Tuesday, January 05, 2016

The Strange Legacy of Gary Larson and THE FAR SIDE by Chris Sims



Make a list of the top five influential newspaper cartoonists of the 20th century. Just off the top of your head:

Walt Kelly
Roy Crane
Milton Caniff
Charles Schulz
Bill Watterson

This is my quick off-the-top-of-head list. OK, great choices, but Gary Larson should be there. He's one of the few cartoonists I know who "regular people" (people who are not crazy about cartooning) know by name. Heck, EVERYONE has a book of FAR SIDE cartoons. And a lot of cartoonists, pro and am, have been influenced by him. 




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1 comment:

  1. sarusa5:20 PM

    Just the sheer number of weak imitators he spawned should prove that.

    Larson owes at least a little to B. Kliban. But Larson's the one who really brought the one panel strip back after years of death by calcified fogeys like Marmaduke, Dennis the Menace (once great), Family Circus, and Heathcliff.

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