This seventy years of life translates into seven and a half kilograms. So a lot of the 2003 published edition of the cartoon series “The Far Side weighs”. They made their signatories, the American Gary Larson, famous, but much more than that, you don’t know about him. Larson lives in solitude, it has been around for 35 years, no photos of him, and the work of daily “Far Side” he found after fifteen years of runtime on 1.January 1995. At that time, she has appeared worldwide in nearly two thousand Newspapers and magazines in Germany, it was popular especially due to the reprint in the “star”. Even today, some former customers from printing old easy to follow, always more to do; this is The Far Side is similar to the Comic Strip series “Peanuts” and “Calvin & Hobbes”, which also run in Newspapers, even though it has been around for decades, no new Material.
Andreas platthaus
editor responsible for the literature and literary life.
F. A. Z.
Comics Gary Larson wanted to draw, his love was the single image. This came to him as a narrative principle, because a Comic Strip with multiple Panels would be required to draw the figures again and again exactly the same. Larson was self-taught, after studying communication Sciences, (once he, himself, has claimed: biology) he tried in his home state of Washington as a Gag cartoonist for local Newspapers and titled his ideas of “Nature’s Way”.
in it already, some of what later was to “characterize The Far Side” was, especially the corruption of the human Supremats about nature. In the case of Larson’s animals, how people interact, but only in unguarded moments, and then, unfortunately, as stupid as we are. It is as if he wanted to be the idealistic knowledge model George Berkeley’s eighteenth-century use: What we see, is non-existent. In Larson’s Interpretation: While we see something, it can be quite different than we think. This approach corresponds far more to the current understanding of the world of science. And from him, frantic Comedy was the result.
“Watch out! I am married to an anthropologist,”
the daily newspaper “San Francisco Chronicle”, the Larson 1979 suggested for a daily Comic-detected to draw the Strip. But from the single image principle, he did not want to leave. And also a “standing figure”, as it was suggested to him at first, he refused, because that would have exacerbated his Problem with the position of the continuous figure of similarity, of course, still. Rather, Larson Episode should go to Episode its protagonists. All the more remarkable that he created, nevertheless, thanks to the characteristic of thin ink lines and, above all, the striking of a table tennis ball eyes of his characters with such a distinctive style, that he was finally able to make any shape of natural or cultural history of his. Larson’s cows and snakes have become emblematic, such as his cave-people, or scientists. Even if popular players such as Frankenstein, Superman, or the Three kings give a guest performance in the “Far Side”, you are immediately a typical Larson-heroes – graphically, but also because they are shown here in a completely different light than usual. We see their us facing away from the side (far side).
just as the Finale of his series, Larson has been unfaithful twice: It consisted of two images, and it is told of him self. In the first – colored – image, he adopted his now world-famous character menagerie. In the second, black-and-white, he is then in bed, to the grouped a little people ensemble with the same facial features, and Larson told the wild gesticulating of a dream world, in which all of them would look exactly like the Gathered here from the right. The is in theme, word choice and Form (the changing of color of white-to-black) a spoof on the movie “The wizard of Oz” and at the same time, the most in-depth self-report, given by Larson, the.
The equally ludicrous as abysmal Humor of the “Far Side” is fed straight out of their extreme proximity to our everyday life, and the quote from treasure of the series is not limited to, High and pop culture, but also uses the life experiences of their author. As an example, a typical American suburb may serve residents, the move to its neighbor over the garden fence: “Watch out! I am married to an anthropologist. Which can cause you a lot of trouble!“ The superficial joke: The gemaßregelte neighbor is a caveman. The underground: Gary Larson is actually married to an anthropologist. Celebrating today somewhere far away from us with him on his seventieth birthday.
