#‘The Far Side’ returns after 25-year hiatus with new digital cartoons

Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” is back after more than two decades.
Alamy Stock Photo

After a quarter-century hiatus, reclusive cartoonist Gary Larson has returned to penning his hilarious “The Far Side” series with three new digitally-drawn strips now available on his website. The Seattle illustrator accompanied his creation’s second coming with a personal essay on why he decided to emerge from retirement.

“The ‘New Stuff’ that you’ll see here is the result of my journey into the world of digital art,” wrote Larson, 69, regarding “The Far Side’s” virtual revival, which features Cub Scout-gobbling bears, humanitarian aliens and taxidermist taxis.

Suffice to say, “The Far Side” fans are in a frenzy over Larson’s return.

“Welcome back!” exclaimed one die-hard under a cartoon of a commuter hailing a taxi full of taxidermied animals. “I thought you were gone forever. I am so happy to be wrong.”

“Ohmygawd! The return of weirdness. Huzzah!” posted another.

Another complimented the “New Stuff’s” digital makeover: “I love the new style. It’s updated but still familiar. Still funny too!”

Indeed, while mirroring the tone of the original cartoons, the computerized iteration features a few aesthetic differences. The new “The Far Side” cartoons are drawn on a digital tablet and not watercolor, which lends the drawings a more full-bodied, painterly feel, while the absence of penned outlines makes the characters seem less, well, cartoony.

Still, “The Far Side’s” renaissance, which was teased by Larson last September, marks a return to form for the humorist, whose sardonic comic strip appeared in more than 1,900 daily newspapers from 1980 to 1995, and was the comedy muse for a generation of newsreaders, reports the Guardian. 

Larson’s impact wasn’t limited to cartoon circles. One strip depicting a chimpanzee accused of philandering with Jane Goodall was lauded by the legendary primatologist herself. Meanwhile, “thagomizer” — Larson’s term for a stegosaurus’ spiky tail in honor of the “late Thag Simmons” per his cartoons — has become inducted into paleontological lexicon.

The cartoonist abruptly retired in 1995 at 44, citing “simple fatigue” and a fear of ending up in “the Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons” should he continue drawing.

However, despite “feeling good” about announcing his retirement, Larson writes that he still “had intermittent connections to cartooning,” most notably drawing Christmas cards for his wife.

“The Far Side’s” resurrection was sparked when the cartoonist got fed up with his pen clogging while illustrating them and decided to try a tablet.

“I got one, fired it up, and lo and behold, something totally unexpected happened: Within moments, I was having fun drawing again,” writes Larson of his newfound creative fervor.

The humorist says he “was stunned at all the tools the thing offered,” and likened using the tablet to going from “a world of pen and ink” to “sitting at the controls of a 747.”

Larson admits he’s still “just exploring, experimenting and trying stuff.”

“You want to try and take people somewhere where they might not have been before,” he writes. “I think that my approach to cartooning was similar — I’m just not sure if even I knew where I was going. But I was having fun.”