The Complete Far Side

I’ve enjoyed “The Far Side” for years, and having The Complete Far Side collection in one volume is an absolute treasure. This compilation brings together all of Gary Larson’s brilliantly quirky comics in a single, beautifully printed edition, making it perfect for both longtime fans and newcomers alike. What stands out is Larson’s unique sense of humor and creativity. Every page delivers a mix of absurdity, wit, and clever observation of human (and animal) behavior. Some cartoons make you laugh out loud, others make you pause and think. And the variety is endless!!! The quality of the book itself is impressive. The print is crisp, the pages are sturdy, and the binding feels durable, which is perfect for repeated flipping and sharing with friends or family. I’ve even used it as a conversation starter on my coffee table. It’s both entertaining and visually engaging. Whether you’re a fan of classic Far Side comics or discovering them for the first time, this collection captures the genius of Larson’s humor in a way that smaller compilations simply can’t. It’s a perfect gift for anyone who appreciates clever, offbeat comedy, and it’s a volume I’ll return to again and again for a guaranteed laugh. Highly recommended for comic lovers, humor enthusiasts, or anyone looking to brighten their day with a little absurd brilliance.

I have long been a fan of the Far Side, but I was always disappointed by the fact Gary Larson's humor was spread out across multiple volumes, and that even if you were willing to purchase all of those books, there was no guarantee you had every one of his cartoons. When the complete collection came out in hardback, I was sorely tempted to purchase it, but its high price and my college student-sized budget deterred me from placing an order. Now that I have graduated and it is available in paperback for half the price, I readily shelled out my money for a copy. To be clear, this is an edition well worth its cost. Even though in paperback, the binding is firm and the cartoons are printed on a high quality, glossy paper. It also comes with a nice slipcase to fit the volumes in. There are three volumes in total: the first volume covers the cartoon's first strips in 1980 through 1984, the second is from 1984 to 1988, and the final third covers 1988 to the series' conclusion in 1994. Each volume is approximately four hundred pages in length. Needless to say, the strips are printed in chronological order, typically three or four to a page. Each year is also divided by a little essay by Larson explaining the evolution of a particular drawing or telling a humorous story relating to his craft. Because I have seen only a few interviews by him, I felt this gave the book a personal sense of the author. Also, in the earliest strips Larson would frequently draw in black-and-white (with the occasional color Sunday strip), but as time went on the cartoons increasingly became color almost every day. As for the cartoons themselves, it is nice to finally have an official complete version. Often on the Internet there are cartoons that are visually similar to Larson and claim him as their progenitor, but if you do not see it in this book, then it is safe to assume it is a fake. The same goes for some of the cartoons that have altered coloring to try and escape copyright enforcement by Mr. Larson's attorneys. The humor of Mr. Larson is obviously somewhat "far out" and has probably warped my own worldview, but there were many occasions in these books when I found myself laughing out loud. Mr. Larson does not aim for the lowest common denominator, so while some cartoons' punchlines are immediately understandable, a few leave you saying, "What the...?" for a few moments before figuring it out. On one or two rare occasions, I simply had to admit defeat and move on to the next one. Fortunately, however, those occasions are rare and Mr. Larson actually includes little explanations (and sometimes hate mail) for some of his most challenging pieces. As a side note, while Mr. Larson's humor is bizarre, I think these are actually good books for children. Mr. Larson respects his audience and uses relatively advanced scientific and historical topics as the basis for jokes on some occasions, and he avoids any vulgarity (it is a newspaper comic, after all) that would worry parents of younger kids. Most of the cartoons match the size of the originals, but a few are very slightly smaller. As a final note, the forward mentions there are over four thousand strips in this book, and you would expect the editors to have missed a few. Apparently, however, they are all there except for a few small pieces from Larson's collection Wiener Dog Art. If you are looking to interest a young person in cartooning, or simply looking to find a nice gift for a close friend, this is an excellent collection to buy that will guarantee its reader hours of laughs.

Funny as hell...

I ordered this from used books. The set is in absolute perfect condition. A beautiful collection of the artists work, many in full color. They are HEAVY though. I great deal from the used books in very good condition at a great discount. I am so excited to be giving this to my Dad who loves The Far Side. He is 85 and I get him the peel off calendar every year for Christmas. He will absolutely love this. I can't wait to give this to him on Valentine's Day.

I’ve been ponderin’ buying The Complete Far Side: 1980-1994 Hardcover - Box set for years. Too pricey. Maybe I could collect all the cartoons buying the other cheaper Far Side collections. Perhaps I should buy the softcover version and save a buck. I’m not a deer hunter, so saving a buck seemed ideal. Though a fan of Gary Larson and The Far Side, did I really need the Complete Far Side to complete my life? Still was wonderin’ when I realized that I could still possess a first edition copy. First Edition!!! Go ahead. Take the plunge. Spend the money. Possessed. All in. And now I have it. Mine. All mine. Until death do us part. Not sharing’ it with anybody. Go get your own copy. I’m gonna take care of it. Baby it. Treasure it. No one is going to spill a lotta Latte on my book. No drool, but mine, on my copy. The book states it contains every Far Side cartoon ever created by Gary Larson. Over 4,000 cartoons. 1100 of ‘em never ever published in any book, like, redundantly, ever. What? So if you want it all, this is the only way to get it. This comes in 2 volumes: 1980 - 1986 and 1987 - 1994. The 3 volume softcover edition most likely lacks the quality of the hardcover. Beautiful beautiful slipcase. Nice nice hardcovers. Excellent excellent binding. Quality quality paper stock. Super size my 5 star rating please. I just want to sing - It ain’t heavy, it’s my Far Side Collection. Weighs 19.8 lbs. Worth the De Niro. In short, if you are a fan of Gary Larson and The Far Side, buy it - whether it’s the hardcover version or the soft cover version, get ‘er done, and buy it. You won’t be sorry. It’s like early Christmas. Noel. Ove Gary arson. Ove The Far Side. Ove it. Ove it. Ove it!

Because Gary Larson's "The Far Side" cartoons didn't appear in my newspaper, I never saw them as they came out. Instead, I'd see them tacked to office cubicle walls, or on greeting cards, or desktop calendars, or coffee mugs -- in short, all over the place. It didn't take me long to become a big Larson fan. When I first came across "The Complete Far Side" a year ago, in a local book store, it was set up on the kind of display stand normally reserved for encyclopedias, major dictionaries, and other scholarly works of that sort. As I reverently turned the pages, laughing at just about everything I saw, my hands got really sweaty. ("Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease!") It was mighty pricey. It was HUGE. Where am I going to PUT this thing??? No, I really can't .... and I'd walk away, looking back longingly. So I thought about it for a full year, watching sales come and go, and the books disappear for a time, only to reappear, and finally I broke down and ordered them from Amazon. The shipment box comes with a prominent "warning, heavy contents" sticker. Larson calls it an "18-pound hernia giver". Page "xxi" in Volume One shows a full-page cartoon of the books being assembled with a crane. You get the idea. And I still had to figure out where to put them. They won't fit on any of my bookshelves. They're much too big for the coffee table. Under my bed? The monsters would eat them, and the crunching would keep me awake. Finally I hit upon the ideal solution: I slung them onto my dresser, between my "Compact Oxford Dictionary" and the filing cabinet. Interesting note: the two-volume microprint dictionary comes in its own display case, complete with magnifying glass, and turns out to be EXACTLY the same height and depth as "The Complete Far Side". So they look really nice together. The display case itself is very attractive, with a picture of cooks hunting flying cows on one side, and a "family portrait" of some of Larson's stock characters on the other side: the Neanderthal, the nerdy-looking boy, the mad scientist, the woman with horn-rimmed glasses, a snake, and a praying mantis, to name just a few. The cover of Volume One has a portrait looking like a parody of Queen Elizabeth I or a contemporary, in a stately dress; Volume Two has the same portrait, this time of a cow. Inside the covers of each book are sketches of "Cow Town", sort of what the seedy part of town might look like in a bovine-dominated civilization. And then there are the cartoons themselves. They're arranged roughly in chronological order. At the start of each year is an essay written by Larson, describing various fascinating aspects of his formative years along with how he came up with some of his ideas. Right before each essay is a two-page panoramic cartoon with the year emblazoned on it. For instance, 1981 has "When Cows Ruled the Earth", one of my favorites. Interspersed with the daily cartoons are various letters, ranging from the puzzled ("What does the Cow Tools cartoon mean???") to the admiring, to the utterly outraged ("Gary Larson is sick, sick, sick!!!") And then there was the infamous 1987 "Jane Goodall Tramp" cartoon, which, as it turns out, Dr. Goodall enjoyed a great deal. It can be a great honor to find oneself in a "Far Side" cartoon. True, Larson's cartoons aren't for everyone. Some of them are pretty outrageous, like the one of the alligator being shooed out of the nursery ("Heaven knows how he keeps getting in here, Betty, but you better count 'em"), or the one where the doctors are testing babies for static cling. Any number of animal and human characters throughout the years meet their untimely demise in various bizarre and creepy ways, be it the man-eating mailbox, the giant Venus flytrap disguised as a swing set, or the cows waiting not-so-patiently in line at Anderson's meat-packing plant. ("Hey! You! ... No cutting in!") As time permits, usually at bedtime, I've been leafing through the books page by page, with note paper handy, writing down the page number and date of any cartoon that strikes my fancy, from my favorite classics to ones I've seen for the very first time. A significant number of them are in color, including hundreds which Larson went back and redid, all the way back to 1980 -- the first year of publication. The color ones tend to be the best, as the details stand out better. As Larson gets more and more comfortable with drawing the cartoons, they tend to get funnier. As a result, I have three pages of notes for Volume One, and twice that many for Volume Two. There are only two things I wish the books had. The first is, admittedly, unrealistic: an index by cartoon caption and another by topic (cows, chickens, cave men, aliens, etc.) But, they'd probably have to be micro-printed to fit in a two-volume work, so never mind. My second wish is more doable, and in fact does come with the Oxford: pull tabs, for coaxing the volumes out of the box. As it is, the operation consists of sliding the case to the front of the dresser, tipping it forward ... ever ... so ... gingerly, and trying to catch the books before they fall onto my foot and break a toe or something. But these are minor quibbles. If you're at all a fan of "The Far Side", and have the money and the room, you'll want these books. They're great for endless hours of entertainment. My one warning: don't try to read these while you're recovering from abdominal surgery. It will hurt.

excellent compilation

The quality of this two volume set is comparable to a fine library reference book. Each book is 13 1/2" tall, 10" wide, and 1 7/8" thick. Professional binding and leather(ette?) covers hold quality stock pages. The listed shipping weight of 9 Lbs. is quite accurate, they are heavy tomes. The quality is better than I ever expected. This is something that can be passed down as an heirloom. Would definitely recommend.