https://www.thefarside.com/2026/09/30/4
Caption:
“Uh-oh, Ruby. ... The apartment downstairs is awfully quiet.”
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this post was submitted on 30 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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I find the (seeming) starfield below a confusing addition, but Larson didn't seem to be in to hatching or grey-tones to indicate light levels... I guess.
The "rug with concentric patterns" was his Achilles heel for a long time - one of his book collections has a gallery where he's fouled them up - and I see he's bust one out in this cartoon. Probably decided to quit with large area of solid colour while he's ahead.
I'm not sure I understand about the "rug," but just to be clear-- I'm seeing a hole in the floor caused by a piano that crashed through. Instead of drawing an apartment below that logically should be lit up at least somewhat from the apt above, I'm seeing the 'starfield.' The lamp sticking up is almost insult to injury. 😄
If you look on the right side of the comic, you'll see a rug that is only half in frame. The commenter is discussing how Gary Larson (the cartoonist) has explained that he struggles with drawing that style of rug (and in this instance, it isn't even fully drawn, probably on purpose). The commenter then explained that, because of the difficulty, Gary Larson probably just said "good enough" when drawing the downstairs apartment.
The power of belief really is fascinating...
Some drawing techniques make it hard to fill in areas fully so many artists just don't bother
I don't really see much challenge here. Just draw some simple lines indicating an apt below, and you're done. It just means the lights are on down there, which is a reasonable take given that the implied joke is that the piano crushed someone.
Or if you want to get 'fancy,' Larson already has some hatching lines on the side of the TV and the building opposite. Just use something like that. Literally any of those things would have looked more natural than the 'starfield,' altho I must confess I kind of like it just because it looks so out of place!