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.

founded 2 years ago

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MrSebSin@sh.itjust.works

2025-09-14 (discuss.online)

submitted 3 weeks ago by m_f@discuss.online to c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

🔗

Caption:

“Blast it, Henry! … I think the dog is following us.”

Alt text:

TAXI

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[–] m_f@discuss.online 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Some background on this comic:

Transcript:

Because The Far Side is a vertical, single-panel cartoon, I've rarely had the luxury of being able to draw long things (like whales, snakes, ships, etc.) in an accommodating shape. In general, the perspective has to be from front to rear, as opposed to side to side. (Sunday cartoons, which I started not long ago, and modified dailies are the only exceptions.)

In cartoon strips, you frequently see the latter approach—because the strip lends itself well to horizontal images. In The Far Side, as the examples on this page indicate, ships come at you head on, classrooms are view from either the front of the back, and riding in the car is often seen from the perspective of the backseat looking forward or from the windshield looking inward. I just can't draw a '59 Cadillac in profile.

I'm saying this because I drew The Far Side for years without truly being cognizant of why I approached it this way. I was just trying to figure out ways to cram things into a little rectangle. It was a friend of mine (also a cartoonist) who pointed out that I had inadvertently developed one or two drawing skills in the process.

The limitation of space I fought in the beginning ended up being the best drawing instructor I ever had.

[–] 7112@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

That was awesome.

"The limited space turned out to be the best instructor I ever had"