hckrnws
Been meaning to post this but if you're interested, I set up a RSS feed for the daily Far Side comic[0]. It's a simple scraper that runs daily on GitHub actions and creates an entry for the 2-5 comics and captions of the day. Source code is on GitHub.[1]
I'll have to look into this new section of the website and see about adding that to the feed.
[0]: https://sphars.github.io/rss-feeds/feeds/the_far_side/feed.x...
Semi-related: a plug of my project that allows you to set up exactly that for any website using CSS selectors. https://feed-me-up-scotty.vincenttunru.com/
This looks great, I'll have to check it out. I remember with the Far Side website I had to use Selenium for the browser because of some JavaScript on the page vs using something like BeautifulSoup. Does yours handle that?
You should try to incorporate Dennis the Menace in your retrievals.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Harmontown/comments/dsfqh7/the_far_...
Wow. Thanks for making me buy a color e-ink display.
Which one did you buy?
Bought the waveshare spectra 6 13.3”, will be a little project to connect to a spare rpi and pull down this RSS feed.
I'll be curious how you'll do this, having a daily Far Side like the daily paper calendar is a good idea. The only possible issue with my RSS feed is that I lump all the daily comics into one entry. So you could get 2-5 images per day/entry. Essentially what you see on the front page of thefarside.com. I'm not completely sold on my method, so open to suggestions (see above post for the GitHub)
My first thought on finding this: needs an rss feed! TY
The Far Side is like the Simpsons for me, many of the jokes have passed into everyday expressions. If I or my wife are on the loo when the other comes in, we’ll always quote one of my favourites:
https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/...
> many of the jokes have passed into everyday expressions.
Not to mention palæontology!
https://unapologeticnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/thag...
We frequently say "Midvale School for the Gifted" whenever any of us try to push a pull door.
My 7 year old just referenced that gag today. Proud dad.
Trouble Brewing...
I've never seen it that way, but I think you are absolutely right. My favorite always has been https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFarSide/comments/179ikr2/its_a_f...
Realizing the lions’ taste for red meat, the Spamalopes remained calm, but wary.
We’ve definitely had to get tutoring for a few dogs :D
This is great!
Periodically, I'll go through one of Larson's cartoon books, laughing all the way. It's like housecleaning for my brain - afterwards everything is spic-and-span and in it's proper place.
The first Gary Larson cartoon I ever saw was "Freeze...OK now...who's the brains in this outfit?". When I saw it I had to see more:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c4/c4/75/c4c475c0a2fdc310a34c20722...
You might appreciate this The Way of the Gun quote:
Joe Sarno: So, you the brains of this outfit, or is he? Longbaugh: Tell ya the truth, I don't think this is a brains kind of operation.
FYI, this "New Stuff" is circa 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/arts/far-side-gary-larson...
It might’ve started then, but the latest entry is a tribute to Jane Goodall that was posted three days ago:
Coincidentally just ran into this anecdote on how Goodall and Larson became friends: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45624718
What a nice story. “Nice” really feels like the correct word here.
This one is my favorite: https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/387/house-on-hillside
Sorry, I don't get it. whats with the terydactl substance
The caption is what really sells it for me. It is the classical farside experience.
Looks at comic, (shrugs) it's weird but not funny in any way. Reads caption
"Art assignment: Paint a house on a hillside overlooking a bay or valley. Stay loose; play with color. Try to capture a mood. Think of something to add."
Literal spit take and laugh. Yep he still has the touch.
Yes. The word choice is exquisite; "loose" got me, right as I was visually interpreting the scene. Larson is a genius.
Hmmm - my interpretation is that this is an example of a "prompt" for a generative AI "artist", and the result was something that "craps" over the original intention of the "house on a hillside"... (so, a bit of a commentary on generative art from someone who was professional cartoonist)
I think you are applying the wrong decade(s) of thought. This is a man who had to clean his pen to use it - it is very likely he is using artists "prompts" to practice his digital art (as he mentions its very new to him), which is something that was normal before the current era.
For the benefit of me 30 minutes ago baffled by the responses to this down thread, this is perhaps a r/BirdsArentReal thing? e.g. https://old.reddit.com/r/BirdsArentReal/comments/1n1yr3d/wha...
Nah, its just absurd Larson humor.
Oh I get the Larson humor, I mean Physkal's comment and iancollmceachern's implication that a reference was missed by stickfigure
This is my favorite too.
The caption reads like an AI prompt. The last instruction, "think of something to add" resulted in the AI adding a pterodactyl on the house, dropping bird poop on it. Probably not what the prompter meant, but technically correct.
Same here. My first though was 'This is an AI prompt.'
Pretty sure it's bird shit.
This exact chain of interactions is what I come to HN for.
When Meat Loaf died, I commented "His name was Robert Paulsen" (you know, because in death membersbof project mayhem do have names, his name was Robert Paulsen". Someone commented something to the effect of no it wasn't, meat loaf wasn't his real name it was Marvin Aday, and then someone else commented to their comment "It's literally a fucking line from the movie".
I dont know why these layers of weirdness delight me so, but they do.
Thanks for the pterodactyl shit commentary folks.
Was gonna say, I thought Robert Paulsen was the guy who did Yakko's voice?
His name was also Robert Paulsen.
I posted the same thing on Reddit and got downvoted to hell.
Reddit is turning more into hn everyday.
Comment was deleted :(
Better hope it’s not the other way around!
This is sort of the inverse “Don’t say HN is becoming Reddit”
Reddit has been declining for a long time and even more so the way the algorithm works with the Front Page. Politics and activism there is super amplified
AskReddit has turned into Progressive Anxiety News, with every headline followed by "What do you think?"
That's better than what it usually is, teenagers asking "women, what's the sexiest sex you've ever sexed?" once a week.
Lol
winged reptile shit
Let's call it "early bird" shit …
Well actually pterosaurs were way different from birds, and don't even count as dinosaurs. Though they had a downy covering similar to feathers. But they're not bird ancestors.
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When Gary started using the digital pad for drawing, he specifically said that he wouldn't be drawing every day, or on any deadline at all. So these comics really are a labour of love. They are meant for Gary to experiment, not make money.
At least, that's how he presented it himself.
I think it’s about time for me to confess: I really don’t get Gary Larson cartoons. I understand what each is about, but my amusement level doesn’t correlate with their popularity.
It’s a slightly odd, somewhat lonely feeling to see something so universally beloved and popular and feel nothing.
I don't think I've ever laughed at loud at something from Far Side, rather I've always thought of his comics as "smirk-worthy".
School for the Gifted
Dog Translator
Have you ever laughed out loud at a cartoon? I don’t think I have, and I would say I enjoy cartoons quite a bit. A grin is about the best reaction I can give to one myself
>Have you ever laughed out loud at a cartoon?
Generally, I agree with you. But I do remember coming across Parking Lot Is Full one night and having to stifle my laughing so I didn't wake up my wife who was sleeping next to me while I was reading it.
But what if there is no Garfield?
https://garfieldminusgarfield.net
https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/tagged/garfield%20minus%20...
Those are painful for me rather than funny. Kind of like The Office.
That's totally fair. I had to dig a bit - but I'm pretty sure I may have audibly chuckled when I came across these in the wild.
A “101.5 The Hammer” of Moths absolutely kills me.
Have you ever read Viz?
Specifically on the London underground (or your local public transport) during morning rush hour, with a hangover. It's hard not to laugh out loud.
Never heard of it until now. Is it sort of a British equivalent to America's "MAD" magazine?
Still worth reading if you're a scruffy yank?
MAD is wacky. This is more England and it's casual gutter talk. All cultures have their own. Do you enjoy any British hum(o)ur?
VIZ is crass, puerile in the extreme, casually (insert your red line here)-ist on many levels, and often repetitive. It uses common slang words, so somewhat culturally revealing. It's 'wrong' on many levels but done with style, albeit sometimes a repugnant style - So you inwardly 'gasp' in revulsion but outwardly stifle a giggle.
The fake small ads are often very very funny.
Lastly, like so many gags that use the 'shock' effect, the humour doesn't last forever; take a look at an early one on Archive...
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I'm not sure I've ever laughed out loud at a cartoon, but as a kid, the compilation books of Charles Addams cartoons used to fill me with so much warm pleasure I would read them over and over, and his cartoons still just plain make me happy to this day. I can clearly see that Larson does that same thing for many people.
I too am a Charles Addams fan! The best ink painter in cartoons (IMO), and definitely plenty of grin worthy gags.
Peter Arno is also another good ink painting cartoonist, although his subject matter has generally aged much more poorly…
Yes. Calvin and Hobbes.
Recently doing a re-read with my eight year olds and still laughing, though at a different layer of meaning/funny than when I was eight.
Maybe you have to be a boomer or Gen X-er to appreciate it?
The test:
https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/390/the-chase
If given the choice, I would have the Viking ship with a kittens-in-a-basket flag.
> Have you ever laughed out loud at a cartoon?
I laughed out loud multiple times clicking on links in this very thread, reading comics I've read dozens (and dozens) of times before.
Life is less lonely when you focus more on social groups you do have something in common with than trying to latch onto everything that's popular.
That said, you might not be as alone as you think. The far side has been the butt of many bits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjfkynJ4hbI
Often if you don't get it, its because you didn't get it.
There is a famous one of 2 explorers in the jungle and the man is saying "Holy moly Loretta, not only is it still there, but look what it did to the end of my stick !"
So not really funny unless you can recall (or imagine) a moment when you had a bug on you and you ask someone to brush it off and you have that minute of like, did you get it or is it still there ? If that has actually happened to you, its a hilarious cartoon.
And sometimes not getting it is the joke, for which I need only mention “Cow Tools”
Cow Tools was supposed to be “got” but it went over most people’s heads. Gary admitted this
>time for me to confess
Don't feel that way. I can totally understand why some people wouldn't "get" (or I'd put it "appreciate") The Far Side. It's a very particular kind of humor, and it's fine that it's "not everyone's cup of tea". I, for example, absolutely loathe poetry. It's like the cilantro of literature of me, and I don't have the gene that makes it not taste like soap. ... Who cares!?!
I have this "joke" that I dearly love, that I've never met anyone who gets it. It is a bad joke, largely because nobody gets it. It doesn't imply something in me or something lacking in ... everyone else. Humor is just what you find in it. It is: "Well, I defended my thesis in comparative literature, but it seems like he's got a pretty healthy pulse to me..."
> "Well, I defended my thesis in comparative literature, but it seems like he's got a pretty healthy pulse to me..."
Definitely sounds like the kind of joke I'd like if I understood it.
A more obvious setup to the joke is
"Is there a doctor on this plane???"
"Well yes, but I defended my thesis in comparative literature..."
Ugh. Of course. That makes a lot of sense.
Didn't come anywhere close to getting it on my own though!
Right, but what makes it work for me is that you have to bring the setup to the table. I think The Far Side is similar in a lot of its humor.
My favourite own joke is when I’m sitting on a beach towel or grass or whatnot and I want to get up, I’ll say,
“I can’t stand sitting, so I need a hand standing.”
Nobody ever finds that amusing but it kills me every time.
One of those situations where I say: "I'm hilarious... to myself."
I'm totally stealing that. Fantastic.
And, if you want and if the Fates allow, you may have my favourite, completely unappreciated joke:
"A time traveller!" [wait a few seconds] "Knock knock."
I love it, but that would never work in the wild. Mine does, for some value of “work”.
What, not a fan of 'Cow tools'? [0]
In a way Cow Tools was too simple rather than too hard, so people thought there must be more to it.
I don't think the joke itself is a bad idea. I remember The Simpsons doing the room full of monkeys on typewriters where one comes up with "it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times" which in a way is a similar joke, right? i.e. Not a good result, but funny because it's still much more than you'd ever expect in reality.
Simpsons joke has a reference. It’s not a Simpsons original.
It is the infinite monkey theorem from the late 19th and early 20th century.
The joke was a reference to that pop culture idea which pointed out that if the infinite monkeys thing is real, there should also necessarily be products that are very close to great works but not quite right.
That's the context of the joke, but it's not the source of the humour.
Or Rattlesnake Training?
I didn't get that one, either.
I'm curious if you understand this joke (https://i.imgur.com/II5W6Pl.png).
I think it's similar to the Cow Tools panel.
Specifically, the Far Side panel plays on the idea of the fact that cows would have a cow-centric view of the world and would likely develop tools that were alien to us. The other part of the 'joke' is that cows don't build tools (afaik). edit: I think the "3rd" part of the joke is that the tools look like shit, which is what you'd expect from even the most talented cows.
The humor of the space alien joke is similar in that it's pointing out the difficulty that everyone has in understanding how others (other people, other species, etc.) view and describe the world.
> I'm curious if you understand this joke (https://i.imgur.com/II5W6Pl.png).
I don't, because I'm from the UK...
> I don't, because I'm from the UK...
excellent meta-joke.
Nobody did
I was maybe 8, and I thought it was hilarious. <shrug>
A lot of his comics aren't great, having to create 7 per week, a fact he referenced in his comics themselves. But just the way he represented people - pudgy, cat's eye glasses, doing some esoteric thing like collecting butterflies or building a robot in the basement, is amusing to me.
It is probably down to whether you find humor in absurdity as the far side leans rather hard into this.
The humor "is" very weird, the normal flow is a strange image that is not funny and a simple caption that is also not funny. but coupled together there is something funny about the absurd connection that is made. sort of like a caption meme with better drawing. And honestly I think there are a lot of them that we just don't "get", too strange for comprehension, and we find this funny as well.
I can imagine Farside might be hard to "get" for someone meeting it in 2025 - absurdity to the extreme is everywhere now. You can think of it as Skibidi Toilet for a slower, more innocent time.
Neither did Homer if it makes you feel better.
https://youtu.be/LjfkynJ4hbI?si=rMrpX7VChQMX23_I
(Obviously not the only one if not getting Far Side comics made the Simpsons!)
I guess as he puts it here
>like the proverbial tiger and its stripes, I’m pretty much stuck with my sense of humor. Aren’t we all?
I think about it as pushing the boundaries of the minimum amount of funny to be a joke. It's not anti humor, it's not absurdism, it's not ironic. It's trying to approach the absolute least amount of whatever a joke is. Some kind of minimum joke Komolgorov complexity.
Some people just get the 'cartoon repair man' joke, others don't either.
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I get them sometimes but I feel like its like a lot of stuff, were hostage to the meta and everyone seems to "get" the meta so you have to go along with it or you're an outsider.
Yay humans.
I think that all humor belongs more or less to a particular time (a decade if you will). Garfield for example is very much a product of the 1980s. When humour is viewed outside of its time, it’s different. Did you read FarSide in the 1990s, or come to it later?
IMHO Garfield is to comics / humor what Monopoly is to games / fun.
You or one of your siblings flipped the Garfield comics over after your father bled you dry with his savvy real estate plays?
I don't think they are universally beloved or popular if that makes you any feel better.
They're popular in the way that the Dinosaurs show on ABC was popular.
'Dinosaurs' was a masterpiece and I won't hear otherwise.
The series finale is one of the greatest T.V. finales of all time.
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No, the Far Side was popular the way The Simpsons was popular.
I think you're dramatically underestimating how big it was during its run.
It is interesting to note the changes in style from his newspaper comic. I assume it is the result of drawing for yourself and being able to take the time to draw it how you want rather than a 7 comic a week deadline syndicated strip.
It might be explained by the long explanation on the linked page - these new cartoons are drawn on computer with a graphics tablet, whereas the old ones were pen and ink.
There are multiple reasons for a different style, but U think a big one is that a syndicated cartoon is expected to have a recognisable style. We recognise many cartoonists by their unique style, despite many of them being far more versatile artists than that.
I think he's also directly implementing color, if you see color "original Far Side" it was added post-hock usually (though maybe some color Sunday strips exist colored by Larson).
That’s awesome that he a digital tablet enables him to create more art. I met a comic book artist recently who was drawing nonstop even while signing autographs and talking to fans.
People on here love to dump on the iPad for being a “consumption device”, and to hate on the Apple Pencil by misquoting/misunderstanding Steve Jobs[0]…
…but if you spend any time around artists it’s evident that the iPad/Pencil/Procreate trio is one of the most significant leaps in consumer tech for visual artists of the last decade.
[0] he never said that any and all styluses are bad - he said that 1) cell phones that 2) you can only interact with by using a stylus (not an uncommon paradigm back in 2007) were bad
It's crazy how much of a stranglehold the Procreate app seems to have in the iPad world for drawing.
What puts it ahead of the Wacom/Surface drawing tablets which have been around for much longer? I'm not sure if I'd describe it as a leap if it's refining existing products.
Like everything apple it’s not that they made something wildly new, they just found a way to do something more polished than anyone else that then is successful with a specific subset of vocal people.
I’m not much of a digital artist and views in this space probably vary wildly.. but if I steel man the pro iPad case I think it’s a few things 1. Screen quality. iPads look better than cintiq bc the display in the iPad is actually pretty awesome. Like recommended by the color nerds for being the best color you can get for the price, 2. Pen distance on iPad your pen is closer to the actual pixels. The cintiq had more space between the screen and the surface, feels like you draw above the page a little. 3. Biggest of all is portability. Artists love desks but they also love drawing everywhere all the time. iPad is just better at this because it’s designed as a tablet totally. The pre-apple pencil Wacom stuff existed as tablets but from what I remember was mostly just windows laptops. So software wasn’t built for touch and wanted keyboards and stuff. Responsive multitouch and the os(and drawing apps) built to integrate it tightly is a level of polish Wacom couldn’t do as just a pen input system. 4. Cost cintiqs always cost a ton and a lot of them don’t even have the computer part, iPads aren’t cheap but are way more accessible.
Maybe Wacom has caught up with newer offerings? it’s been a while since I looked at their stuff. There are also totally reasons why you’d wanna go that route for some digital pen stuff (eg high end digital sculpture or texture painting type stuff that really needs the power and integration you can get from a desktop and desktop os)
As always, Apple didn't wholesale invent a product category, but they made the first product that synthesized all the right tradeoffs in a sufficiently compelling package that enabled them to sell tens/hundreds of millions of units fairly quickly[0].
- hardware quality wise, already the 1st gen Apple Pencil had the specs of the higher end tablets (12-bit pressure sensitivity, orientation, azimuth, all in a sleek package)
- you can use your iPad for a bunch of other stuff too, and it's super portable - whereas for the high end tethered drawing tablets, they're pretty single purpose, and they take up a bunch of space on your desk. This all matters to broke artists living in dorm rooms/tiny apartments.
- the Procreate team designed a tool that was really focused on the digital drawing experience and managed to make a high quality, affordable product out of it. The standard for digital drawing on those tethered tablets is mostly Photoshop, which a) is meant for tons of stuff beyond drawing, making it quite complex and b) has 4 decades of interface cruft piled up at this point.
Honestly yeah, there truly are pre/post iPad+Pencil eras in consumer tech for anyone doing work that involves hand illustration/sketching.
[0] whereas their competitors struggle to sell low numbers of units at terrible margins
I'm not talking about the Cintiq. Around 2015 I was daily driving an HP elite book 2760p which couldn covert to a tablet and had Wacom EMR tech integrated into the display. It worked fine for drawing and I did a lot of it. Along with Fujitsu and Lenovo they'd been making them since the core 2 duo era at least. When the surface pro came out it was building on these, and then the Apple pencil competed with the surface pro. These products sold then and still sell today. At my current company, the default windows laptop is a Thinkpad yoga with a stylus. I'll take your word for it when you say that the Apple pencil was an improvement and sold better. But Apple didn't invent this. There were absolutely successful products that came before.
"There were absolutely successful products that came before"
I think it's just a question of definition. The Apple pencil was introduced in 2016, since then about 500.000.000 iPads have been sold. If you compare that with the number of Thinkpad yogas or HP elite book 2760ps it's possible to come the conclusion that they are relatively less successful. But of course they can be "absolutely successful" depending on your definition.
Yep totally, Procreate on an iPad with a paper-like screen protector and a Pencil is an amazing creative juicer.
The one with the pilots announcing turbulence ahead…
Fantastic! I check this periodically, hoping for anything new from Mr. Larson.
Love that he took the time to honor Ms. Goodall one more time. What a class act.
If you like Gary Larson, check out Gahan Wilson, who has a very similar sense of humor.
https://www.kensandersbooks.com/pages/books/59859/gahan-wils...
I should really start to read the Far Side comic... I've heard about it for the first time, along with Heathcliff and Pants, on the latest Solar Sands video "The Surreal Worlds of Single Panel Comics": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4npsyTE-m_k
I had a client once in the 90's when Olive Garden was the first wave of consumer Italian spots to serve specials.
After we ordered our entrees the waiter left one of those coloring labyrinths. Well, I couldn't tell at the start of the sketch that it resembled a mandala.
As a comic book artist, his studies in a parapsychology were in the practice of comic strips.
Gary's work reminds me of that afternoon.
These are great, he's still "got it".
No one is able to capture stupidity on a person's (or cow's, or chicken's) face quite like Gary Larson.
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Wow, thank you for posting (you have to click the green "Enter" button, it's not super obvious -- someone needs to have a sit-down with Gary about design conventions! It's also completely un-bookmark-able, as there's no URL leading to the latest comic every day).
This one made me laugh out loud for the first time in a while: https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/387/house-on-hillside He's still got it!
EDIT: Ahh, it's very, very small. I was excited by the "387" in the slug, but that seems to be meaningless (?). There's 8 total comics in no clear order, and the caption system is completely broken (it says they were all posted this past Wednesday) :(
I assume his idea was that you have to come through the enter page so you read the disclaimer. I don't think he really cares about design conventions or making it easy, it's a tiny outlet for him rather than a thing built for others
Hey, maybe he’ll pick up web UX next.
This was such a better experience on mobile. I had first tried on my MacBook and it was inscrutable.
Very nice, I have been checking it for a while and this is the first new one I have seen in a while.
Nice cartoon for Jane Goodall!
Crafted by Rajat
Source Code