After many years of no books being on sale Gary Larson has released the complete Far Side in 3 books sold together. $100 in stores but cheaper online.
He still isn’t selling any mugs, calendars, shirts , etc. unless you buy them used.
No info on what made him change his mind. The strip stopped in 1995. I really miss the strip.
I also miss Bloom County and the other strips Breathed wrote , but he’s still around doing a few things. He tried a few movies but the last one , Mars Needs Moms, was a major box office bomb.
I noticed his older books are for sale on Amazon, not sure if they have been on sale all along or they were reissued recently. (but I am not sure if the ones for sale are used , they might be)
Not much hope of any ebook editions since he retired in 95, way before ebooks caught on for most people. Unless someone wants to pay to convert the stuff to ebook format which is not likely.
Out of Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side…Far Side is the one I don’t understand why he’s completly retired. Take a break, only publish when you want…I get it. But out of all three, surely Larson has accidentally thought of some ideas that would make brilliant strips.
Why not? Do you think someone set the print for The Complete Far Side by hand? It obviously exists as a computer file somewhere and if Larsen (or his publishers) want to convert it to an ebook format, there’s no logistical reason why they can’t.
ETA: Damn, who knew my Complete Far Side purchase would turn out to be an investment? I could really use $500.
Well, I don’t see why not. Calvin and Hobbes has most (but not all) of the treasuries available now as e-books. They still need to release There’s Treasure Everywhere and It’s a Magical World (and apparently there’s something wrong with The Days Are Just Packed) but I think that’s it and should be all the strips.
They make for some pretty hefty files (several hundred megabytes) and they don’t work on most Kindles (but do on the various Kindle Fires).
Heck, you can now get basically all the Peanuts strips as well, and a good number of the collections are available on Kindle Unlimited. I’m making my way through the first three years now. (Boy, was that a different strip through about half of 1952).
I first checked to see if this Thread was a zombie. I’ve bought two Far Side books in the last year.
I had already bought the hardcover box set when it had first come out, but I realized that my nieces were not at all familiar with The Far Side. I walked into a Barnes and Noble (I’m thinking it was sometime last spring) and I picked two books right off the shelf, no special ordering or anything like that.
I don’t remember which two they were, but they were two of the large paperback collections. If I recall correctly, the original publishing history was that four or five small paperback books would be released then a large paperback collecting those previous small books would come out. Then a few more small books followed by a large collection of those. This repeated a few times over.
The books I bought were not the final comprehensive set, nor were they “best of” compilations. They were two of the collections as originally published (new reprints, not original copies).
Gallery is the word I was looking for.
The smaller books would be collected into a larger book called The Far Side Gallery numbered as the number of Gallery books increased. A few small books then The Far Side Gallery, then a few more small books then The Far Side Gallery 2, and so on.
I understand fan excitement about the completeness, I was more reacting to the Thread title “The Far Side books back on sale” as well as the OP’s opening line:
I don’t know when or for how long a time period it may have been true that no books have been available but, as mentioned above, I walked into a Barnes and Noble last spring and plucked two Gallery collections off the shelf without any special ordering nor any anxiety that I may not be able to find them available.
The small Far Side collections? We had a stack of them on a shelf in the basement for years. I just unloaded them at the public library (for their big fund-raising book sale), in October.
