The PreHistory of The Far Side ®:: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit

"The Prehistory of the Far Side: A Tenth Anniversary Exhibit," by Gary Larson, is a slightly different volume in the "Far Side" book series. This book collects Larson's cartoons, but there's more: according to the foreword, the purpose of the book is "to reveal some of the background, anecdotes, foibles, and 'behind-the-scenes' experiences related to this cartoon panel." Part of the book's fun is figuring out what parts of this "behind-the-scenes" material are for real and what parts are just further jokes on Larson's part.

Material in the book includes Larson's childhood drawings; early, rough versions of some of his cartoons, along with the versions ultimately used; stories of the personal experiences behind certain panels; and more. One hilarious section records an editor's mistaken switch of a "Far Side" caption with a "Dennis the Menace" caption (Dennis has never been more menacing). And there's much more.

And of course, there's a straightforward gallery of some of Larson's twisted cartoons. Among the sights the reader will encounter are dog hell; the Secret Chipmunk Burial Grounds; a screening of an amoeba porn flick; and an encounter with the sinister Professor DeArmond -- "the epitome of evil amongst butterfly collectors!".

Larson's "Far Side" cartooons are a unique blend of satire, horror, science fiction, and surreal hilarity. If you're a fan, don't miss this collection.

This is not just another Far Side gallery--although I like those, because I'm a fan of the strip. In this book, Larson delves into the creative process of creating comic strips, and the book includes early drafts of several particular published works. He also shows us some unpublished works, as well as the modifications he made in order to get certain ones published. My favorite sections are the chapter on "rejected cartoons"--which contains some very funny panels that were deemed too inappropriate to be published--and the chapter on "Public Response"--which details the more controversial of his cartoons, some (but not all) of which are actually funny. What I liked most about this book was that it gave us a glimpse of Larson's mind. It is fun to see him discuss his works in intellectual and artistic terms. I like the fact that even a cartoonist takes his work seriously. I should also add that the book does contain a long section constituting a gallery, but this time it is all Larson's choices of his own favorites. He comments: "I contemplated making this last section a collection of what I consider the *lousiest* cartoons I've ever drawn, but space was limited."

What an unbelievable book! This is a dream come true for fans of The Far Side! In it, you will witness: 1. Gary Larson's strange childhood. 2. Nature's Way, a sort of early version of The Far Side that appeared in The Seattle Times. 3. Gary Larson's creative process, which is very creative indeed! 4. A sketchbook of drawings and ideas that never made it past the initial stage, including some that would definitely have been winners. 5. Background stories on certain panels and random ideas. 6. Mistakes that either Gary or the newspaper editors made. Some of these are unbelieveable! Prepare to bust a gut! 7. Subtleties which make him wonder why he did certain things. Things he wished he wouldn't have done and things he wished he would have done. 8. Public responses to some of his more controversial and/or confusing panels. This features a very cool reply to all of his critics. 9. Rejected cartoons; the weirdest of the weird and the grossest of the gross. Some were obviously not going to be printed and some will make you wonder why they weren't. The times are definitely a-changin'! 10. The Exibit: some of Gary's personal favorites. Interesting choices. As I stated earlier, this is an ABSOLUTE MUST OWN for anyone who is a fan or can appreciate a little weirdness now and then. Your Far Side collection is not even close to being complete if you don't buy this book!

If you have ever wondered how Gary Larson started coming up with ideas for "The Far Side," this book offers a retrospective back to Gary's childhood days. The book is divided into five portions. The first portion takes Gary's past from his first drawings to syndication of "The Far Side." Along the path was a pre-Far Side comic called "Nature's Way."

In the second part of the book Gary offers his original sketches and captions in comparison to how the comics actually came out. In most cases the final version was better, but not always. At the end of this portion of the book is a short section titled "stories" that is what it says, comics with a lengthy caption that is at the very least a short story. In some cases the caption could be a novel, if you think about the concept very long, which I do not recommend. You might suffer further brain damage.

The third part is really interesting. It shows how Gary or newspapers made mistakes. The mistakes were often subtle, sometimes blatant. Some of the more interesting mistakes happened when the caption of adjacent comic was switched with that of "The Far Side."

The fourth portion of the book was humorous independent of the comics. Gary offers comments from various people offended by his art. Considering the art and the comments offered, I suggest that in many cases people saw something that was not there, which makes me wonder where THEIR mind was at. In other cases, people need to remember that Gary is offering a perspective on the world, in comparison to how people see things. It does not mean that Gary is interested in actually seeing the things in his comics happening; usually.

The fifth and last portion of the book offers Gary's favorites. I concur that most of them brought a smile to my face, and in a few cases an out right laugh.

Gary Larson succeeds in thinking outside the box, something that he does with great regularity. I suspect that he would be great at inventing. Of course, he is a self-described nerd, and I believe it. He also seems quite pleased that his comics find substantial popularity amongst scientists. Probably engineers too. If you think "The Far Side" is one of the greatest comics ever created, you will love this collection for its explanations. I recommend this collection highly for Far Side fans.

Larson writes in his introduction: "What the reader will find herein is a collection of the Far Side's birth and evolution". He proves that by first showing us some of his drawings as a kid that even then show Larson as the warped genius he would become albeit without the subtlety his best work would display (IE: One of his childhood cartoon is of a boy being fangled over an alligator pit at the zoo by his father).

From there, we fast forward to Larson's early adult life where he is working at a retail music store. One day he came to realize that his job was the pits and so he decided to try to break into the world of cartooning. He started out by drawing strips for small regional publications in the Pacific Northwest. Until 1979, when he began drawing Nature's Way for the Seattle Times. Nature's Way was the precursor to the Far Side and Larson feared that there might be trouble early on when he discovered that his strip, with its decidedly adult oriented humor, was placed next to Junior Jumble.

A year later, Larson decided to try to expand his strip beyond one newspaper and went to San Francisco where he succeeded in placing it with the Chronicle. Ironically, one day after the strip was accepted, the Seattle times axed Nature's Way ("I knew it shouldn't have been next to Junior Jumble" Larson grouses). The strip is re-christened the Far Side and makes its debut a week later. Before long it appears in other newspapers. When Larson's contract expired in 1984, he moved to Universal Press Syndicate.

From there, Larson proceeds to take us inside his creative process and show us what was going on in his mind when he drew his comics. We also get a tasty sampling of mistakes Larson made as well as mistake his editors made and a list of angry letters from readers furious about certain comics and strips that the syndicate decided not to publish. And lastly, there is a selection of some of Larson's favorite strips.

You can pick up Prehistory Of The Far Side at any point and laugh your rear end off (even if you're not a horse). While we may miss the enjoyment of reading a new Far Side strip each day in our daily newspaper, we still have collections such as this one to remind us of the good times. Another Amazon quick-pick I recommend is the unusual and hilarious THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez