One of my all-time favorites. Well played.
From the same volume: Gary told how an entomologist contacted him and asked his permission to name a newly discovered species of louse after him. His response: “Well, I knew nobody was going to offer to name a new species of swan after me . . .”
See also the thagomizer.
I must confess I stole the idea.
I’m glad others pointed out the classic joke. Very nice, well done.
Not a mind-reader, but I think he made a distinction between book collections and sticking his cartoons on calendars, and having his characters (though, as noted upthread, WHAT characters?) selling Zingers. YMMV.
Hell, maybe it was Watterson. My galloping senility is definitely a thing.
Yeah, mine too. It’s the dog’s understated expression that makes it funny. And the “CAT FUD” signs.
We still spell it that way on our shopping lists.
We do, too! 
We also do.
Mr. Osborne — May I be excused? My brain is full.
Ran into stuff similar to that all too often as a prof.
After one of our dogs got into the kibble, we got a sealable “vault” that hold pet food securely.
OF COURSE I hand-lettered a shaky “CAT FUD” on the label.
Same here…
Larson definitely did more than just calendars; I distinctly remember one of the older kids in my neighborhood had this “bummer of a birthmark” T-shirt.
I did that for several years, and finally decided it was just too much to keep up with. I think I kept two and have them somewhere: “Snake Talk” (which I realized much later than I should have was a parody of Car Talk) and my favorite Far Side of all time: “before you leave this valley, each of you will be wearing a duck.”
Excerpted from here.
The New York Times article says that the site is mostly going to have existing strips, although it also mentions new stuff, “There will also be a look at doodles from the sketchbooks of Larson, who said: ‘I’m looking forward to slipping in some new things every so often.’”
(I imagine that one of the tough things about being a daily cartoonist is having to come up with new ideas on a regular basis, so this frees him to only do new stuff when he wants to and has a good idea.)
Or at least, an idea that he thinks is a good one. You can’t hit Larsonesque levels of absurdity without occasionally hitting a few duds.
here is another article about the website
Mods, pleas delete this. I got overexcited and did not see the other discussion.
already discussed here http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=882062