enjoy -- including one account that I'm sure is not legal but
posts a Calvin and Hobbes comic every day.

I'm not sure if I should feel bad following the account knowing it is probably
being done without permission, but at the same time, it brings me daily joy,
which is what Bill Watterson always said he wanted to do.

~~~
wolco
If you are not the copyright owner none of that should bother you. Without
insider knowledge it could be from the artists sent from their own home.

~~~
shuntress
This is like telling someone at a pawn shop not to worry about whether what
their buying was stolen.

Maybe it won't affect any given transaction.

But concern over the source of the products we consume is responsible and
worth thinking about.

------
prvc
The New Yorker's convention regarding the use of the diaeresis is the Charles
II of Spain of editorial guidelines.

~~~
dhosek
As an undergrad, thanks to TeX making the dieresis readily accessible, I was
fond of its use. I remember someone commenting that my writing "coördinates"
with a dieresis made him want to pronounce it as if he were Inspector
Clouseau.

~~~
peteretep
iPhone keyboard makes it very easy too — just press and hold the appropriate
vowel

~~~
dhosek
In the 80s, unless you had a special keyboard, typing diacriticalized
characters was difficult at best.

------
dang
Related from a few weeks ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23765968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23765968)

------
Biganon
Related to the article's form more than its topic, but "has humbly reëmerged,
wanting to reëngage": I'm used to seeing "trémas" in French used for the very
purpose of avoiding the usual sound made by two neighboring letters, but I
didn't know it was a thing in English.

~~~
jaggederest
It's a bit archaic, and unusual in places besides the New Yorker.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)#English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_\(diacritic\)#English)

~~~
biztos
OT but as a German-speaking reader of the New Yorker this abuse of the Umlaut
has been making me irrationally angry for decades. But it’s a nice reminder
that if you want to, I dunno, capitalize only the word “Dog” and end every
sentence in a comma, you might want to own a magazine, Dog,

~~~
pdw
The diaeresis is unrelated to the umlaut though, it's a notation borrowed from
old Greek. It never quite caught on in English, but it's part of the standard
orthography of many other languages.

~~~
elcapitan
Like French, where it's fairly typical.

------
Daub
To me, this is a classic example of a change in medium renewing a creative
individual’s creative drive. Similar examples from literature are legion. From
Picassos move from painting to collage (giving us Cubism), to the Beatles
employing the Sitar in Norwegian Wood.

------
neap24
In sixth grade, my entire class was obsessed with Far Side. Our teacher
actually let us tape our favorite comics in two columns onto our school desks.
I still remember the one about William Tell helped me answer a test question
once.

------
bstar77
I'm a big Far Side fan, but I'm not liking the aesthetic of the new tablet
medium. The shading in particular looks significantly inferior to the old
water color works.

------
war1025
> the single-panel comic that débuted in 1980 and helped make the Reagan era
> more bearable

Gotta get a good shot in at those dastardly Republicans I guess.

~~~
hevelvarik
It’s the Lord’s Prayer

------
habi
I would love it if the far si(t/d)e had an RSS feed, that would make
consumption so much easier.

------
m463
I loved the far side and was sad to see it sort of evaporate.

Also gone were Bloom County with the banana jr 6000 self-portable computer
(looking like a macintosh with legs) and Monty Python.

That said, we got futurama, xkcd and ... others?

Anyone want to share some good sources humor (that aren't too dumbed-down?)

~~~
pierrec
Nathan Pyle / Strange Planet is great. I would say there's some The Far Side
spirit in there. Not sure what to link to since Instagram doesn't allow
scrolling anymore but his Twitter seems to have plenty of stuff:
[https://twitter.com/nathanwpyle](https://twitter.com/nathanwpyle)

~~~
mhb
[https://www.instagram.com/nathanwpylestrangeplanet/](https://www.instagram.com/nathanwpylestrangeplanet/)

------
geocrasher
Cow Tools

------
spodek
No mention of Calvin and Hobbes, which came out a few years later and made a
comparable splash?

~~~
rectang
It's there (along with another favorite from that era I was wondering whether
would rate a mention):

> _On the comics page, “Calvin and Hobbes” and “Bloom County” shared Larson’s
> wild playfulness;_

~~~
spodek
Odd. For me ctrl-f Calvin returns nothing.

------
aaron695
The Far Side, was internet humour before the internet.

It abstracted higher than comics around it.

But internet humour like all the internet has iterated and abstracted many
times since.

I think nostalgia will keep it going, but it's had it's day.

~~~
User23
Space Moose[1] and the Parking Lot Is Full[2] were two early internet comic
strips that smashed through that. They still hold up well to this day, at
least if you like transgressive subversive humor.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20020205062518/http://spacemoose...](https://web.archive.org/web/20020205062518/http://spacemoose.com/archive.htm)

[2]
[http://j.aufbix.org/plif/archive/archive.htm](http://j.aufbix.org/plif/archive/archive.htm)

------
kingbirdy
Not sure why this article came out today, the new comics were released on the
7th. [https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff](https://www.thefarside.com/new-
stuff)

~~~
ISL
News need not be instantaneous.

~~~
greenmana
That's sadly the expectation these days. It's not like a journalist finds
something interesting and spends a week or two writing a piece about it. The
"news" should be up immediately so everyone can find out about it as soon as
possible with some easily digestable tldr style, as it happens by the minute
zero content reporting that the social media brain lives for.

~~~
sidlls
Meanwhile, simple food recipes are accompanied by narcissistic ramblings and
videos that take a good 10 minutes to get past just to get to the point.

~~~
ghaff
There are tons of sites on the Internet that are just recipes if that's what
you're looking for. Likewise don't go to The New Yorker and expect things laid
out as a bulleted list.

------
gerdesj
"Its creator, Gary Larson (no relation!), retired in 1995, after having been
syndicated in more than nineteen hundred newspapers and selling more than
forty million books."

The Newyorker clearly cares a bit about grammar: "its" for ownership - no
apostrophe. Then it goes a bit mad: an awkward comma between creator and Gary.
There are multiple firing solutions here. You could go in with something like:

"Gary Larson (no relation!) retired in 1995. He was ... etc ...

I'm not asking for a return to the strictures of "Usage and Abusage" but I'd
like to think that professional journalists are able to stick words on the
page without them looking uncomfortable.

Prose should flow. When you write it, why not read it back to yourself.

[Cow holding a bow, wearing a 10 gallon hat and saying something unlikely to
Rowland. Rowland is a chicken]

~~~
tropdrop
The New Yorker is known for its superb standards in regards to grammar, though
it does tend to favor passive voice like academic circles are wont to do. This
is evident here, with a focus first on Larson's work, then an introduction to
his person, and given that the article's main focus is on the work and not the
person, this is a logical decision.

You have just used what would have been a useful opportunity to discuss Gary
Larson's unique art style to insist how much more you, a Hacker News
commenter, knows about prose than someone employed by the New Yorker.

Further, due to your comment's lack of clarification, I ironically cannot tell
if you are insinuating that the author of the article used "its" correctly or
incorrectly. For the record, because this possessive pronoun is referring to
Gary Larson's work in the previous sentence, the usage is correct. [1]

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_possessive#Pronouns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_possessive#Pronouns)

~~~
labster
Unfortunately they have a terrible standard of spelling at the _New Yorker_.
Every time I read one of those words with the umlaut, it causes a full parse
error in my brain, to the extent that I usually have to read the entire
paragraph again.

Seriously, if you're not happy with "cooperate", spell it as "co-operate".
This is an old standard, and it still works well. I don't get how the _New
Yorker_ tries to pretend they're the magazine of high society while spelling
like Spın̈al Tap. The point of language is to have common understanding, and
you can't do that if you're the only one using your weird spelling.

(Also, I wish they just got the the point in their articles. At least give a
summary of why I would want to read the whole long form article before
launching into some anecdote about two people meeting at a bar.)

~~~
rsynnott
As the New Yorker will grumpily tell you, it’s not an umlaut:
[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-
of-...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-
diaeresis)

> She said that once, in the elevator, [the editor] told her he was on the
> verge of changing that style and would be sending out a memo soon. And then
> he died.

So, be careful whose weird house style you criticise, is the message.

~~~
labster
If I write &auml; in HTML for an umlaut, I get U+00E4 LATIN SMALL LETTER A
WITH DIAERESIS in Unicode. It's like CJK unification all over again!

