The Far Sideis often treated like it had no predecessors, butas creator Gary Larson acknowledged, it actually had several significant influences, including the work of the artist Gahan Wilson. In fact, onceFar Sidefans get a look at Wilson’s work, they won’t be able to ignore the similarities to Larson’s art and comedic style.
InThe Complete Far Side, Larson cited Gahan Wilson as a primary influence on his cartoons, but Wilson’s work, and his contribution to the creation ofThe Far Side, often goes underappreciated.
The cartoons collected here offer a sampling of Wilson’s work, which show the broad range of inspiration Gary Larson drew from it to produceThe Far Side.
10It’s A “You Problem,” Not A “Them Problem” In This Dark Gahan Wilson Cartoon
For Fans Of The Far Side’s Anthropomorphic Animals And Psychological Humor
This Gahan Wilson cartoon evokes theunsettling feeling produced by many classicFar Sidecartoons. The image featuresa man in a trench coat, looking visibly distressed, surrounded by stuffed toy bears. That includes one who holds his hand, as she turns to him and says “face it, Edwin, it isn’t that we’ve all turned into teddy bears.”
“It’s that you’ve gone crazy,” the bear, presumably his wife, says to “Edwin.” As a punchline, this might lack some of the nuance of Gary Larson’s later jokes, but the premise is very evocative ofFar Side.As with much of Wilson’s work, its influence on Larson’s career is evident, though it is perhaps more spiritual, and less empirical, here.
9Gary Larson’s Predecessor Produces A Classic Prehistoric Punchline
For Fans Of The Far Side’s Caveman Comics
Prehistoric hijinx were one of the essential staples ofThe Far Side, and this comic demonstrates that Gary Larson’s use of this trope had a direct ancestor in the form of Gahan Wilson’s cartoons. This feels like a joke that Larson could easily have made, if Wilson hadn’t first, in whicha caveman tries to be trendy by adopting giant tusks.
“Everybody else is doing it,” the cave-dweller says, in response to a skeptical fellow biped, as sabertooth tiger and wooly mammoth loom in the background. It is a silly, simple joke, one that is a clear predecessor toThe Far Sidein both style and tone, while also prefiguring Larson’s artistic style.
8Gahan Wilson Serves Up A Classic Far Side-Style Joke That Is Up There With Gary Larson’s Best
For Fans OfThe Far Side’s"Lost In The Desert" Comics
This Gahan Wilson comic is almost identical to many that Gary Larson would later produce. The"crawling through the desert" set-up was aFar Sideclassic, one that Larson evidently lifted directly from his biggest influence, Wilson’s work. Here, a pair of poor souls, dehydrated nearly to death,get a bad sign for their survival, in the form of a burnt skeleton.
“Looks like we can’t expect to find much in that direction,” one character says to the other, as they all-but resign themselves to the same fate as the skeleton. It is a bleakly funny punchline thatThe Far Sidewould riff on dozens upon dozens of times in subsequent years, but the kernel of it started here.
7Gahan Wilson Reminds Readers What They Really Have To Do To “Make It” As An Artist
For Fans OfThe Far Side’sMusician Comics
In addition to being an author and artist,Gary Larson was a musician himself, and as such,The Far Sidewas full of jokes poking fun at musicians.This likely would have been the case regardless of Larson’s influences, but still, even this has its precedent in the art of Gahan Wilson.
The Far Side Complete Collection
Here, he makes a joke about an orchestra conductor that rivalsThe Far Side’sbest. As the conductor raises his wand in the air,he looks down at his sheet music booklet, but where there should be the song, it is instead scribbled “fake it,“a hilarious dig at an otherwise serious artistic profession.
6Abraham Lincoln Resorts To Cue Cards In This Joke That Feels Straight Out Of The Far Side
For Fans OfThe Far Side’sHistorical Comedy
Far Sidefans know thatGary Larson loved to lampoon real history, and over the years, that included several spoofs on Abraham Lincoln’s legendary Gettysburg Address. In effect, all of those were responses to Gahan Wilson’s earlier take on the same premise, in whicha man holds up cue cards for Lincoln with the speech on them.
What this exemplifies is the way Larson lifted more than just specific ideas from Wilson’s oeuvre; he adapted the earlier artist’s entire modus operandi, which involved mashing together the familiar and unfamiliar, mixing up the real and the surreal, and intertwining the factual and the absurd, like he did with this Lincoln cartoon.
5Gahan Wilson Introduces Death To Fine Dining In A Joke That Evokes Familiar Far Side Feelings
For Fans OfThe Far Side’sGrim Reaper Jokes
The Far Side’shumor is infamously macabre, because Gary Larson wasn’t afraid to joke about death, and that extended tojokes about the personification of Death, in the form of the Grim Reaper. Here, Gahan Wilson set a precedent for this, with a panel featuring the Reaper trying to get seated at a busy restaurant.
“Relax,” the Reaper tells an absolutely terrified maître d', “all I want is a good table”; it is almost spooky how much this feels like aFar Sidecartoon, in both its visual style, especially the look of terror on the face of the man confronted by Death, and its “out there” brand of comedy.
4Like Many Great Far Side Panels, This Gahan Wilson Cartoon Makes Surgeons Its Target
For Fans OfThe Far Side’sJokes About Doctors
WithThe Far Side, Gary Larson frequently pulled back the curtain and depicted the “truth” of what goes on in the operating rooms.The Far Side’shilarious jokes about surgeonsfollow the exact blueprint set by Gahan Wilson cartoons like his one, in which the gravity of the act of surgery is undermined by unexpected frivolity.
Here, that amounts to the doctors following an instruction manual the way one would when assembling Ikea furniture, with the caption reading, “okay, now put Tab A into Slot B.“It is a joke that relies on demystifying the seriousness and confidence associated with surgeons, a successful trick Larson learned from his predecessor.
3Gahan Wilson Pioneered Turning Ordinary Household Objects Into Unexpected Danger
For Fans OfThe Far Side’sAnthropomorphic Object Comics
This Gahan Wilson illustration exhibits two familiar qualities ofThe Far Side. The first isGary Larson’s tendency to anthropomorphize random household objects. The other is Larson’s knack for turning the ordinary into the outrageous. In this comic,a woman cowers behind her husband as he empties a plate into a garbage can with a mouth, including teeth and tongue.
“I wish to God you’d get rid of that thing,” the wife says. The idea of average items coming to life and becoming carnivorous was something Gary Larson returned to repeatedly during his career, with panels that featured mailboxes devouring mail carriers, saxophones biting their players, and more, and it all started with Larson’s exposure to Wilson’s work.
2Gahan Wilson Confirms That Nothing Comes Between A Man And His “Death Ray”
“What do you think you’re going to do with your silly death ray once you’ve finished it?” a woman nags her husband. This Gahan Wilson cartoon shares so much DNA withThe Far Side, most notably itsmelding of one familiar trope, the bickering married couple, with another, the mad inventor trope.Many ofGary Larson’s comics would follow this formula, to great comedic effect.
The similarities between Wilson’s work and Larson’s highlight the fact thatThe Far Sidedidn’t completely come out of nowhere, while also showcasing the ways in which Larson’s cartoon innovated on the trailblazing work done by Gahan Wilson. If anything,The Far Sidetook ideas like this one and ran with them.
1Gahan Wilson And Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” Both Routinely Tapped Into Paranoia For Comedic Effect
For Fans OfThe Far Side’sTherapy Jokes
This hysterical Gahan Wilson gag embodies the spirit of the phrase “just becasue you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you,” by depicting a therapist who inquires about his patient’s belief in a “plot to get [him],” while simultaneously ushering two highly shady looking figures into the room, seemingly confirming the patient’s fears.
The Far Sidemade many jokes about therapists, as well, but once more, what is notable here is the shared vibe between Wilson’s humor and Gary Larson’s. The way the joke here validates the character’s paranoia, while delivering an almost downright spooky image, is totally in the vein ofThe Far Side, showcasing the iconic cartoon’s biggest influence at its best.
