# Was Gary Larson the best cartoonist there ever was? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841 "2007-06-05T14:41:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/21 "2007-06-05T15:57:42Z")
Being barely able to add 2 + 2 and arrive at 4, I’m partial to “The Math Phobic’s Nightmare”: A recently dead person is standing at the Pearly Gates before St. Peter, who is saying, “A train leaves Boston at 3:45. Another train leaves Chicago at…do you need a pencil?” ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/22 "2007-06-05T16:09:48Z")
[QUOTE=plnnr] Being barely able to add 2 + 2 and arrive at 4, I’m partial to “The Math Phobic’s Nightmare”: A recently dead person is standing at the Pearly Gates before St. Peter, who is saying, “A train leaves Boston at 3:45. Another train leaves Chicago at…do you need a pencil?” [/QUOTE] Not meant as a hijack at all, but this reminds me of one where St. Peter is interviewing three guys at the gates and asks them progressively more difficult questions. It seems there may have been an ethnic tone involved. All I can remember of the third question is the punchline to the joke: “Name them.” Did it have to do with the survivors of the Holocaust? Maybe the Supreme Court Chief Justices? In any case, the first two questions were much simpler. ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/23 "2007-06-05T16:11:03Z")
Fear the [THAGOMIZER!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer) ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/24 "2007-06-05T16:31:43Z")
[QUOTE=Malthus] 😃 Another favorite: an accidental juxtiposition of comic captions between _The Far Side_ and _Peanuts_. The _Peanuts_ one worked hilariously: it showed Lucy speaking intently to Charlie Brown; the caption something like this: “I see your petrified skull sitting on a shelf”. :eek: 😃 [/QUOTE] Nitpick - It was Dennis the Menace, not Peanuts. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/25 "2007-06-05T16:32:21Z")
“Anthropologists! Anthropologists!” ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/26 "2007-06-05T16:43:05Z")
I cuss, you cuss, we all cuss for asparagus. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/27 "2007-06-05T16:43:23Z")
Another one of those awe-blah-ess-pan-yoll sounds!! (Sorry for the paraphrase) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/28 "2007-06-05T16:47:43Z")
No. Oh, he was great, no doubt. But he isn’t up to people like George Herriman, Walt Kelly, Windsor McKay, or Crockett Johnson. ---
**Author:** ![Surbey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Surbey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surbey)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/29 "2007-06-05T16:50:59Z")
favorite is this. In the window you see a couple of cows gathering around a cow who is sitting on a fence. When you pull back you see a farmer, looking out his window at this scene, with his hand on a switch. Caption- Cow: “If it was electric, could I do this?” The anticipation is just too much for me to handle. LOVE IT! ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/30 "2007-06-05T16:52:26Z")
I’d hesitate to call him the best ever, but he’s waaay ahead of the pack and definitely a front-runner. Two favorites: 1. A doorway inside a house, with a bar about 3/4th up and a huge gouge out of the top, like something round-ish was smashed into it. On the chair next to the doorway is an open box labelled “Chin-up bar”. At the bottom of the doorway are the feet of a person lying on the floor in the next room. No captions, no dialog, but says so much. 1. The frog that “caught” the airplane. The expression on the poor frog’s face is absolutely hysterical. [link](http://www.geocities.com/marathon13man/fs_frog_airplane.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/31 "2007-06-05T16:54:43Z")
Best ever? Not even close. He was a one trick pony with a couple of nice variations, nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/32 "2007-06-05T16:57:03Z")
1. June 24, 1876: Custer’s last group photo (Custer and his men holding up “We’re No. 1” signs and grinning into the camera. 2. “Call of the Calf” by Zeek. Nothing comes close to CAT FUD though. All-time favorite. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/33 "2007-06-05T17:02:23Z")
“Notice gentlemen, that the faster I go, the more Johnson sounds like a motor boat.” ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/34 "2007-06-05T17:03:42Z")
I like the one that has pilot and copilot flying their plane towards a huge cloud bank with the top part of a mountain goat visible through the clouds. Caption reads “What’s a mountain goat doing up here in the clouds?” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/35 "2007-06-05T17:16:34Z")
Cow tools. Because it was so bizarre and incomprehensible. (By Larson’s own admission, he didn’t even consider what the tools might be used for.) ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/36 "2007-06-05T17:21:19Z")
“Me Tarzan! You Jane” (Damn…) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/37 "2007-06-05T17:25:08Z")
One weakness of Larson’s was that the ‘math’ on his blackboards was totally meaningless gibberish. As a math geek, that’s one thing I deeply appreciated about Bill Amend’s _Foxtrot_ - the math shown in the strip was the real deal. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/38 "2007-06-05T17:36:42Z")
Oh, god yes! I love all the “caveman” ones–“Future Werld”, “Early scientists describe the first dirt molecule”, “Prehistoric Waiting Rooms” (Magazine: Cave & Tuber, add for Paleozoic Lights). My understanding is that Larson didn’t want to keep producing after the well of inspiration dried up. He wouldn’t have been the first to do that by any means. But that being the case, I wonder why he couldn’t find a venue where he would only have to do one occasionaly? Like the New Yorker? He’s ten times as funny as Gahan Wilson. ---
**Author:** ![rhythmonly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rhythmonly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhythmonly)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/39 "2007-06-05T17:42:18Z")
I’ve always liked the one that showed the poor, ragged guy crawling through the desert, in the broiling sun. He crawls up to a guy on horseback, who says “Peanut Butter Sandwich?”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841/40 "2007-06-05T17:44:31Z")
COW (in horror/disgust): “Wait a minute! This stuff is grass! We’ve been eating grass!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gary-larson-the-best-cartoonist-there-ever-was/406841.md?page=3)