this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2026
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The Far Side
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Hello fellow Far Side fans!
About this community and how I post the comic strip… Many moons ago, I would ask my Dad to save the newspaper for me everyday so I could read my favorite comic strips and one of those was The Far Side. These days of course you find just about anything online including www.thefarside.com where they post several comics a day and I repost them here. Just to note, the date you see in my posts is not the initial release date, but the date they were posted on the website.
The Far Side is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world, logical fallacies, impending bizarre disasters, (often twisted) references to proverbs, or the search for meaning in life… Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Side
Hope you enjoy and feel free to contribute to the community with art, cool stuff about the author, tattoos, toys and anything else, as long it’s The Far Side!
Ps. Sub to all my comic strip communities:
Bello Bear !BelloBear@lemmy.world https://lemmy.world/c/bellobearofficial
Bloom County !bloomcounty@lemm.ee https://lemm.ee/c/bloomcounty
Calvin and Hobbes !calvinandhobbes@lemmy.world https://lemmy.world/c/calvinandhobbes
Cyanide and Happiness !cyanideandhappiness https://lemm.ee/c/cyanideandhappiness
Garfield !garfield@lemmy.world https://lemmy.world/c/garfield
The Far Side !thefarside@sh.itjust.works https://lemmy.world/c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works
Fine print: All comics I post are freely available online. In no way am I claiming ownership, copyright or anything else. This is a not for profit community, we just want to enjoy our comics, thank you.
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From examples I found, it's not usually that periodic, but some mantis species make a very scratchy sound when threatened, sometimes repeatedly, but at more irregular intervals.
My yard is full of praying mantises, but they are usually dead quiet, I've never heard one make a noise (I try not to bother them). It's definitely not a common trope sound like crickets.. I was hoping there was some nature documentary that aired in the early 80s that featured a mantis sound that Larson might have seen, that could have inspired this cartoon idea, but so far can't find a specific one. There was an episode of Life on Earth from 1979 (presented by David Attenborough of course) about insects that featured some mantis stuff, and lots of insect sounds in the background, but not a specific mantis sound (they seem to play a cricket sound during the mantis scene in the background)
There was also a song "Praying Mantis" released in 1985 by Don Dixon that featured praying mantises in the video, but can't connect that one of the strip either :)
I suppose it's also possible that is supposed to be a cricket rather than a mantis.. or that Larson didn't really differentiate between them or their sounds, and it might have been as broad as "insect interested in insect sounds"
Edit: I had an alternate thought - maybe the mantis wants to eat a cricket ! :) But then the connection to his master's voice is weakened.. oh well, dissecting jokes really does kill them...
I don´t know, I kind of love these little research rabbit holes we go down here.