Gary Larson - Offensive? (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Pratt]

Mark that's my favorite Far Side as well

 

[Johnny Angell]

Small village, huge temple and jewel...or course they would miss it. It's so obvious I couldn't see it...doh!

As for the cat hanging outside the window, I always knew the dog did it and found it funny. And yes, in the Complete Far Side, he does explain this. The short note also includes a comment to the effect he really doesn't want to explain his cartoons, but felt it was necessary for this one.

I love cats and one of my favorites involves a cat. We see a tough looking cat sitting in a pet store near an aquarium. In the aquarium is a mean looking piranha. I mean, he's mean looking. A closer look at the cat reveals his two front legs are peg-legs.

I suppose someone might think its promoting cruelty. I think its making an observation about cats...they are so curious they can't keep their paws out of places where they shouldn't be. The drive is so strong, they ignore previous experience. One of my favorites.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Here's another gem:

Two Chinese guys are standing on top of the Great Wall and one looks at the other, "Now let's see if that dog can get in here."

 

[MarkHastings]

Speaking of the most famous ones: how about the three frame one where the cows are standing and talking to each other, then one says "CAR!" and they all go back to acting like cows as the car drives by, then in the last frame (after the car has gone by) they go back to standing up and talking again.

Hmmm, I wonder where the movie "Barnyard" got its inspiration?


But the one that's always stuck with me as funny, is this one:
http://www.lechatnoirboutique.com/pr...iness%20Lg.jpg

 

[Dave_Brown]

The boneless chicken ranch was one of my favorites, as well. I also had one that was on a t-shirt that I really liked. It was set in some fancy kitchen and on the stove was a boiling pot of water. Perched above the pot on a trap door was a lobster with one of those dunk tank bulls eye rings and the chef throwing eggs at it. The look of panic on the lobster's face always got me laughing.

 

[Radioman970]

*cough* monty python *cough*

googling...I remember this one...

Image removed at request of Mr. Larson



couple of deer. ONe has a shape like a targer on his chest. the other says "Bummer of a birth mark Hal".

 

[JonZ]

@ chicken of depression and the deer birthmark.

Ive got to get those Far Side volumes Im missing.

 

[Jack Briggs]

I've mentioned my favorite in previous threads about Larson: "Cheetah wheelies." Brilliant.

 

[Ruz-El]

And stay away from Ivan Brunetti

My favorite was a popeye one, where he's on trial for I think Murdering Bluto.He's of course saying "I yam what I yam..."

Cheetah Wheelies was pretty great to.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

A strip that looks to be a cheap knock off of The Far Side is In The Bleachers by Moore. My wife gets a chuckle out of it every day, but I remember she never got The Far Side.

For me The Far Side is Kobe Beef, and In The Bleachers is the soy burger they served my kids in grade school.

We need to go Misery on Larson. Have Kathy Bates hobble him and get him writing again.

 

[McPaul]

never been offended but there were definitely more than a few that I just did not get, and did not have a hope in getting.

Thanks for the pictures, those that provided them.

Where can one get this book?

 

[Corbin Stirn]

Oh, c'mon guys!! You're forgetting that I clipped out of the paer 18 years ago and styill have to this day. Someone will remember this one. Shows front part of a jet up in the sky.........the cockpit and 2-3 windows. The caption underneath it says,"Dave,what's that light right there? Oh no........we're all gonna die!! Oh wait that's just the intercom......" Meanwhile the passengers eyes in the windows behind the cockpit look llike they're about to pop like a balloon. Definitely a classic. Larson is awesome.........

 

[BrianW]

Larson drives his humor home using many techniques (role reversal and anthropomorphic absurdities are what he's probably best know for), but the two techniques he has absolutely mastered better than anyone are:

Using a simple image to compel a much funnier image to come to mind.

And

Having characters in extraordinary situations reacting in ordinary ways.


The two-peg-legged cat staring longingly at a piranha in a fish bowl isn't funny because the panel depicts a funny occurrence. It's funny because of the image that comes to mind of a cat stupid enough to sacrifice it forelimb not once, but twice, in its attempts to fish a piranha out of its bowl. Had Larson drawn a picture of a cat actually getting its front legs eaten off as it tried to attack the piranha, he would have been drawn and quartered. But because we conjure up the outrageously violent image in our own minds, that somehow lets Larson off the hook, and it makes it acceptable for us find it hilarious without being offended. Larson is better at this than anyone.

Another example of this technique is the parrot who incessantly says, “Hello? Anybody home? Ding dong, ding dong! Anybody home?” In a corner of the panel, we see the feet of someone who has, for whatever reason, dropped dead, and the parrot is repeating the words of those who have come knocking on the door. Again, had Larson depicted the moment and manner of this person's death, it wouldn't have been at all funny. But seeing only the aftermath and having to “put it together” in our own minds makes this person's death a rewarding punchline.

Another technique he uses to great effect is the way he has characters in extraordinary situations react in completely ordinary ways. One of my favorites in this category depicts a vacuuming housewife who discovers her husband, missing for days, stuck between the sofa cushions. How does she react? She says, “Harold! So that's where you've been all this time! Oh, and look! There's my old hairbrush, too!”

I don't know anyone who uses these two techniques to greater effect.



With regard to Larson's “offensive” cartoons, my favorite among those he never allowed to be published in the newspaper is the one with the caption: How Casper the Friendly Boy became Casper the Friendly Ghost. Growing up, I was creeped out be the premise of the Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon because I seemed to be the only one in the world who understood that it was about the ghost of a boy approximately my age who met an untimely end. When I saw Larson's cartoon, it comforted me to know that I wasn't the only one who wondered how this boy, Casper, died. Plus, it's just SO funny!

 

[Henry Gale]

Anybody know which page this one is on?

 

[Nigel McN]

Dective standing in a clock shop, every clock stopped at the same time due to being shot. "We've got the suspect, the murder weapon, motive, all we need now is to determine time of death."

 

[Brandy S]

My favorite, due to simplicity, was the single panel cartoon with a penguin in the arctic lying flat on his back next to a banana peel. It takes some people a while to get why it's truly funny.
Spoiler below:













Why would a penguin slip on a banana peel when he walks around ON ICE all day?

 

[Yee-Ming]

That would be the Antarctic, actually...

(sorry, couldn't resist nitpicking...)

 

[MarkHastings]

Maybe he was on vacation I mean, how many bananas are there in the Antarctic?

 

[Dave_Brown]

I never cared much for folks that cut every single comic out of the paper and hang them in their office/cubicle, but I did have one that I kept on my desk back in the day:

Two guys working construction sitting high above the city on a lunch break. One guy is talking and basicially says "You know those dark days, when life just seems to be to much to take and the voice inside your head just keeps saying 'Do it! Do it! Go ahead and push that guy next to you off the ledge!'"

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Nice nitpick but after watching "The March of the Penguins", I wondered if penguins could live in the arctic. Do you know a reason they can't? It might be a climate upgrade compared to what they deal with in Antartica. If conditions appear favorable, let's figure out a way to get them there. Those poor birds need a break!

Chris