24 Comments
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Steve Stewart's avatar

I love the one for the "School for the gifted" with the kid pushing against the door marked "Pull"

Classic!

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Jason's avatar

That is the one that has stayed with me.

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Elana Mitchell's avatar

Never have I seen myself represented in comic form as in that one 😂

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Geoff's avatar

Also one of my faves was the Mozzies "Pull out you've hit an artery!"

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Geoff's avatar

If you're not already aware, this is a daily dose of farside classics

https://www.thefarside.com/

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Dave W's avatar

I remember this one!

My all time fave, and the first Far Side I saw, is two deer in the forest, "bummer of a birthmark, Hal". I probably laughed for a full hour.

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John Birmingham's avatar

And, “Let’s get this baby in the air!”

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Bill H's avatar

I used to have a huge volume of his cartoons. It included several that he didn’t dare publish . One had a snake in the middle of a baby’s crib with a big lump in its belly. Caption was... you didn’t see this....another of my favs was a kid sitting on the spare tire in the back of a darkened station wagon. His memory of family vacations. Genius stuff

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John Birmingham's avatar

Oh man, I would pay a lot of money for bootleg Farside.

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Formerly Known as Simon's avatar

There is a book (i may also be an old Larson fan) and its called "The prehistory of the far side" 10th anniversary exhibit. Has a lot of his stuff he couldn't publish plus a hilarious section where the paper got other cartoons captions mixed up with his - things like marmaduke and stuff. He said that it made the marmaduke nonsensical but sometimes made his ones even better.

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Dave Irving's avatar

I remember one with a python sitting down to dinner with a pig halfway down his neck. The phone rings, and he thinks "Damn!"

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Drew Sanderson's avatar

I was always a fan of the "Far Side Lite: Not funny, but better for you" one I had (back in the heady days when there was a Far Side Day-To-Day Calendar)

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John Birmingham's avatar

I had that calendar. Back when I used to look forward to each new day.

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Zebulon's avatar

When you simply say the words “Midvale School for the Gifted” and the other person smiles and nods…

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Bangar's avatar

Thagomizer

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insomniac's avatar

You can't go past Gazza for longevity in funniness.

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John Birmingham's avatar

There is something fundamentally timeless about his cartooning, isn’t there. Most of his stuff would be funny 50 years ago, and will still be funny 50 years from now.

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Vash's avatar

Bummer of a birthmark, Hal

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Formerly Known as Simon's avatar

someone posted a Scott Hilburn comic on the book of face recently and i was taken aback. Apparently not Gary Larson in disguise

https://twitter.com/argyle_sweater?lang=en

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Jason B Standing's avatar

My wife owns The Complete Far Side - an enormous 2 volume hardback compendium that weighs about 12kg and is apparently canonical - which she's never opened.

I gave it to her as a gift, after I'd owned it for 8 years and also never opened it.

But somehow, having it and knowing those cartoons are there makes everything a little better.

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John Birmingham's avatar

I totally understand this and approve.

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Michael Barnes's avatar

the artist even had a louse named after him

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Nick Warne's avatar

My brother and I just quote captions to each other: ‘Bummer of a birthmark, Hal’

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Justin's avatar

love it. dont think I have seen that one either. when he published the website linked below I was on there daily....till I (thought) i'd seen em all....again

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