The iconic Gary Larson comic The Far Side is being brought back to life nearly 25 years after Larson retired, with a newly designed website. The previous website hadn’t been touched in 19 years. The updated site promises new cartoon content as well as historic collections that ran between the years of 1980 and 1995.
If social sharing had been measured during the fifteen-year run of The Far Side, Gary Larson’s creation would rank as the “most shared” of all time. From science labs to dorm rooms, mail rooms to executive suites, The Far Side worked its way into our lives and invited us into a whole new world: brilliant, bold, and bizarre. The iconic comic panel has never been authorized to be available online. Until now.
Gary Larson's official website for The Far Side stayed virtually untouched since July 2000, a time capsule of the early web—until yesterday, when it got its first redesign in 19 years. https://t.co/u34YeMZI4H pic.twitter.com/JC775vOwfp
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) September 15, 2019
In an open letter Larson explained why he’s he’s held off on doing this for so long and voices his trepidations for moving forward in this venture.
Truthfully, I still have some ambivalence about officially entering the online world — I previously equated it to a rabbit hole, although “black hole” sometimes seems more apropos — but my change of heart on this has been due not only to some evolution in my own thinking but also in two areas I’ve always cared about when it comes to this computer/Internet “stuff”: security and graphics. …Okay, so better security is, of course, just better security. But it helps. If they wanted to, I’m sure the Russians could get inside this thing and start messing with my captions. (I know they’re thinking about it!) But the other one — the advancements in graphics — has been a big incentive for me. Man, did those old computer screens suck when it came to visual nuances.
While we’ve missed it all these years, many of us are glad The Far Side is back.
…and now for the best possible news of the day, Gary Larson is back and posting daily comics from The Far Side: https://t.co/jSra3NVgVE pic.twitter.com/bKh9mBXCyo
— fred benenson (@fredbenenson) December 17, 2019
As a kid, I felt that Gary Larson's "The Far Side" was put on this Earth to make me my 7-year-old self feel stupid for not knowing who Zsa Zsa Gabor and Jimmy Hoffa were.
The comics are now online & I look forward to experiencing that sensation once again https://t.co/toKHsFmXJA
— Seth Porges (@sethporges) December 18, 2019
And as it appears, so is Larson.
I hope you enjoy TheFarSide.com. I’m very grateful to the digital team at AMU, my longtime publisher, for all their input and hard work on this project. And for those of you who are familiar with The Far Side, and perhaps wishing it had been online before now (as opposed to those who are familiar with my work and have an opposing view), thank you for your patience. I hope all the reasons I’ve given here help explain why I’m so late to this party. But I’m finally here. And I could use a drink.
