Hater of ‘The Far Side’ Roasted By Fans on Twitter After Saying the Comic Is ‘Not Funny’
Fans of The Far Side aren’t about to let some uncultured critic get away with slandering their sacred cow.
Despite the fact that cartooning icon Gary Larson gave up his weekly comic strip The Far Side more than 30 years ago, The Far Side remains one of the most popular and well-defended comics on the internet, whether Larson likes it or not. Larson famously had to plead for Far Side fans to stop infringing upon his copyright when he learned that they were mass-posting scanned strips on websites and image boards across the internet, but long after he lost that battle, the fandom is still in his corner when it comes to the quality of The Far Side, even if they disagree on the economics of it.
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As such, when one Far Side detractor went semi-viral on Twitter late last week, the entire Far Side fandom jumped into action to prove that Larson’s iconic, surrealist comic series is just as funny as the fans are ruthless:
Clearly, the original poster underestimated the fervor that the Far Side fandom still has, even though half of them weren’t even born when Larson published his final comic strip of the series. The fact that Far Side still has enough shooters to start an absolute internet pile-on any time someone on Twitter says they don’t get the hype is a testament to the timelessness of Larson’s humor, as well as its universality.
One of the benefits of having a surreal, idiosyncratic style of comedy is that the jokes in The Far Side will never seem dated, since, even during the heyday of the series back in the 1980s, each Far Side strip seemed to be taken from a place that was outside of time itself. Both then and now, all you need to know to get the joke in a Far Side frame is a few general facts about cattle.
However, at 75 years of age, Larson probably has no idea that Far Side still has such a devoted and defensive following on Twitter. Hopefully, none of Larson’s younger family members let it slip that, 18 years after his open letter to the internet, more fans than ever are posting Far Side strips for free online — we don’t want him to have a cow over it.