![]() Once we did, we collectively unleashed one of the most powerful forms of social media communication around: the meme.Īnd though Larson was nowhere to be found at the birth of that essential mainstay of internet culture (perhaps he was hiding among a flock of sheep or stranded on a desert island with his duck-nemesis), The Far Side is arguably one of the strongest influences, conscious or unconscious, on the meme’s single-image, multi-layered comedic cultural critique. But after a few floundering years where it mostly consisted of government websites and porn, the digital landscape finally spread its wings, and we figured out how instant communication with those across campus (and the world) could fundamentally change the way humans shared ideas. The internet could barely have been said to be a “thing” when Larson drew his last syndicated comic. People who grew up on his comics still referenced them to each other as a sort of shared cultural language and pored through his book collections revisiting old favorites, and their senses of humor, forever stamped by Larson’s style, looked for new outlets of expression. But though he stopped publishing new material in the mid-1990s, Larson’s comedic influence didn’t wane. Then, in 1995, Larson suddenly, in Willy Wonka fashion (Gene Wilder, not Johnny Depp, obvs), shuttered the proverbial doors of his operation. ![]() The Far Side, created by Gary Larson, seemed less like the product of a single mind and more like an endlessly expanding universe that would never stop churning out delightfully off-beat comic content. If you were a serious fan with some extra babysitting scratch you might have had the yearly Off-The-Wall calendar, too, made up of 365 individual squares of paper that you’d tear away each day to reveal a new comic (and possibly tape along the wall above your bed like some sort of shrine-to-cartoon-absurdism headboard - don’t judge me). In the late 1980s, it seemed like every self-proclaimed budding suburban middle-school intellectual worth their salt had Far Side books crammed into every nook and cranny of their bedroom bookshelf. ![]()
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