Gary Larson Once Asked the Entire Internet to Stop Posting ‘The Far Side’ Strips

Despite being on the cutting edge of science and technology within the comic world, Gary Larson grew upset with the world wide web when he started seeing panels from his seminal work The Far Side pop up on the internet. Don’t have a cow, Gary.

The Far Side ran in print newspapers across America from 1979 to 1995. Seeing as Larson’s magnum opus only slightly overlapped with the dawn of AOL and dial-up internet, there was no need for the celebrated cartoonist to bother himself about The Far Side’s online footprint when he was still making it. However, The Far Side wasn’t just any comic strip, and the series has enjoyed an extended second life — both in clippings pinned to bulletin boards in public school science classrooms everywhere and on the internet, where nerds continue to come together and share our love for Larson’s distinct brand of surrealist physics jokes. 

However, in 2007, Larson, who may very well have just logged onto the internet for the first time, published an open letter asking the many Far Side fans on the internet to please stop posting his comic on various websites and image boards in the most calm and sensitive “cease-and-desist” missive in cartoon history.

In the letter, which Larson posted to the website Creators.com with the subject line “RE: Online Use of Far Side Cartoons,” the Far Side writer warned his fans that, while he found their enthusiasm for reposting his work on different websites flattering, his letter would be followed by one from his lawyers if they continued. “What impact this unauthorized use has had (and is having) in tangible terms is, naturally, of great concern to my publishers and therefore to me — but it’s not the focus of this letter,” Larson insisted. “My effort here is to try and speak to the intangible impact, the emotional cost to me, personally, of seeing my work collected, digitized and offered up in cyberspace beyond my control.”

Larson argued that, despite publishing his cartoons in hundreds of newspapers across the country for more than 15 years, he still considered his work to be too personal for it to be taken out of a context that he could control. Larson wrote, “To attempt to be ‘funny’ is a very scary, risk-laden proposition. (Ask any stand-up comic who has ever ‘bombed’ on stage.) But if there was ever an axiom to follow in this business, it would be this: be honest to yourself and — most important — respect your audience.”

“I only ask that this respect be returned, and the way for anyone to do that is to please, please refrain from putting The Far Side out on the Internet,” Larson implored his fans. “These cartoons are my ‘children,’ of sorts, and like a parent, I’m concerned about where they go at night without telling me. And, seeing them at someone’s web site is like getting the call at 2 a.m. that goes, ‘Uh, Dad, you’re not going to like this much, but guess where I am.’”

Larson closed, “Please send my ‘kids’ home. I'll be eternally grateful.”

Of course, long-time Far Side fans will know that, in 2019, Larson finally launched TheFarSide.com, an online platform for his beloved series that features daily throwback posts and free collections of old comics for Far Side fans across the web. Larson announced the website in an even wordier open letter wherein he stopped short of calling each Far Side panel one of his children. After all, it’s a little messed up to post pictures of your kids online for the entertainment of strangers.