New Stuff, by Gary Larson

July 7, 2020 2:25 PM

Gary Larson has some new stuff. Supposedly inspired by a clogged pen, Larson, creator of the comic strip The Far Side, has released three new cartoons drawn with a digital tablet, featuring a modern look but very classic style and humor.
posted by biogeo (78 comments total)

It was late, and my pen was clogged.

(Thanks, I enjoyed these. Is there an RSS feed?)
posted by nat at 2:29 PM on July 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

I just wish I could find some way to warn him about that one guy with the cartoon frog avatar who comments on *every* post. I don't want to lose Larson to the Trump side.
posted by Scattercat at 2:41 PM on July 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

Yeah, ok, the very first joke really got me.Taxidermist! I've missed Larson and his particular style of humour more than I thought.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:44 PM on July 7, 2020 [18 favorites]

That last one is so weird and dark and yet also … sweet? … in a way that only Larson can deliver.
posted by Kattullus at 2:48 PM on July 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

I don't want to lose Larson to the Trump side.
posted by Scattercat

The man seems to be intelligent. Not a genius like Scott Adams, of course. :) But smart enough not to be swayed by morons.
posted by Splunge at 2:52 PM on July 7, 2020 [16 favorites]

Is anyone else having an issue with the text under the aliens comic? It cuts off at "remember, " on my computer, but I can see the whole thing on my phone.
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:55 PM on July 7, 2020

metafilter: probe and release
posted by hearthpig at 2:55 PM on July 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

2020 isn't all bad
posted by Automocar at 2:57 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

Oh god, I didn't notice he had a comment section. Please, Gary, for your own mental health, turn those off!!!
posted by Frayed Knot at 2:58 PM on July 7, 2020 [23 favorites]

I am so here for this. Larson was an artist I absolutely adored in my adolescence, and whose comedy I've not 'outgrown' in the way that I've left a lot of other comedy by the wayside. His shtick is like a Dad Joke had a baby with a Salvador Dali exhibition.
posted by Room 101 at 2:58 PM on July 7, 2020 [43 favorites]

"Taxidermist!" made me laugh out loud pretty hard. I couldn't explain why if I had to, it's a great example of the kind of thing that works only because of Larson's art style. Like, imagine the same thing but as a New Yorker cartoon, with the characteristic simplistic line art. It's basically the same format and style of joke that you see there quite commonly, but my mind's-eye version of that cartoon just isn't funny. But the taxidermied animals drawn in Larson's art style just sell it in a way that no one else could.
posted by biogeo at 3:04 PM on July 7, 2020 [15 favorites]

It is the mid 1980s. I, a child, learning to read, am also developing a sense of humour. The world I am just sensing outside my own ego is baffling, gigantic, arbitrary, frightening, sometimes hostile, sometimes sad. The far side comic says yeah that’s true, but pay attention: those things also make it funny
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:06 PM on July 7, 2020 [46 favorites]

Only 3? Darn, I was just getting warmed up.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:18 PM on July 7, 2020 [7 favorites]

The nonconsecutive numbering of the cartoons in their URLs makes me hope there's more queued up to be released over time. I tried "cheating" by entering a number in between two of them but the web developers were clearly wise to that already.
posted by biogeo at 3:22 PM on July 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

My day just got better.

and I dig the digi-art look; different, but still him.
posted by runehog at 3:23 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

It's good to see he's got the ol' fastball (the Taxidermy and the Cub Scouts one both made me laugh out loud) still, and it's neat how it's very recognizably him but modernized/updated.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:29 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

Is anyone else having an issue with the text under the aliens comic? It cuts off at "remember, " on my computer, but I can see the whole thing on my phone.

It seems to be calibrated for a specific browser (Chrome maybe?) and is not playing well on my less than a year old laptop plus minimum 18 pt font size.
posted by JawnBigboote at 3:35 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

sometimes hitting a home run and sometimes coming up with “Cow tools.” (Let’s not get into that.)

I’m glad that even he admits it.
posted by Etrigan at 3:39 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

Etrigan: "“Cow tools.”"

Gary Larson, cowtoolist
posted by chavenet at 3:42 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

Cow Tools

Imagine making a comic so bad it has it's own wikipedia page
posted by Reyturner at 3:43 PM on July 7, 2020 [12 favorites]

That last one is so weird and dark and yet also … sweet? … in a way that only Larson can deliver.

In the sense that they were being served with syrup, certainly
posted by StarkRoads at 3:53 PM on July 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

Ignore the haters. The "Cow Tools" gag is genius.
posted by ardgedee at 4:14 PM on July 7, 2020 [81 favorites]

First Berkley Breathed, now Gary Larson...

Should I be waiting with bated breath for Bill Watterson to jump on the "I now have money and am comfortable and I'm going to make funny comics on my own sweet time and schedule without worry of profit or censors" bandwagon?
posted by deadaluspark at 4:15 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]

I don't want to lose Larson to the Trump side.

We're probably safe
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:21 PM on July 7, 2020

Back in the day, some cartoonists were so popular they had their own screensaver.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:24 PM on July 7, 2020 [7 favorites]

Not getting the "Bears Eating Cub Scouts" one. Is it just what it seems like? Bears eating cub scouts? Is this some pun on the pastry "bear claw"?

I'm not getting it.

Should I be waiting with bated breath for Bill Watterson to jump on the "I now have money and am comfortable and I'm going to make funny comics on my own sweet time and schedule without worry of profit or censors" bandwagon?

I assume you are aware that he drew a week's worth of comics for Pearls Before Swine a few years ago?
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 4:35 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]

I don't think the bears cartoon is a pun, no. I think it's just regular Gary Larson output without the filters of syndication. He has a weird idea, he draws it, the end.

I'm weirded out by Watterson drawing for Pearls, honestly. Pearls has this sort of asshole-libertarian vibe that annoys me. (And it was the precipitating factor of me getting kicked out of my D&D group because I criticized the Pearls comic after the GM posted one in group chat.) I was much happier when he was praising Cul de Sac, which is just honest and joyous weird fun.
posted by Scattercat at 4:41 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

Not getting the "Bears Eating Cub Scouts" one. Is it just what it seems like? Bears eating cub scouts?

Pretty much! It turns out that bears are quite civilized.
posted by billjings at 4:51 PM on July 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

is bears eating cub scouts the cow tools of the new millenium
posted by murphy slaw at 5:21 PM on July 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

Based on the cars, it looks like these are taking place around the 1960s. Larson was born in 1950. I wonder if this is a conscious decision, or if lots of artists continue to draw the cars from their youth.
posted by scose at 5:21 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

cow tools of the new millenium

Username up for grabs
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:25 PM on July 7, 2020 [24 favorites]

Mr Larsen, if possible a short series devoted to "Bear Cutlery".

Thank You,

A Cow Tools Fan.
posted by sammyo at 5:40 PM on July 7, 2020 [11 favorites]

If you're confused by the Cow Tools cartoon, this is basically the same joke.
posted by PlusDistance at 5:57 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

biogeo, thank you for posting this! What fun to get to read new comics by Larson!

I'm emailing the general contact address to thank him.
posted by brainwane at 5:57 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don’t get the Bears eating Cub Scouts one either, which is a first for me & The Far Side, as far as I can remember.
posted by STFUDonnie at 5:59 PM on July 7, 2020

RE: Bears eating Cub Scouts, I assumed it was referencing the popular admonition to "play dead" when encountering a bear. You can tell the Cub Scouts are still fresh by their rosy cheeks.

Also, don't play dead. That just makes them angry. Bears hate being lied to.
posted by malthusan at 6:16 PM on July 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

for a while there in the 90s, it seemed like every house in which cool parents lived and every office in which cool teachers...officed...had a Far Side daily cartoon flip calendar thingy, next to the rolodex. I feel like I learned a lot of my sense of humor from those. It was also a Totem of Safety +1 sort of thing, like, you knew the grown-ups were gonna be at least a little chill if they had one of those.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:31 PM on July 7, 2020 [23 favorites]

The bears are putting honey on their cub scouts, but I suppose if you only have the one condiment to hand, you get a lot of mileage out of it.

I don’t get people not liking “cow tools.” I think it’s funny, but I enjoy absurd and incongruous things just for their own weirdness, so “cow tools” is right up my street.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 7:01 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

Cat fud. ———————>
posted by Mchelly at 7:02 PM on July 7, 2020 [54 favorites]

I assume the second one got posted in mirror image for some reason? Since the obvious American stereotype driver is in a truck with the steering wheel on the right?

Either that or Gary Larson is actually from the antiuniverse and will blow the US off the face of the Earth in a storm of gamma rays when he finally gets bored with us and steps out of his capsule, as I've always suspected.
posted by jamjam at 7:06 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

Turns out the UK is the antiuniverse, I guess.

(also, I thought bears eating cubscouts was the best of the bunch. They are children who aspire to the anthropomorphized good qualities of bears, being eaten by anthropomorphized bears. With a topping of honey. It's hilarious.)
posted by kaibutsu at 7:21 PM on July 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

I assume the second one got posted in mirror image for some reason?

Not unless the man is meant to be yelling !tsimredixaT
posted by oulipian at 7:34 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

That's why I mentioned the driver was an obvious American stereotype. Not that I expected anyone to pay attention to that.
posted by jamjam at 7:36 PM on July 7, 2020

I'm weirded out by Watterson drawing for Pearls, honestly. Pearls has this sort of asshole-libertarian vibe that annoys me.
Scattercat

If it makes you feel any better, it doesn't appear to be any kind of political statement on Watterson's part. It was arranged by a mutual friend of Watterson and Stephan Pastis, and done for a good cause:

"I thought maybe Stephan and I could do this goofy collaboration and then use the result to raise some money for Parkinson's research in honor of Richard Thompson. It seemed like a perfect convergence", Watterson told the Washington Post.

Richard Thompson is the creator of Cul de Sac and unfortunately suffers from Parkinson's. Watterson has done some work on Cul de Sac anthologies and other projects to raise money for research.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:55 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

I got one, fired it up, and lo and behold, something totally unexpected happened: within moments, I was having fun drawing again. I was stunned at all the tools the thing offered, all the creative potential it contained. I simply had no idea how far these things had evolved. Perhaps fittingly, the first thing I drew was a caveman.
Extremely enjoyed this very missed brand of wholesome, whimsical, mischievous tales.
I remember there was a post on the blue awhile back about how he had written a blog post and I remember there was something in it that made me think "oh god he's letting us know that success didn't turn him rotten, thank god".
posted by bleep at 7:56 PM on July 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

I always thought the punchline for Cow Tools was that the saw looked like it was made from that kind of flat and wide style of elk horn, and everything else just kinda flowed from that. :shrug:!
posted by rhizome at 7:56 PM on July 7, 2020

Also if Cow Tools is so bad then why does just the mention of it make me crack up after not thinking about it for 10 years.
posted by bleep at 7:58 PM on July 7, 2020 [19 favorites]

I own that giant two volume gorgeously printed display set of The Complete Far Side, but I haven't broken it out in ages. In my family, nobody else I lived with understood why I liked The Far Side. They could see my Bloom County thing, and they actively enjoyed Calvin & Hobbes, but I was alone in my Far Side appreciation.

When my husbear bought our household the Far Side collection thing, I was entirely tickled.

I should get that out and find an altar to put it on and turn one page of it every day like they do bibles in some churches.
posted by hippybear at 8:00 PM on July 7, 2020 [23 favorites]

For some reason, the bears-eating-cubscouts comic reminds me of "Bears Discover Fire," a (Hugo- and Nebula-winning) short story by Terry Bisson that was published in 1990. It opens with the calm, matter-of-fact announcement that bears have discovered fire. The bears in the short story are a lot more chill than the ones in Larson's comic, however, as they are mostly interested in building and sitting around campfires.
posted by ElKevbo at 8:08 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]

I don't think the contention is that cow tools is a bad joke in the sense that "people understood it but didn't think it was funny," but bad in the sense of "it was intended to be straightforward and easy to understand, but people didn't get it." Perhaps unsuccessful is a more accurate descriptor.
posted by Bugbread at 8:24 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

am I the only one wondering if three is all we're going to get?
posted by philip-random at 8:35 PM on July 7, 2020

Am I the only one who saw "bears eating cubscouts" and expected a cannibalism subtext?

And, just for the record, Cul de Sac's Richard Thompson passed away almost 4 years ago. If only it were in any way possible to bring him back for a few more dailies...
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:52 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

"Bears Eating Cub Scouts" o

The crackers are what makes it funny.
posted by waving at 9:14 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

I feel confident that anyone who would make a sincere apology for "Cow Tools" could never go red pill like Scott Adams.
posted by billjings at 10:43 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

This makes me so damn happy! That's it. Nothing pithy. Just unfettered damn joy.
posted by but no cigar at 11:09 PM on July 7, 2020

Re bears eating cub scouts. A bear's child is a bear cub, so someone labelled a "cub scout" would be dangerous to the bears' kids, and thus fair, uh, "game". So, that's what I thought. It could be a commentary on overwrought rationales for hunting and killing animals.
posted by sylvanshine at 11:51 PM on July 7, 2020

I like em. Also, I just remembered Bizarro by Piraro. A cousin of far side in it's style of humor.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:59 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

What? People hate Cow Tools? How bizarre. What is there to not understand about it?? A cow made some tools.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:40 AM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

Did someone say cow tools? Here’s the most amazing Little Tunny’s version (Twitter)
“self care is drawing Gary Larson's ‘cow tools’”
posted by sacchan at 4:03 AM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

When my husbear bought our household the Far Side collection thing, I was entirely tickled.
It is my dream to someday own these books, but they’re just too extravagant to justify buying them for myself. Treasure that husbear of yours.
posted by Mchelly at 5:09 AM on July 8, 2020

Aw I just loved his intro. It sounded excited and and even a bit bashful about sharing his drawings. The earnestness was really touching.

And then I got to Bears eating scouts and the juxtaposition of that heartfelt intro and this dark cartoon is delightful. It reminded me of a kid discovering drawing and experimenting with it and I think it sounds like he feels the same way.
posted by like_neon at 5:17 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

Hi I'm on Metafilter and I could over-analyze a plate of Cub Scouts
posted by gc at 5:46 AM on July 8, 2020 [19 favorites]

The man changed the way we think about cows
posted by thelonius at 6:21 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]

He's changed the way I think about cub scouts.
posted by maxwelton at 8:19 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

"The cartoon was intended to be an exercise in silliness. While I have never met a cow who could make tools, I felt sure that if I did, they (the tools) would lack something in sophistication and resemble the sorry specimens shown in this cartoon. I regret that my fondness for cows, combined with an overactive imagination, may have carried me beyond what is comprehensible to the average Far Side reader."

While I don't doubt Larson was being sincere, that 'what is comprehensible to the average Far Side reader' bit is a little.
posted by box at 8:24 AM on July 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Bears eating cub scouts is that the bears are having dinner at a table like people come on
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:25 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

So in just three comics, Larson has recapitulated his entire work:
1) The truly sublime (Taxidermist!)
2) The situation stood amusingly, if not uproariously, on its head (Aliens hunting humans)
3) Cow tools.
posted by stevis23 at 8:33 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]

I love these. I love The Far Side.

Be sure to look at the sketchbooks!

I want a collection of all his comics with cows in them. "Wendell...I'm not content" makes me laugh every time.
posted by Caxton1476 at 9:50 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]

He's changed the way I think about cow scouts.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:23 PM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Treasure that husbear of yours.

Oh, I do. Not really for that, but that helped a bit. :)
posted by hippybear at 8:09 PM on July 8, 2020

As a moderately well-known dairy scientist I’d like to clear up any misconceptions about Cow Tolls: it is hilarious and accurate!

Caxton1476, Leigh Rubin of “Rubes” fame did a special edition of his cow cartoons (“The Big Book of Moo”) and the profits go to the National Dairy Herd Information Association scholarship fund to support university and veterinary students. If only we could get Gary Larson to consider something similar...
posted by wintermind at 4:24 AM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

I mean "probe and release" is pretty funny at a 13-year-old level.

Also, apropos of nothing, the word "probe" immediately makes me think of Christopher Walken.
posted by maxwelton at 1:24 PM on July 9, 2020

Back in the mid-80s, when I was a teenager, one day my mom and I were driving through an agricultural area and saw a herd of cows standing in a field. "Do you think cows like being cows?" I mused.

She gave me a "you're weird" look out of the side of her eye and said "I don't think cows think much about being cows."

Imagine my delight a few days later when I opened the newspaper to the comics page and found the "Cowintology" cartoon. I brandished it under her nose, gleefully, saying "Look! Look! 'Are you a happy cow?'" then danced around the living room giggling as she looked exasperated.
posted by Lexica at 2:58 PM on July 9, 2020 [7 favorites]

Just one more stubborn cartoonist to coax out of retirement, and we'll have the elusive Bloom Country, Far Side, and Calvin & Hobbes trifecta. The cow paused, then hesitantly rang the doorbell...
posted by not_on_display at 10:08 PM on July 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

Not getting the "Bears Eating Cub Scouts" one. Is it just what it seems like? Bears eating cub scouts? Is this some pun on the pastry "bear claw"?

I'm not getting it.

My absolute favorite thing about The Far Side is that there's not always a "joke" to get. Usually there is, but sometimes Gary Larson clearly had an image in his head that just tickled an absurdist funnybone and he had to share it with the world. He walks the line between humor and anti-humor in a way I haven't seen done by anyone else, at least not in the cartooning world. The Far Side is one of the most frequently imitated, though never duplicated, comic strips out there, and I think that "line" between humor and anti-humor is a key to it. You can see a similar line in the aesthetic of The Far Side, too, which serves up surrealism in a normcore outfit. (I mean, New Yorker cartoons and Salvador Dalí both got shoutouts in this thread.)
posted by sugar and confetti at 6:03 AM on July 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

The man changed the way we think about cows

The Far Side is to 🐄s,
what Star Trek IV is to 🐋s.
posted by blueberry at 6:36 AM on July 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Cow Tools revived the dada movement.
—CAT FUD
posted by not_on_display at 11:21 AM on July 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

That's really an interesting way to put it, blueberry, especially since between Larson's retirement and now, scientists have come to believe that whales evolved from cowlike ancestors of today's cows.
posted by jamjam at 4:54 PM on July 11, 2020