Let’s get less serious today. It happens to be the birthday of my favorite cartoonist. I know this information may not be useful in a History class, but I know some of you who read this are fans, too.
In 1976, Gary Larson was a struggling jazz guitarist who had just lost out on the chance to join a big band in Seattle. To cope with his frustration, he spent the weekend drawing animal cartoons (something he had been doing since childhood). He took them to a small California wildlife magazine and it bought the lot. He took a job as an animal cruelty investigator (accidentally running over a dog on the way to the interview) and one day a reporter from the Seattle Times noticed the drawings in his notebook. He showed them to his editor who hired him to do a strip called “Nature’s Way”. Unfortunately, the panels ran next to the childrens’ crossword puzzle and the sometimes scandalous cartoons riled parents. The strip was cancelled. Luckily, Larson had just shown the cartoons to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle who loved them. They renamed the cartoon and the rest is history.
Here is some trivia:
1. His love for animals goes back to his boyhood where he collected amphibians and had pet snakes.
2. He started in biology in college, but switched to communications because he worried what he would do with a biology degree. He later said that it may have been a mistake and he would have liked to have become an entomologist.
3. He did not care when it was suggested the title of the comic be changed to “The Far Side”.
4. He refused the syndicates suggestion that he have recurring characters like most strips.
5. He was inspired by a childhood book entitled “Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat” which is about a bear that sits on other animals’ houses.
6. Entomologist Dale Clayton named a louse that bites only owls after Larson – Strigiphilus garylarsoni.
7. There are two animation specials based on his work. “Gary Larson’s Tales from the Far Side” appeared on CBS in 1994 and part II appeared in 1997.
8. Larson supports environmental and animal rights causes. In 2006, he donated all the profits from his calendar to Conservation International.
9. Larson loves jazz and plays instruments. He would listen to jazz, especially Herb Ellis, for inspiration.
10. Larson voiced himself in the Simpsons episode “Once Upon a Time in Springfield”.
11. The only non-Far Side book he has published is “There’s a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm’s Story”
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