I’m about to date myself with some very specific references: when I was a kid, my parents clipped their favourite Far Side cartoons out of the Sunday newspaper and scotch-taped them to the wall next to the rotary phone. Because my Dad is a farmer of mostly cattle, he shared Gary Larson’s love of all things bovine, so there was no shortage of Far Sides to ponder while tethered to the phone line. I recently happened on the complete three volume Far Side set in a used bookstore, and think it will be just the right gift for my Dad’s birthday. Happily for me, his birthday was still weeks away so I had a chance to add one more reader before I gifted it on.
I remember the Far Side as being funny, and I was not misremembering- they still hold up. There wasn’t a single inappropriate homosexual joke (see: things that haven’t aged well on tv shows), and while there are a lot gender stereotypes, I didn’t find them offensive (on this I am curious for someone else’s take- am I right, or just blinded by nostalgia?) This first volume covers the years 1980-1984, which includes my birth year, and my excitement over seeing what was published on my actual birthday was tempered by realizing that it had been a Sunday- no comic as Larson produced one a day for each weekday. Like Seinfeld or Sex and the City, I also found that there is a Far Side cartoon for every situation, and reading a whole volume at once means that I’ve been dropping these references in conversations since then, making me a not so popular party guest (I’m still hanging out at the water cooler everyone left 35 years ago). Frankly I don’t care- Larson was ahead of his time (or at least just right for my formative years).
Because I’m counting this as a CBR Bingo Illustrated square, I wanted to touch on the actual drawings- they are simple but very effective. Larson is adept at capturing motion and emotion (including motion and emotion of animals, aliens, and- as I’d remembered- a lot of cows). Most are black and white and I actually think I like the black and white ones more- there’s less to distract from the joke itself. I’m really looking forward to volumes 2 and 3.
CBR11bingo: Illustrated