The best, most consistently funny, frequently hilarious, daily comic in the history of mankind. The Far Side by Gary Larson – view his official website here. I own most of his published cartoon anthologies and I can only say that about one other cartoonist – Bill Watterson and Calvin and Hobbes.

Of sad note: I had an entire collection of Peanuts cartoon books by Schulz from the early 1960s and went looking for them 30 years later only to discover that my Mother, God rest her soul, took the whole, big box from my (former) bedroom in her house and sold them for a nickel each in a garage sale.

She never told a joke for as long as I knew her (60 yrs – she lived to be 87), didn’t get most jokes I tried telling her, loved Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, never read the comics page in the paper, was a college graduate with two majors (zoology and English) in 1948, frequently quoted Shakespeare to us growing up, believed every word from Walter Cronkite’s lying lips and that FDR was the savior of our nation.

My cmnt: The above is the quintessential Far Side. Elements of the world, completely unrelated and out of place, placed next to each other in a common, quotidian situation. Completely absurd and therefore hilarious.

Clowns and pie in the face

Stuck on a desert island humor

Cowboys, Indians and the Old West

My cmnt: Only those old enough to remember “Laurel and Hardy” will get this.

My cmnt: The above cartoon is completely lame. I don’t know if Larson is trying to be Lib and suck up to the envirowackos or what. But it’s just not funny nor clever.

Larson breaking the fourth wall in his cartoons

Elephant humor

Airplane humor

Alien & Monster humor

This is kind of reminds me of Will Smith walking up on stage and slapping Chris Rock.

Chris Rock and Will Smith at the Oscars on March 27, 2022. ROBYN BECK/GETTY

Rock previously referenced the Smiths during his 2016 hosting gig at the Oscars, saying, “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited.”

My cmnt: I’ve included the “controversy” below because it speaks to the total lack of a sense of humor Leftist-Liberals (like the women who runs The Jane Goodall Institute) have. The Loonie-Left loves to make fun of (usually completely out of context or an outright lie) Christians and political/social conservatives while having the thinnest skin imaginable (nearly transparent) when rightly poked fun of by their opponents.

Whimsy (from the website Hopkins & Co.)

Flip to any page of the massive two-volume collection of The Complete Far Side, and you’re likely to chuckle. Some cartoons are memorable, and others will seem very fresh. An added bonus is some commentary from Larson. Here’s an excerpt of one of our favorites from Volume 2 (p. 80):

Note from Larson with this volume:

Editor’s note: ]ane Goodall was out of the country when this cartoon appeared in newspapers and had not seen it when this letter was written. Unbeknownst to her then executive director. Dr. Goodall was a big fan of The Far Side. Her reaction upon seeing the cartoon was to guffaw (her word) and say, “Wow! Fantastic! Real fame at last! Fancy being in a Gary Larson cartoon!” She intended to write Gary an 

apology herself but got sidetracked. A year or so later, the National Geographic Society requested permission from Gary’s syndicate to reprint the cartoon and was denied, because of this letter. They responded, “That doesn’t sound like the Jane Goodall 

we know” They checked around and discovered that Dr. Goodall loved the cartoon; permissiom was granted. Jane and Gary eventually met at her research facility in Gombe, and she went on to write the introduction to The Far Side Gallery 5 (1995).

The only disadvantage of this collection is the sheer weight of each volume, given the high quality, heavyweight paper and the archival binding. If you can handle the heft, I guarantee your delight in remembering or exploring the humor of Gary Larson in The Complete Far Side.

Steve Hopkins, January 22, 2004

Back in 1998 (just doesn’t seem that long ago) Larson could poke fun of cross-dressers without repercussions especially as it has progressed into the mostly illegitimate transgender movement and cancel culture of the Left