Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist who created The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years.
[1] Larson was born and raised in University Place, Washington, in suburban Tacoma,[1] the son of Verner, a car salesman, and Doris, a secretary.
[2] Dan played pranks on Gary, for example by taking advantage of his fear of monsters under the bed by waiting in the closet for the right moment to pounce.
They caught animals in Puget Sound and placed them in terrariums in the basement, and also made a small desert ecosystem.
[8] According to Larson in his 1989 anthology The Prehistory of The Far Side,[9] he was working in a music store[5] when he took a few days off, after finally realizing how much he hated his job.
[9] Unlike Charles Schulz, who resented the name Peanuts imposed by his publisher, Larson had no such qualms, saying, "They could have called it Revenge of the Zucchini People, for all I cared."
For instance, a father explains to his son that a bird song is a territorial marking common to the lower animals, while surrounded by fences and dense housing.
One strip depicts a family of spiders driving in a car with a "Have a Nice Day" bumper sticker, featuring a smiley face with eight eyes.
A representative from the Jane Goodall Institute thought that this was in bad taste and wrote a critical letter to Larson regarding the cartoon.
[1] The significance of many of Larson's cartoons resulted in a major display of over 400 of his original works at the California Academy of Sciences in 1985.
The main plot is told by the young worm's father and follows the beautiful (but slightly dim) human maiden Harriet, who takes a stroll across a woodland trail, encountering different aspects of the ecological world.
[18] Larson drew a cover for the November 17, 2003, edition of The New Yorker magazine, an offer he felt was too prestigious to refuse.
On March 15, 1989, a newly discovered insect species was named after Larson by Dale H. Clayton, head of the Committee of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago.
An 8" × 11" (20 × 28 cm) magnification of the insect appeared in the Prehistory of the Far Side 10th anniversary compilation, along with the letter requesting permission to use his name.
[5] Eighteen years after earning his bachelor's degree at Washington State, Larson gave the commencement address at his alma mater in 1990.
[3][21][22][23] Since 1999, Larson has objected to his work being displayed on the internet, and has been sending takedown notices to owners of fan websites and users posting his cartoons.