The Far Side creator Gary Larson was notoriously hesitant to step into the spotlight during his career – and that tendency toward introversion almost meant he didn't have a career at all. As Larson once explained in a New York Times interview, it was the result of encouraging editors that he eventually became begrudgingly famous.

since his retirement in 1995. The artist also reflected on his career's origins, in which it was evident that he did not possess a knack for self-promotion.

"Seems to me cartoons have to speak for themselves," Larson noted, and luckily for him, his talent was obvious to those editors who did take the time to look at his work, leading him to eventually break into the industry full-time – a Pyrrhic victory of sorts for the reclusive creator.

Gary Larson Explains How His Early Career Depended On Appealing To Newspaper Editors

Larson Had To Win Over The Few Before He Reached The Many

Multiple generations of readers have been born and aged to maturity in the time since Gary Larson's The Far Side debuted at the very end of 1979. In that time, technology has vastly reshaped artists' ability to find an audience. When Larson first began to try to get his cartoons published, there were still very linear channels through which art like his needed to travel –namely, before his work could find a wide audience of newspaper readers, it had to first impress a narrow audience of newspaper editors, who chose to publish his work.

Gary Larson's career could have ended before it began, had it not been for a few editors who recognized the potential of his work.

For better or worse, newspaper editors acted as gatekeepers of sorts; they had the power, in effect, to decide what readers would or would not like. Presumably, these decisions were made as a result of a mix of personal taste and knowledge of their newspaper's readership, but in any case, Gary Larson's career could have ended before it began, had it not been for a few editors who recognized the potential of his work, first with the strip Nature's Way, and later with The Far Side, which validated those editors' decisions by becoming hugely popular.

As Larson explained to the New York Times:

I never really “pitched” my cartoons to anyone. Seems to me cartoons have to speak for themselves. My goal was to see if I could get editors to just look at my work. Other than that, I stayed out of it.

I did manage to sell a handful of cartoons to one very small weekly, for which I received $5 each. Aside from that, though, the few doors I knocked on were of the revolving kind. But the handful of times an editor actually did look at my work, not only did he or she not rain on my parade, they seemed to take a genuine interest in me, and ended up giving my self-confidence a boost.

Here, Larson notes that "interest" from a "handful" of editors was enough to keep him going on the path that eventually led to his success. They might not all have accepted his comics for publication at first, but they didn't outright reject his work either, and that proved to be pivotal in keeping him from giving up. Once he managed to gain acceptance in a select few papers, the matter turned to The Far Side finding an audience – which, of course, it quickly did.

Like All Great Comic Strips, The Far Side Started Out In Just A Few Newspapers

Tracing The Growth Of Gary Larson's Success

Contemporary readers may also have a difficult time immediately grasping the mechanics of newspaper comic syndication, and how that reflected the popularity of a strip like The Far Side, or its more conventional contemporaries like Garfield, or Peanuts. Comic artists signed with "press syndicates," which in turn sold their work to individual newspapers, in a process known as syndication. During The Far Side's era, appearing in a greater number of newspapers naturally equated to a more successful comic. By the time Gary Larson retired, his work was syndicated in nearly two thousand newspapers across the United States.

All of that grew out of acceptance by a minority of individuals. As Gary Larson put it:

Then a big shot in the arm was when The Seattle Times started running my cartoons on a weekly basis. It didn’t last forever — too many complaints, I was told — but it ultimately motivated me to head down to San Francisco, where I walked through the doors (again, unannounced) of The San Francisco Chronicle, and the rest, as they say …

As the lore of The Far Side goes, The Seattle Times canceled the strip's predecessor, Nature's Way, right around the time Laron's work was acquired for syndication. His first press syndicate foisted the Far Side name on his strip – but ultimately, it encapsulated his work better than any alternative, and to this day remains one of the most memorable comic titles in the history of the medium.

In any case, it took several years for The Far Side to proliferate, but by the mid 1980s, it had begun to exponentially expand its reach. Gary Larson would go on to become one of the defining newspaper comic creators of his era, a role he was never entirely comfortable with. Though Larson enjoyed the stability of success, he distanced himself from individual fame, and this discomfort eventually resulted in the relatively short fifteen-year run of The Far Side, compared to the decades comics like Doonsbury, Garfield, Peanuts, and more have spent in continual production.

Gary Larson's Career Ended Prematurely – But Fans Should Be Grateful He Had A Career At All

Why The Far Side Was Destined To Be Brief, But Impactful

Without question, Gary Larson had fuel left in the tank creatively when he ended The Far Side at the start of 1995, but he had been steadily burning out on the business side of producing the comic for well over a decade at that point. Larson was always a ionate artist, but comics were not necessarily his artistic ion – he found a way to make a living off them, beyond his wildest expectations, but ultimately the pressure of constant creative production ground him down.

"Returning to the world of deadlines isn't exactly on my to-do list," the artist told the New York Times in 2019, prognosticating his future at the same time he reflected on his past. The Far Side did not return to regular publication, with new comics appearing sporadically for a few years, and then ceasing altogether. Still, considering the obstacles to The Far Side's publication in the first place, and then Gary Larson's increasing distaste for it as a "job," fans should be thankful that as much of his work was produced as it was.

The Far Side Was Among The Last Great Comics Of The Syndication Era

Gary Larson's Retirement Was The Beginning Of The End

The Far Side ended with one final cartoon on January 1, 1995. One day shy of a year later, Bill Watterson published the final Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. These two comics stand out as vying for the claim of the "last great syndicated comic" to enter publication, and their exits from the landscape of the funny pages effectively heralded the beginning of the end for the medium as it had come to be known during the 20th century, as the new millennium would witness the breakdown of traditional publication models.

The Far Side's heyday essentially coincided with the peak of syndicated newspaper comics, and moreover, was essential to that peak.

Just a few years later, in 2000, Peanuts ended with the death of creator Charles Schulz. Though strips like Doonesbury and Garfield continue to this day, they have adapted to the new paradigm by being published online, rather than being restricted to print syndication. The Far Side's heyday essentially coincided with the peak of syndicated newspaper comics, and moreover, was essential to that peak – but just as Gary Larson's career was not indefinitely sustainable, neither was that Golden Age of newspaper cartoons.

Source: New York Times, "‘The Far Side’ Is Back. Sort Of. Gary Larson Will Explain."