I see that once again there’s a Far Side calendar on sale for the upcoming year. This wouldn’t be surprising as the strip is still popular but I remember a few years back Larson was advertising the current calendar as “the last Far Side calendar ever” and saying that he was not going to license any future calendars because he thought he’d start cutting back on the merchandizing.
Obviously, he changed his mind. As I recall they didn’t even skip a year. But has Larson ever made any public statement about this retraction or has he just kept silent and hoped nobody would notice? Or was the whole spiel about them stopping the merchandizing just supposed to be a joke all along?
In fact, there was one for 2007. I know this because I’m looking at it right now. (Today’s caption: “I’m leaving you, Frank, because you’re a shiftless, low-down, good-for-nothing imbecile . . . and, might I finally add, you have the head of a chicken.”)
Either all, or some portion of the profits for it went to the World Wildlife Fund, I believe, which is Gary Larson’s favorite cause. There have been random pages every couple of months with photos of endangered animals. The cartoons are all the same as a previous year’s calendar, though I don’t know which one.
ETA:
I belive this is untrue. I went two years without a Far Side desk calendar. Had one been published, I would have had it.
Although he stopped in 2002, Larson decided to bring back the Far Side calendars last year with all proceeds going to Conservation International, one of his pet causes. Here’s a USA Today article. The original article in print was illustrated with some classic Larson cartoons showing his twisted look at the problems animals face- probably one of the most memorable being a one-legged elephant speaking into a telephone saying “What? They made it into a WASTEBASKET?” Apparently, nowadays Larson does one new drawing a year for a licensed Christmas card, and that’s it.