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Comment by nullhole | Hacker News Reader

Worth noting is Gary Larson's original response to the WWW was an open letter asking fans not to post his cartoons online. Akin to the Bill Gates letter on copying software, but, perhaps, more understandable. This website is a reversal of that original position. He was thoughtful then, and is thoughtful now.

The original letter: https://www.portmann.com/farside/index.html?home.html

And the reversal: https://www.thefarside.com/about/48/a-letter-from-gary-larso...

... for cartoons, my favourite has always been:

[A cow, wearing jewellery and holding a martini glass, stands by the picture window of a well-appointed suburban home, while a bull sits in an armchair, watching TV, with a beer in his hoof]

Cow: "Wendell... I'm not content"

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My favourite was only published in his hardcover book. Newspapers universally rejected it:

http://doubleplusundead.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/far-side...

I feel wicked laughing at this.

As did we all.

I've always been particularly fond of the humble farmer dooming the planet to destruction by earnestly grasping the hand-shaped alien's entire head for an introductory handshake.

https://twitter.com/faineg/status/1387409269620985863?lang=e...

The "wings stay on/wings fall off" switch is the one I keep having to dig up at work (alternating with "Why do we even have that lever?" from emperor's new groove.) And then there's "Cow Tools"...

I think about the former almost every time I fly XD

All three of these are also frequently on my mind.

“Now That Should Clear Up A Few Things Around Here” Just has to be the most applicable to software development, assuming that’s what most folks around here are into.

Or the prepper in his bunker without a can opener.

Inuit leaving an igloo: "Well, it's cold again." Kills me every time.

Haha this reminded me of the two guys in hell and the one whispers to the other “I hate this place”.

For me it's also a cow one: 'Car!'.

Someone close to me has the original of the “Car” cartoon. Gary gave it to him as a gift shortly after it was published. It is pen and ink and Letratone on paperboard and is about 18” wide.

For a year or two in the late 90s, the artwork went missing and was thought to have been stolen, but was eventually found to have been put in storage.

Wow, that is incredible. First that it wouldn't have pride of place somewhere (it's as if the gift wasn't properly appreciated), second that it would end up in storage and then that it was found again. If they need a safe place to store it give them my email ;)

I’ve always loved “Beware of Doug”

We had two Dougs in our 1980's office. One of them had the cartoon on the entrance to his cube.

[Men in pith helmets and khaki shorts trekking hip deep through water with their gear held over their heads.]

Piranha: Just nibble at first. … But when you hear them yell “Piranha!” - go for it.

A farmer on the path home from the chicken coop with a basket of eggs meets a hen carrying a baby.

my favourite was the horse parliament one. someone posted it to reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/b6g2ti/i_love_it_wh...

So good! Thanks for sharing

although he still disables right-clicking on his site. So he's still putting some effort into the sisyphean "uphill slog"

No RSS feed either

Isn't that just the default these days?

That works until a hacker comes along and knows to hold shift before right-clicking.

Embedded in styrofoam shoes, Carl is sent to ‘sleep with the humans’.

A group of cows huddled around another cow eating a hamburger.

“I’d say we taste like chicken.”

About ten years ago I went back and forth a couple of email rounds with one of his aides trying to get permission to use one of his cartoons ('Old dog, new trick') in a presentation to ~200 people, but I couldn't justify the expense. I was bummed, but respect Larson's wishes too much to go freelance and just show the cartoon.

So many childhood memories reading Farside. Here’s my favourite: https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2...

Honestly, it's a real shame that it took so long for that reversal, because Far Side comics already had an almost perfect vibe for joining the early rise of internet meme culture, with the postmodernist elements they had in common. Hopefully for Larson things haven't moved on too far that he's totally missed that boat, because his comics absolutely deserve wider recognition among internet culture.

I think the expectation from the early days of the internet was that information could be contained, and the realization from recent years is that the expectation no longer holds. So creators either have to make their own contents accessible or someone else will do it anyways, possibly poorly. Gary Larson might have arrived at this realization relatively late, but I don't think he is the last one.

Witness all the artists who refused to put their music on iTunes or streaming. How'd that exclusive CD deal with Wal-Mart work out, Garth?

Garth actually had his own streaming service GhostTunes, which was created solely to only host his own music for streaming until he realized what a dumb idea that was.

Garth has a net worth of like $300M so I guess it worked out pretty good

Tbh seems like he knows his audience. Surely plenty of people still buy CDs for their car stereo rather than streaming Spotify or something, especially the kind of people who listen to country music.

I can respect those that tried to resist the onset of streaming, it really did/does screw over artists.

Pilot to co-pilot, "What's that goat doing up here in this cloud bank?"

"I'm not content" was especially relevant if you remember the old Darigold Dairies commercial: "Darigold...home of contented cows."

Contented cows were a very common dairy meme.

Still are.

Driving through cow country it’s impossible not to think of all the far side comics involving them and ponder what’s really going on in their heads. XD

As a kid in school, “Woah, wrong room” was my fav (says the alien who peeks into the classroom of small children).

God cooking the earth in the kitchen: and just to make it interesting…a sprinkling of jerks!

(Not that I think about this comic all the time interacting with you fine internet citizens)

I always recall turbulence.

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