The Return of The Bride of the Son of the Far Side

For those who remember Gary Larson and his cartoon panel The Far Side, good news!

It’s baaaaaack.

Sort of. It’s online, at https://www.thefarside.com/ The first installment hit yesterday, Tuesday Dec. 17.  It’s not in the newspapers or in books.

For those who are too young to know either Larson or the strip, now you can introduce yourself to what was considered by many at the time to be the best cartoon strip (panel, really) in America. The facts:

• It ran for only 15 years, from 1980 to 1995.
• In that time it went from a couple of papers to millions of readers and millions of books sold.
• This was all before computers, the internet and social media invaded every nanosecond of our lives.
• It was very science-oriented. Lots of animals, biologists, rocket scientists, amoebas, aliens and strange cows.
• It’s still difficult to find a scientist’s or professor’s office door that doesn’t have one of his cartoons taped to it.
• It’s now 24 years since Larson quit.
• Why did he quit? Largely because he got tired of everyone stealing his work and making money off it. Or as he puts it: “…when I slowly started realizing I had a second publisher and distributor of my work, known as Anyone With a Scanner & Associates...”
• Why is he back? Better equipment for better computer cartooning. Maybe this platform will help him to convince people to stop stealing his stuff. (Good luck with that!) And, despite the Russians hacking everything in sight and apparently itching to dig their fingers into his cartoon captions, he thinks there’s better security these days. (Yeah. Right.)
• The site will run a few of his oldies each day, but new items may start appearing.

I’d normally rip off one of his cartoons and plaster it here, for your entertainment and delectation, but I’ll restrain myself out of respect for Larson’s expressed wishes.

Don’t miss his explanatory letter.
[Chuck Almdale]