The Best News in a Long Time: The Far Side Is Coming Back

National Review ^ | 9/16/2019 | Jim Geraghty

[simpson96]

It probably says something about me that I consider Gary Larson, the cartoonist who created the single-panel comic strip The Far Side, as one of the great American geniuses of the 20th Century, and the news that Larson plans to bring back his world of anthropomorphic cows, ladies in 50s sequin glasses, rotund children, and Weiner dog artists has me downright giddy.

Those of us who fell in love with the comics pages had no idea how good we had in the ’80s, or how quickly our favorites could disappear. The original run of Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County ended in 1989, Larson’s The Far Side ended January 1995, and Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes ended in December of that year. (Bloom County eventually returned in different forms but never quite recaptured that old magic.) In our current era where no fictional character stays dead for long, every old beloved show, movie or game gets a sequel and a prequel and a reboot, it’s kind of tragically strange to remember a time when some beloved fictional offering could end with little warning. One day you’re laughing, and the next you’re told, “that’s it. No more. Yes, you thought this was the coolest thing ever and had all the paperback collections, but that’s it. We’re not making any more.” As Ryan Houlihan observes, it’s pretty amazing that Watterson “ended it, and then never did anything, or let anything be done with, the property. It’s a modern miracle that we’re not watching the 12th Disney Calvin and Hobbes reboot.”

Then again, we shouldn’t have been surprised about the inevitability of burnout. Comic books usually have separate pencillers, inkers, writers and letterers, but most comic strips are one-man operations. Despite the perception that these are simple drawings and simple gags, this is not easy.

[mercier]

Nature’s way of saying don’t touch.

[dfwgator]

“Al’s Glass”.

Pretty much describes how the Democrats work, they break something, then ask for bigger government to fix it.

[smvoice]

WooHOO!!
The three FUNNIEST Far Sides ever

School for the gifted

The REAL reason dinosaurs went extinct

The late bird

[Verginius Rufus]

There is one of a cave man pointing to a picture of the tail of a dinosaur which has several spikes in it, in front of a group of other cave men. He is saying "Now this end is called the thagomizer...after the late Thag Simmons."

(For a while I was following the Dinosaur List and some professional paleontologists on the list were actually using the term "thagomizer"...I think the spikes were on a triceratops.)

Another one is "Early Man"--a prehistoric man arriving with a gift for the hostess--the table is set for dinner for several guests but she still has her hair in curlers.

[minnesota_bound]

I once emailed Pat Brady of “Rose is Rose” back in 1996. I have a copy of the response printed out and a screen capture, asking if he was going to retire like those other guys (Bloom County “Berke” Breathed) and Gary Larsen of the “Far Side”.

Rose is Rose
http://syndication.andrewsmcmeel.com/comics/strip/roseisrose