(I found this picture here.)
An explanation: Since the name Gary is going extinct, I thought it incumbent upon me to celebrate more notable Garys than myself. This is the fifth of a series!
Gary Larson is, according to the Wikipedia, "an American cartoonist, the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to over 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years, until 1995."
When did you first become aware of him? A few years after the cartoon's debut in 1980. I think one of the two Dallas papers (that existed at the time) carried it. If it were the Dallas Times Herald, which was the more liberal of the two (& which went out of business in 1991), that would make sense - that was the paper that was most often in the house.
Did you like it? I loved it. Oh my god, it was so funny.
Do you have a story about reading The Far Side at school & getting into trouble? I do! In my senior year, I had a physics class which was taught by a coach who was waaaaay over his head. A lot of the time, we just sort of sat there while he encouraged us to read. None of the experiments we were supposed to do worked as they should have - not even the teacher's. The class was my last period of the day, & one Friday, the teacher was clearly not wanting to teach, & my friend Mike Jones brought a Far Side book, & we read it together at our desks (which were, as in science classes, giant tables) & we laughed & laughed. Every cartoon seemed funnier than the last. I was laughing so much I was crying. The teacher got more & more angry until he threatened to send both Mike & me to the office if we didn't shut the hell up.
Did your appreciation of the comic change over time? I haven't read it in years, but I remember a girlfriend of mine had a collection that I read in the crapper at some point, & I was surprised how quaint it seemed. Though I did think it had funny moments.
Why do you think you felt that way? Maybe so much of what was innovative about the comic had become so much a part of the culture that it now seemed old hat. Or maybe my sense of humor had changed since high school.
It was probably the first one. I still laugh at the same dumb things.
Is his name really Gary? Wikipedia says so.
Do you know why he was named Gary? He was born in 1950. It's all Gary Cooper's fault.
Did you know there's a beetle named after him? Lucky bastard.
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