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In 1979 Larson got the idea of doubling his cartooning income (he
was back up to $15 each) by getting a second newspaper to publish his panels. He fixed his sights on the San Francisco Chronicle and
drove down to San Francisco. After a week of waiting to be seen, of
turning over his portfolio, calling in twice a day to ask
if anyone had looked at it and being openly pitied by receptionists, Larson was told, to his astonishment, that the Chronicle wanted to syndicate his cartoon, retitled "The Far Side,"
and offer it to about 30 newspapers across the country. And forget this weekly business -- they wanted one a day. When the dazed Larson returned home, he found a letter from the
Seattle Times -- it was dropping the cartoon. Too many
complaints. Too offensive. If he hadn't already lined up the
Chronicle job, Larson says, he would have given up cartooning then.
As he told Rolling Stone, "I'm certain I would have bagged it all." When "The Far Side" went national, it continued to get complaints. It
caught on slowly, with editors saying that they loved it, but they weren't sure readers could handle it. Sometimes newspapers tried to
discontinue it, but then got so many more complaints that they
reinstated it. By 1983 "The Far Side" was in 80 papers, and by 1985 in
200. Comics page readers regularly voted "The Far Side" both their
favorite cartoon and their most disliked cartoon. Sometimes the disgruntled readers were confused -- as by the "cow
tools" drawing, in which no one, including Larson, has ever been
able to figure out what the cow tools are for. Others were outraged
at the idea of deriving humor from the suffering of animals -- even
if imaginary -- as in the cartoon of two dogs playing tethercat, or
the one showing a pet owner encouraging her little Fifi to dash
full speed through a (boarded-up) dog door. A few disliked the
idea of deriving humor from the suffering of humans, even if
imaginary: Larson reports that Amnesty International wrote to
complain every time a cartoon about dungeons and torturing
appeared. "Does 'Wizard of Id' get these letters?" he wonders
plaintively. One of the most common reactions Larson has gotten to his work over
the years is "I get it -- I love it -- but I can't believe anybody
else gets it." This is one of "The Far Side's" charms. Larson trusts us to know things. He trusts us to know what a microscope cover slip is, feels confident we will not be thrown by references to spitting cobras
and assumes we understand why young Bobby Snake has to jiggle
Grandpa Snake's rat so that it looks alive. He figures we've heard
about spiders that disperse by ballooning on pieces of silk, and
will be amused by the idea of bison doing the same thing. Of
course, Larson's drawings are so enticing that even if we have no
idea what's going on with the ballooning bison, there's still a
goofy pleasure to be gotten from the picture. "The Far Side" is uniquely candid about nature's being red in tooth and
claw, with battle scenes bloodier than anything in "Prince Valiant."
Lions kill and eat zebras, praying mantises eat their young and
people who drive too slow in the fast lane burn in eternal flames. Many "Far Side" jokes also feature fire hydrants, outhouses and
startled spiders who lose control of their silk spinnerets. Interestingly, explicit as he is about life, death and bodily
fluids, Larson is somewhat restrained about sex. There are snakes
in glasses, snakes in aprons and snakes with beehive hairdos, but
there are no snakes in bustiers. Even when he draws two bulls
exulting over the delivery of an inflatable cow doll, there's
nothing really lascivious about her. There are no cows in bustiers, either, though Larson has drawn cows
with almost every other imaginable accouterment. In May 1980,
he drew a physically ungifted cow practicing for a moon jump
under the eyes of a discouraged cat-with-fiddle, looked at what he
had done and saw that it was good. "This was more than just a
cow -- this was an entire career I was looking at," he wrote. From then on, cows poured from his pen, plotting uprisings, seeking
therapy, joy riding on tractors and generally stampeding into the
hearts of readers. "The Far Side" was eventually picked up by 1,900 newspapers and
translated into 17 languages. Twice the Dayton Daily News
inadvertently translated it into "Dennis the Menace," by switching
the captions on the side-by-side panels. (It didn't do much for "The
Far Side," but greatly improved "Dennis the Menace," as in the cartoon
in which Dennis tells his doting mother, "I see your little,
petrified skull ... labeled and resting on a shelf somewhere," a line
that had been intended for a Neolithic fortune-teller.) The scientific community adored "The Far Side," all but wallpapering
laboratories with photocopies of their favorites. Inaccuracies
didn't alienate them: They'd write to remind Larson that polar
bears and penguins are not found in the same hemisphere; that
humans and dinosaurs didn't coexist; or that it should be the
female mosquito coming home tired after a hard day spreading
malaria, not the male -- but they didn't really mind. "He
illustrates principles in a twisted way," one scientist/admirer
wrote to nature columnist Gerry Rising. The California Academy of Sciences
created an exhibit that traveled to natural history museums around the country, showcasing 400 Larson cartoons. Entomologists have named a louse and a butterfly after Larson. One "Far Side" cartoon features some sort of caveman seminar with a
lecturer explaining that the spiked tail-tip on a stegosaurus is
called the "thagomizer," after the late Thag Simmons. Even though
this exemplifies a misconception that usually drives
paleontologists mad -- the idea that humans and dinosaurs coexisted --
Larson gets away with it. It is reported that as of 1994 the museum at Dinosaur National Monument had a stegosaurus tail spike on display simply labeled "Thagomizer." (I have no problem with the thagomizer, though I am a little
worried by the unscrupulous cow in the life raft who is detected by
the other passenger in the act of sipping from a glass. "Hey!
That's milk! And you said you were all empty, you stinkin' liar!"
shouts the indignant man. My problem is not the man and cow in the
lifeboat, the talking cow, nor the question of where the cow got the
glass, but -- why does the cow have stubble?) | ||
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