[HN Gopher] New Work by Gary Larson
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       New Work by Gary Larson
        
       Author : jkestner
       Score  : 487 points
       Date   : 2025-10-17 21:34 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.thefarside.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.thefarside.com)
        
       | jmclnx wrote:
       | Very nice, I have been checking it for a while and this is the
       | first new one I have seen in a while.
       | 
       | Nice cartoon for Jane Goodall!
        
       | bhouston wrote:
       | FYI, this "New Stuff" is circa 2020:
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/arts/far-side-gary-larson...
        
         | JimDabell wrote:
         | It might've started then, but the latest entry is a tribute to
         | Jane Goodall that was posted three days ago:
         | 
         | https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/363/club-gombe
        
           | chrisweekly wrote:
           | This one is my favorite: https://www.thefarside.com/new-
           | stuff/387/house-on-hillside
        
             | Physkal wrote:
             | Sorry, I don't get it. whats with the terydactl substance
        
               | stickfigure wrote:
               | Pretty sure it's bird shit.
        
               | iancmceachern wrote:
               | This exact chain of interactions is what I come to HN
               | for.
               | 
               | When Meat Loaf died, I commented "His name was Robert
               | Paulsen" (you know, because in death membersbof project
               | mayhem do have names, his name was Robert Paulsen".
               | Someone commented something to the effect of no it
               | wasn't, meat loaf wasn't his real name it was Marvin
               | Aday, and then someone else commented to their comment
               | "It's literally a fucking line from the movie".
               | 
               | I dont know why these layers of weirdness delight me so,
               | but they do.
               | 
               | Thanks for the pterodactyl shit commentary folks.
        
               | bitwize wrote:
               | Was gonna say, I thought Robert Paulsen was the guy who
               | did Yakko's voice?
        
               | bsimpson wrote:
               | His name was also Robert Paulsen.
        
               | MrDrMcCoy wrote:
               | I posted the same thing on Reddit and got downvoted to
               | hell.
        
               | cwillu wrote:
               | Reddit is turning more into hn everyday.
        
               | BolexNOLA wrote:
               | Better hope it's not the other way around!
        
               | firesteelrain wrote:
               | This is sort of the inverse "Don't say HN is becoming
               | Reddit"
               | 
               | Reddit has been declining for a long time and even more
               | so the way the algorithm works with the Front Page.
               | Politics and activism there is super amplified
        
               | bsimpson wrote:
               | AskReddit has turned into Progressive Anxiety News, with
               | every headline followed by "What do you think?"
        
               | layer8 wrote:
               | Lol
        
               | latchkey wrote:
               | winged reptile shit
        
               | jcynix wrote:
               | Let's call it "early bird" shit ...
        
               | card_zero wrote:
               | Well _actually_ pterosaurs were way different from birds,
               | and don 't even count as dinosaurs. Though they had a
               | downy covering similar to feathers. But they're not bird
               | ancestors.
        
               | somat wrote:
               | The caption is what really sells it for me. It is the
               | classical farside experience.
               | 
               | Looks at comic, (shrugs) it's weird but not funny in any
               | way. Reads caption
               | 
               | "Art assignment: Paint a house on a hillside overlooking
               | a bay or valley. Stay loose; play with color. Try to
               | capture a mood. Think of something to add."
               | 
               | Literal spit take and laugh. Yep he still has the touch.
        
               | jjkaczor wrote:
               | Hmmm - my interpretation is that this is an example of a
               | "prompt" for a generative AI "artist", and the result was
               | something that "craps" over the original intention of the
               | "house on a hillside"... (so, a bit of a commentary on
               | generative art from someone who was professional
               | cartoonist)
        
               | hobs wrote:
               | I think you are applying the wrong decade(s) of thought.
               | This is a man who had to clean his pen to use it - it is
               | very likely he is using artists "prompts" to practice his
               | digital art (as he mentions its very new to him), which
               | is something that was normal before the current era.
        
               | chrisweekly wrote:
               | Yes. The word choice is exquisite; "loose" got me, right
               | as I was visually interpreting the scene. Larson is a
               | genius.
        
               | iamwil wrote:
               | This is my favorite too.
               | 
               | The caption reads like an AI prompt. The last
               | instruction, "think of something to add" resulted in the
               | AI adding a pterodactyl on the house, dropping bird poop
               | on it. Probably not what the prompter meant, but
               | technically correct.
        
               | tristramb wrote:
               | Same here. My first though was 'This is an AI prompt.'
        
               | hcs wrote:
               | For the benefit of me 30 minutes ago baffled by the
               | responses to this down thread, this is perhaps a
               | r/BirdsArentReal thing? e.g. https://old.reddit.com/r/Bir
               | dsArentReal/comments/1n1yr3d/wha...
        
               | firesteelrain wrote:
               | Nah, its just absurd Larson humor.
        
               | hcs wrote:
               | Oh I get the Larson humor, I mean Physkal's comment and
               | iancollmceachern's implication that a reference was
               | missed by stickfigure
        
           | quuxplusone wrote:
           | Coincidentally just ran into this anecdote on how Goodall and
           | Larson became friends:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45624718
        
             | BolexNOLA wrote:
             | What a nice story. "Nice" really feels like the correct
             | word here.
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | When Gary started using the digital pad for drawing, he
           | specifically said that he wouldn't be drawing every day, or
           | on any deadline at all. So these comics really are a labour
           | of love. They are meant for Gary to experiment, not make
           | money.
           | 
           | At least, that's how he presented it himself.
        
       | bbor wrote:
       | Wow, thank you for posting (you have to click the green "Enter"
       | button, it's not super obvious -- someone needs to have a sit-
       | down with Gary about design conventions! It's also completely un-
       | bookmark-able, as there's no URL leading to the latest comic
       | every day).
       | 
       | This one made me laugh out loud for the first time in a while:
       | https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/387/house-on-hillside He's
       | still got it!
       | 
       | EDIT: Ahh, it's very, very small. I was excited by the "387" in
       | the slug, but that seems to be meaningless (?). There's 8 total
       | comics in no clear order, and the caption system is completely
       | broken (it says they were all posted this past Wednesday) :(
        
         | jkestner wrote:
         | Hey, maybe he'll pick up web UX next.
        
         | hennell wrote:
         | I assume his idea was that you have to come through the enter
         | page so you read the disclaimer. I don't think he really cares
         | about design conventions or making it easy, it's a tiny outlet
         | for him rather than a thing built for others
        
       | sphars wrote:
       | Been meaning to post this but if you're interested, I set up a
       | RSS feed for the daily Far Side comic[0]. It's a simple scraper
       | that runs daily on GitHub actions and creates an entry for the
       | 2-5 comics and captions of the day. Source code is on GitHub.[1]
       | 
       | I'll have to look into this new section of the website and see
       | about adding that to the feed.
       | 
       | [0]: https://sphars.github.io/rss-
       | feeds/feeds/the_far_side/feed.x...
       | 
       | [1]: https://github.com/sphars/rss-feeds
        
         | busyant wrote:
         | You should try to incorporate Dennis the Menace in your
         | retrievals.
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/Harmontown/comments/dsfqh7/the_far_...
        
         | jimniels wrote:
         | My first thought on finding this: needs an rss feed! TY
        
         | brookst wrote:
         | Wow. Thanks for making me buy a color e-ink display.
        
           | thebruce87m wrote:
           | Which one did you buy?
        
         | Vinnl wrote:
         | Semi-related: a plug of my project that allows you to set up
         | exactly that for any website using CSS selectors. https://feed-
         | me-up-scotty.vincenttunru.com/
        
           | sphars wrote:
           | This looks great, I'll have to check it out. I remember with
           | the Far Side website I had to use Selenium for the browser
           | because of some JavaScript on the page vs using something
           | like BeautifulSoup. Does yours handle that?
        
       | vikboyechko wrote:
       | That's awesome that he a digital tablet enables him to create
       | more art. I met a comic book artist recently who was drawing
       | nonstop even while signing autographs and talking to fans.
        
         | gyomu wrote:
         | People on here love to dump on the iPad for being a
         | "consumption device", and to hate on the Apple Pencil by
         | misquoting/misunderstanding Steve Jobs[0]...
         | 
         | ...but if you spend any time around artists it's evident that
         | the iPad/Pencil/Procreate trio is one of the most significant
         | leaps in consumer tech for visual artists of the last decade.
         | 
         | [0] he never said that any and all styluses are bad - he said
         | that 1) cell phones that 2) you can only interact with by using
         | a stylus (not an uncommon paradigm back in 2007) were bad
        
           | vikboyechko wrote:
           | Yep totally, Procreate on an iPad with a paper-like screen
           | protector and a Pencil is an amazing creative juicer.
        
           | fwipsy wrote:
           | What puts it ahead of the Wacom/Surface drawing tablets which
           | have been around for much longer? I'm not sure if I'd
           | describe it as a leap if it's refining existing products.
        
             | gyomu wrote:
             | As always, Apple didn't wholesale invent a product
             | category, but they made the first product that synthesized
             | all the right tradeoffs in a sufficiently compelling
             | package that enabled them to sell tens/hundreds of millions
             | of units fairly quickly[0].
             | 
             | - hardware quality wise, already the 1st gen Apple Pencil
             | had the specs of the higher end tablets (12-bit pressure
             | sensitivity, orientation, azimuth, all in a sleek package)
             | 
             | - you can use your iPad for a bunch of other stuff too, and
             | it's super portable - whereas for the high end tethered
             | drawing tablets, they're pretty single purpose, and they
             | take up a bunch of space on your desk. This all matters to
             | broke artists living in dorm rooms/tiny apartments.
             | 
             | - the Procreate team designed a tool that was really
             | focused on the digital drawing experience and managed to
             | make a high quality, affordable product out of it. The
             | standard for digital drawing on those tethered tablets is
             | mostly Photoshop, which a) is meant for tons of stuff
             | beyond drawing, making it quite complex and b) has 4
             | decades of interface cruft piled up at this point.
             | 
             | Honestly yeah, there truly are pre/post iPad+Pencil eras in
             | consumer tech for anyone doing work that involves hand
             | illustration/sketching.
             | 
             | [0] whereas their competitors struggle to sell low numbers
             | of units at terrible margins
        
               | fwipsy wrote:
               | I'm not talking about the Cintiq. Around 2015 I was daily
               | driving an HP elite book 2760p which couldn covert to a
               | tablet and had Wacom EMR tech integrated into the
               | display. It worked fine for drawing and I did a lot of
               | it. Along with Fujitsu and Lenovo they'd been making them
               | since the core 2 duo era at least. When the surface pro
               | came out it was building on these, and then the Apple
               | pencil competed with the surface pro. These products sold
               | then and still sell today. At my current company, the
               | default windows laptop is a Thinkpad yoga with a stylus.
               | I'll take your word for it when you say that the Apple
               | pencil was an improvement and sold better. But Apple
               | didn't invent this. There were absolutely successful
               | products that came before.
        
               | ndr42 wrote:
               | "There were absolutely successful products that came
               | before"
               | 
               | I think it's just a question of definition. The Apple
               | pencil was introduced in 2016, since then about
               | 500.000.000 iPads have been sold. If you compare that
               | with the number of Thinkpad yogas or HP elite book 2760ps
               | it's possible to come the conclusion that they are
               | relatively less successful. But of course they can be
               | "absolutely successful" depending on your definition.
        
             | dgently7 wrote:
             | Like everything apple it's not that they made something
             | wildly new, they just found a way to do something more
             | polished than anyone else that then is successful with a
             | specific subset of vocal people.
             | 
             | I'm not much of a digital artist and views in this space
             | probably vary wildly.. but if I steel man the pro iPad case
             | I think it's a few things 1. Screen quality. iPads look
             | better than cintiq bc the display in the iPad is actually
             | pretty awesome. Like recommended by the color nerds for
             | being the best color you can get for the price, 2. Pen
             | distance on iPad your pen is closer to the actual pixels.
             | The cintiq had more space between the screen and the
             | surface, feels like you draw above the page a little. 3.
             | Biggest of all is portability. Artists love desks but they
             | also love drawing everywhere all the time. iPad is just
             | better at this because it's designed as a tablet totally.
             | The pre-apple pencil Wacom stuff existed as tablets but
             | from what I remember was mostly just windows laptops. So
             | software wasn't built for touch and wanted keyboards and
             | stuff. Responsive multitouch and the os(and drawing apps)
             | built to integrate it tightly is a level of polish Wacom
             | couldn't do as just a pen input system. 4. Cost cintiqs
             | always cost a ton and a lot of them don't even have the
             | computer part, iPads aren't cheap but are way more
             | accessible.
             | 
             | Maybe Wacom has caught up with newer offerings? it's been a
             | while since I looked at their stuff. There are also totally
             | reasons why you'd wanna go that route for some digital pen
             | stuff (eg high end digital sculpture or texture painting
             | type stuff that really needs the power and integration you
             | can get from a desktop and desktop os)
        
           | fouc wrote:
           | It's crazy how much of a stranglehold the Procreate app seems
           | to have in the iPad world for drawing.
        
       | somat wrote:
       | It is interesting to note the changes in style from his newspaper
       | comic. I assume it is the result of drawing for yourself and
       | being able to take the time to draw it how you want rather than a
       | 7 comic a week deadline syndicated strip.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | I think he's also directly implementing color, if you see color
         | "original Far Side" it was added post-hock usually (though
         | maybe some color Sunday strips exist colored by Larson).
        
         | normie3000 wrote:
         | It might be explained by the long explanation on the linked
         | page - these new cartoons are drawn on computer with a graphics
         | tablet, whereas the old ones were pen and ink.
        
           | mcv wrote:
           | There are multiple reasons for a different style, but U think
           | a big one is that a syndicated cartoon is expected to have a
           | recognisable style. We recognise many cartoonists by their
           | unique style, despite many of them being far more versatile
           | artists than that.
        
       | akoboldfrying wrote:
       | No one is able to capture stupidity on a person's (or cow's, or
       | chicken's) face quite like Gary Larson.
        
       | Waterluvian wrote:
       | I think it's about time for me to confess: I _really don't get_
       | Gary Larson cartoons. I understand what each is about, but my
       | amusement level doesn't correlate with their popularity.
       | 
       | It's a slightly odd, somewhat lonely feeling to see something so
       | universally beloved and popular and feel nothing.
        
         | dfedbeef wrote:
         | I don't think they are universally beloved or popular if that
         | makes you any feel better.
        
           | dfedbeef wrote:
           | They're popular in the way that the Dinosaurs show on ABC was
           | popular.
        
             | mk_stjames wrote:
             | 'Dinosaurs' was a masterpiece and I won't hear otherwise.
             | 
             | The series finale is one of the greatest T.V. finales of
             | all time.
        
             | fknorangesite wrote:
             | No, the Far Side was popular the way The Simpsons was
             | popular.
             | 
             | I think you're dramatically underestimating how big it was
             | during its run.
        
         | mk_stjames wrote:
         | What, not a fan of 'Cow tools'? [0]
         | 
         | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools
        
           | WalterBright wrote:
           | I didn't get that one, either.
        
             | sitharus wrote:
             | Nobody did
        
               | eszed wrote:
               | I was maybe 8, and I thought it was hilarious. <shrug>
        
             | busyant wrote:
             | I'm curious if you understand this joke
             | (https://i.imgur.com/II5W6Pl.png).
             | 
             | I think it's similar to the Cow Tools panel.
             | 
             | Specifically, the Far Side panel plays on the idea of the
             | fact that cows would have a cow-centric view of the world
             | and would likely develop tools that were alien to us. The
             | other part of the 'joke' is that cows don't build tools
             | (afaik). edit: I think the "3rd" part of the joke is that
             | the tools look like shit, which is what you'd expect from
             | even the most talented cows.
             | 
             | The humor of the space alien joke is similar in that it's
             | pointing out the difficulty that everyone has in
             | understanding how others (other people, other species,
             | etc.) view and describe the world.
        
               | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
               | > I'm curious if you understand this joke
               | (https://i.imgur.com/II5W6Pl.png).
               | 
               | I don't, because I'm from the UK...
        
               | busyant wrote:
               | > I don't, because I'm from the UK...
               | 
               | excellent meta-joke.
        
           | Nition wrote:
           | In a way Cow Tools was too simple rather than too hard, so
           | people thought there must be more to it.
           | 
           | I don't think the joke itself is a bad idea. I remember The
           | Simpsons doing the room full of monkeys on typewriters where
           | one comes up with "it was the best of times, it was the
           | blurst of times" which in a way is a similar joke, right?
           | i.e. Not a good result, but funny because it's still much
           | more than you'd ever expect in reality.
        
             | firesteelrain wrote:
             | Simpsons joke has a reference. It's not a Simpsons
             | original.
             | 
             | It is the infinite monkey theorem from the late 19th and
             | early 20th century.
        
               | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
               | That's the context of the joke, but it's not the source
               | of the humour.
        
               | hamburglar wrote:
               | The joke was a _reference_ to that pop culture idea which
               | pointed out that if the infinite monkeys thing is real,
               | there should also necessarily be products that are very
               | close to great works but not quite right.
        
           | The_President wrote:
           | Or Rattlesnake Training?
           | 
           | https://www.pinterest.com/pin/460000549435346228/
        
         | voidfunc wrote:
         | I get them sometimes but I feel like its like a lot of stuff,
         | were hostage to the meta and everyone seems to "get" the meta
         | so you have to go along with it or you're an outsider.
         | 
         | Yay humans.
        
         | bongodongobob wrote:
         | I think about it as pushing the boundaries of the minimum
         | amount of funny to be a joke. It's not anti humor, it's not
         | absurdism, it's not ironic. It's trying to approach the
         | absolute least amount of whatever a joke is. Some kind of
         | minimum joke Komolgorov complexity.
        
           | Ylpertnodi wrote:
           | Some people just get the 'cartoon repair man' joke, others
           | don't either.
        
         | aorloff wrote:
         | Often if you don't get it, its because you didn't get it.
         | 
         | There is a famous one of 2 explorers in the jungle and the man
         | is saying "Holy moly Loretta, not only is it still there, but
         | look what it did to the end of my stick !"
         | 
         | So not really funny unless you can recall (or imagine) a moment
         | when you had a bug on you and you ask someone to brush it off
         | and you have that minute of like, did you get it or is it still
         | there ? If that has actually happened to you, its a hilarious
         | cartoon.
        
           | cwillu wrote:
           | And sometimes not getting it is the joke, for which I need
           | only mention "Cow Tools"
        
             | firesteelrain wrote:
             | Cow Tools was supposed to be "got" but it went over most
             | people's heads. Gary admitted this
        
         | PlunderBunny wrote:
         | I think that all humor belongs more or less to a particular
         | time (a decade if you will). Garfield for example is very much
         | a product of the 1980s. When humour is viewed outside of its
         | time, it's different. Did you read FarSide in the 1990s, or
         | come to it later?
        
           | chrisweekly wrote:
           | IMHO Garfield is to comics / humor what Monopoly is to games
           | / fun.
        
             | rkomorn wrote:
             | You or one of your siblings flipped the Garfield comics
             | over after your father bled you dry with his savvy real
             | estate plays?
        
         | vunderba wrote:
         | I don't think I've ever laughed at loud at something from Far
         | Side, rather I've always thought of his comics as "smirk-
         | worthy".
         | 
         | School for the Gifted
         | 
         | https://imgur.com/a/6wERHNk
         | 
         | Dog Translator
         | 
         | https://imgur.com/a/UwDJxXm
        
           | larrry wrote:
           | Have you ever laughed out loud at a cartoon? I don't think I
           | have, and I would say I enjoy cartoons quite a bit. A grin is
           | about the best reaction I can give to one myself
        
             | technothrasher wrote:
             | I'm not sure I've ever laughed out loud at a cartoon, but
             | as a kid, the compilation books of Charles Addams cartoons
             | used to fill me with so much warm pleasure I would read
             | them over and over, and his cartoons still just plain make
             | me happy to this day. I can clearly see that Larson does
             | that same thing for many people.
        
               | larrry wrote:
               | I too am a Charles Addams fan! The best ink painter in
               | cartoons (IMO), and definitely plenty of grin worthy
               | gags.
               | 
               | Peter Arno is also another good ink painting cartoonist,
               | although his subject matter has generally aged much more
               | poorly...
        
             | baobun wrote:
             | But what if there is no Garfield?
             | 
             | https://garfieldminusgarfield.net
             | 
             | https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/tagged/garfield%20minus%2
             | 0...
        
               | aidenn0 wrote:
               | Those are painful for me rather than funny. Kind of like
               | _The Office_.
        
             | dhosek wrote:
             | Yes. Calvin and Hobbes.
        
               | philsnow wrote:
               | Recently doing a re-read with my eight year olds and
               | still laughing, though at a different layer of
               | meaning/funny than when I was eight.
        
             | IndySun wrote:
             | Have you ever read Viz?
             | 
             | Specifically on the London underground (or your local
             | public transport) during morning rush hour, with a
             | hangover. It's hard not to laugh out loud.
             | 
             | https://viz.co.uk/about-viz/
        
               | vunderba wrote:
               | Never heard of it until now. Is it sort of a British
               | equivalent to America's "MAD" magazine?
               | 
               | Still worth reading if you're a scruffy yank?
        
               | IndySun wrote:
               | MAD is wacky. This is more England and it's casual gutter
               | talk. All cultures have their own. Do you enjoy any
               | British hum(o)ur?
               | 
               | VIZ is crass, puerile in the extreme, casually (insert
               | your red line here)-ist on many levels, and often
               | repetitive. It uses common slang words, so somewhat
               | culturally revealing. It's 'wrong' on many levels but
               | done with style, albeit sometimes a repugnant style - So
               | you inwardly 'gasp' in revulsion but outwardly stifle a
               | giggle.
               | 
               | The fake small ads are often very very funny.
               | 
               | Lastly, like so many gags that use the 'shock' effect,
               | the humour doesn't last forever; take a look at an early
               | one on Archive...
        
             | vunderba wrote:
             | That's totally fair. I had to dig a bit - but I'm pretty
             | sure I may have audibly chuckled when I came across these
             | in the wild.
             | 
             | https://imgur.com/a/UiCVymg
        
               | Waterluvian wrote:
               | A "101.5 The Hammer" of Moths absolutely kills me.
        
             | fknorangesite wrote:
             | > Have you ever laughed out loud at a cartoon?
             | 
             | I laughed out loud multiple times clicking on links in this
             | very thread, reading comics I've read dozens (and dozens)
             | of times before.
        
         | somat wrote:
         | It is probably down to whether you find humor in absurdity as
         | the far side leans rather hard into this.
         | 
         | The humor "is" very weird, the normal flow is a strange image
         | that is not funny and a simple caption that is also not funny.
         | but coupled together there is something funny about the absurd
         | connection that is made. sort of like a caption meme with
         | better drawing. And honestly I think there are a lot of them
         | that we just don't "get", too strange for comprehension, and we
         | find this funny as well.
        
           | baobun wrote:
           | I can imagine Farside might be hard to "get" for someone
           | meeting it in 2025 - absurdity to the extreme is everywhere
           | now. You can think of it as Skibidi Toilet for a slower, more
           | innocent time.
        
         | ghtbircshotbe wrote:
         | A lot of his comics aren't great, having to create 7 per week,
         | a fact he referenced in his comics themselves. But just the way
         | he represented people - pudgy, cat's eye glasses, doing some
         | esoteric thing like collecting butterflies or building a robot
         | in the basement, is amusing to me.
        
         | linsomniac wrote:
         | >time for me to confess
         | 
         | Don't feel that way. I can totally understand why some people
         | wouldn't "get" (or I'd put it "appreciate") The Far Side. It's
         | a very particular kind of humor, and it's fine that it's "not
         | everyone's cup of tea". I, for example, absolutely loathe
         | poetry. It's like the cilantro of literature of me, and I don't
         | have the gene that makes it not taste like soap. ... Who
         | cares!?!
         | 
         | I have this "joke" that I dearly love, that I've never met
         | anyone who gets it. It is a bad joke, largely because nobody
         | gets it. It doesn't imply something in me or something lacking
         | in ... everyone else. Humor is just what you find in it. It is:
         | "Well, I defended my thesis in comparative literature, but it
         | seems like he's got a pretty healthy pulse to me..."
        
           | rkomorn wrote:
           | > "Well, I defended my thesis in comparative literature, but
           | it seems like he's got a pretty healthy pulse to me..."
           | 
           | Definitely sounds like the kind of joke I'd like if I
           | understood it.
        
             | omegaham wrote:
             | A more obvious setup to the joke is
             | 
             | "Is there a doctor on this plane???"
             | 
             | "Well yes, but I defended my thesis in comparative
             | literature..."
        
               | rkomorn wrote:
               | Ugh. Of course. That makes a lot of sense.
               | 
               | Didn't come anywhere close to getting it on my own
               | though!
        
               | linsomniac wrote:
               | Right, but what makes it work for me is that you have to
               | bring the setup to the table. I think The Far Side is
               | similar in a lot of its humor.
        
           | wussboy wrote:
           | I'm totally stealing that. Fantastic.
           | 
           | And, if you want and if the Fates allow, you may have my
           | favourite, completely unappreciated joke:
           | 
           | "A time traveller!" [wait a few seconds] "Knock knock."
        
           | Waterluvian wrote:
           | My favourite own joke is when I'm sitting on a beach towel or
           | grass or whatnot and I want to get up, I'll say,
           | 
           | "I can't stand sitting, so I need a hand standing."
           | 
           | Nobody ever finds that amusing but it kills me every time.
        
             | linsomniac wrote:
             | One of those situations where I say: "I'm hilarious... to
             | myself."
        
         | tim333 wrote:
         | I guess as he puts it here
         | 
         | >like the proverbial tiger and its stripes, I'm pretty much
         | stuck with my sense of humor. Aren't we all?
        
         | dfxm12 wrote:
         | Life is less lonely when you focus more on social groups you do
         | have something in common with than trying to latch onto
         | everything that's popular.
         | 
         | That said, you might not be as alone as you think. The far side
         | has been the butt of many bits:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjfkynJ4hbI
        
         | mech4bg wrote:
         | Neither did Homer if it makes you feel better.
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/LjfkynJ4hbI?si=rMrpX7VChQMX23_I
         | 
         | (Obviously not the only one if not getting Far Side comics made
         | the Simpsons!)
        
       | WalterBright wrote:
       | If you like Gary Larson, check out Gahan Wilson, who has a very
       | similar sense of humor.
       | 
       | https://www.kensandersbooks.com/pages/books/59859/gahan-wils...
        
       | aaronrobinson wrote:
       | The one with the pilots announcing turbulence ahead...
        
       | Mistletoe wrote:
       | This was such a better experience on mobile. I had first tried on
       | my MacBook and it was inscrutable.
        
       | BAPHOMETA88F wrote:
       | I had a client once in the 90's when Olive Garden was the first
       | wave of consumer Italian spots to serve specials.
       | 
       | After we ordered our entrees the waiter left one of those
       | coloring labyrinths. Well, I couldn't tell at the start of the
       | sketch that it resembled a mandala.
       | 
       | As a comic book artist, his studies in a parapsychology were in
       | the practice of comic strips.
       | 
       | Gary's work reminds me of that afternoon.
        
       | thom wrote:
       | The Far Side is like the Simpsons for me, many of the jokes have
       | passed into everyday expressions. If I or my wife are on the loo
       | when the other comes in, we'll always quote one of my favourites:
       | 
       | https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/...
        
         | ck45 wrote:
         | I've never seen it that way, but I think you are absolutely
         | right. My favorite always has been
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFarSide/comments/179ikr2/its_a_f...
        
         | GaryBluto wrote:
         | We frequently say "Midvale School for the Gifted" whenever any
         | of us try to push a pull door.
        
           | myself248 wrote:
           | Trouble Brewing...
        
         | russfink wrote:
         | Realizing the lions' taste for red meat, the Spamalopes
         | remained calm, but wary.
        
         | JimDabell wrote:
         | > many of the jokes have passed into everyday expressions.
         | 
         | Not to mention palaeontology!
         | 
         | https://unapologeticnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/thag...
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer
        
         | tonyarkles wrote:
         | We've definitely had to get tutoring for a few dogs :D
        
       | sph wrote:
       | I should really start to read the Far Side comic... I've heard
       | about it for the first time, along with Heathcliff and Pants, on
       | the latest Solar Sands video _" The Surreal Worlds of Single
       | Panel Comics"_: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4npsyTE-m_k
        
       | mikkupikku wrote:
       | These are great, he's still "got it".
        
       | giardini wrote:
       | This is great!
       | 
       | Periodically, I'll go through one of Larson's cartoon books,
       | laughing all the way. It's like housecleaning for my brain -
       | afterwards everything is spic-and-span and in it's proper place.
       | 
       | The first Gary Larson cartoon I ever saw was "Freeze...OK
       | now...who's the brains in this outfit?". When I saw it I had to
       | see more:
       | 
       | https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c4/c4/75/c4c475c0a2fdc310a34c20722...
        
         | gcanyon wrote:
         | You might appreciate this The Way of the Gun quote:
         | 
         | Joe Sarno: So, you the brains of this outfit, or is he?
         | Longbaugh: Tell ya the truth, I don't think this is a brains
         | kind of operation.
        
       | RyanOD wrote:
       | Fantastic! I check this periodically, hoping for anything new
       | from Mr. Larson.
       | 
       | Love that he took the time to honor Ms. Goodall one more time.
       | What a class act.
        
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