The Complete Far Side

When I was a kid, newspaper comics were a highlight of the day.  It was even better on Sunday, when the comics got their own section and were printed in color, and most got more space than they were usually allocated.  I read most of the comics.  I skipped over the soap opera-like ones like Rex Morgan, M.D., and thought depressing ones that seemed to focus more on the thought processes of adults (or even worse, chronically depressed female adults, such as Cathy) were just wasting space.  Most of them had their moments, but three, Calvin and Hobbes, the Far Side, and Fox Trot, were consistently funny.  Calvin and Hobbes will forever be the king of comics thanks to its amazing story lines, strong writing that was both hilarious and a source of psychologically and emotionally rich stories, and brilliant artwork, but the Far Side consistently delivered a unique, quirky brand of humor where cows and dinosaurs were thrown into everyday situations that masterfully blended everyday life with the absurd.

The Complete Far Side by Gary Larson (ISBN: 978-1-4494-6004-4) contains every single panel from the comic, which ran from 1979 to 1995.  It is not really a book, but three books in a set.  The comics are presented more or less in chronological order, so the reader can see how Larson’s style evolved during the early years.  There is really not a whole lot to include in an overview of a collection of comics, and that is the case here.  There is an eclectic collection of dinosaurs, cows (especially cows), squid, doctors, scientists, space aliens, chickens, dogs, and mailmen, among others.  The jokes range from rather macabre stuff to funny plays on words or a surrealist or absurdist take on a famous saying or proverb.  Every so often, there are pop culture references that are sometimes hard to get (at least for someone like myself who has never been big on pop culture and always has to look names and titles up when crossword puzzles reference these in clues).  The drawing style is unique with the always obese-looking characters and simply drawn animals, scenery, and other settings, but it’s a classic, and having every panel in one place is nice.

As expected, the set was amazing.  I have two complaints about it, though.  First, unlike the complete Calvin and Hobbes collection, the Far Side collection does not seem to include cover artwork from the various compilations released, so I wouldn’t really call it the “complete” collection.  Second, the layout was not very well done.  There was a ton of whitespace on each page, and it seemed to be that the cartoons were printed too small.  Other than those things, it’s an amazing read that one cannot do while others are trying to sleep or while in public: it results in way too many laugh-out-loud moments.  It’s kind of an expensive collection, even when bought as paperback instead of hardcover, it was well worth it for the laughs and nostalgia every time one opens it, even if only for a page or two of reading.

   

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