Perhaps the all-time best. Cavemen playing rocks,paper,scissors and they all keep throwing rocks and saying “Tied again.”
A family sitting around a dinner table. The dog, standing and pointing a gun at the man’s head. Caption reads “Listen, buddy, I’m through begging.”
I also used to love “I’m moving over 500 donuts a day and I’m barely breaking even.” Every time I’m in a restaurant and I see a very large employee, I always think a variation on that, (“I’m moving 500 tacos a day and I’m barely breaking even.”)
Wasn’t there also one where a dog is getting breakfast and he says, “I’ll have the ham and eggs.” and everyone else in the restaurant is a chicken or a pig.
“What dogs are really saying.”
With images of dogs doing doggie things all over town (i.e., hanging out of car windows, chasing the mailman, etc.) going “Hey!”, “Hey, Hey!”, “Hey?”.
Also, the “What We Say/What Dogs Hear, What We Say/What Cats Hear” is classic. Not only is it funny, but I’ve gone on from the point I first read the comic stip believing it’s pretty much true.
On my Far Side desk calendar today is one of my all-time favorites: A torturer is standing at the entrance to a dungeon. Three chained-up prisoners chorus, “Good MOOORNing, Mr. Johnson!”
I hate having my net off at home, and coming into the end of these three-page threads on my first day back at work.
Larson was pretty dang funny, but I bristle a bit at seeing him described as the “best there ever was,” considering that he pretty much started where B. Kliban left off. For years I was unable to look at a Larson cartoon without getting pissed off that he was so thoroughly ripping off Kliban.
Ah, yes, Kliban. I remember one: Two ladies dressed like 18th-Century nobles, with high wigs and big dresses, are walking in what might be the grounds of the palace at Versailles. We see a walrus barely concealed behind a balustrade, peeking through it with one eye. One lady says to the other, “Did you ever have the feeling you were about to be raped by a walrus?”
looked up a bunch of B.Kilban, I don’t see it… From the large amount of comics I found online, I didn’t see a single funny one. Sorry, but IMHO Larson is much better.
Yes, Larson went for the punchline. As I said, he was very funny; Kliban was more “conceptual.” But there’s simply no question that Larson’s drawing style is about 85% Kliban. And it seems very clear to me that early Larson was simply B-grade Kliban.
Some examples of Kliban:
http://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kliban/kliban_men.gif
http://lambiek.net/artists/k/kliban/kliban_exist.gif
Seems pretty clear to me.
Those are great, lissener, but my two most memorable Kliban images are: “Never eat anything bigger than your head,” and the cat folksinger:
Oh, and I forgot a third one. Cats courting: *If I had two dead rats, I’d give you one."
Yeah, those weren’t my favorites, just the first particularly larsonesque I came across in searching. “Whack your porcupine” might be my favorite. Although “Fig 1 and Fig 2” is definitely in the running.
And then there’s “How to tell a cat from a meatloaf” . . .
Flying saucers piloted by dogs overhead. The pet dog looks at his erstwhile master and says “So they’re finally here. Before I go, roll over and play dead.”
And the bored dog driving a car, with the super-enthusiastic guy hanging out the window with his tongue flapping in the wind.
As far as Larson’s “ordinary stuff reimagining” goes, I’ve always had a soft spot for “La Brea Carpets.”
Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, sans head, searching through tall grass. Caption: “That does it. This time we’re bolting the sucker on!”
Apropos of that, two of my favorite Frankenstein Far Sides:
“As he got off the plane, Doctor Frankenstein (looking into his carry-on bag) was horrified to discover he’d left his brain in San Francisco.”
and (this one wasn’t published as a Far Side cartoon, but came from the Prehistory book):
The quartet from the Wizard of Oz is at the door of Castle Frankenstein, and the Doctor tells them, “I’m sorry, but I just used my last heart and brain - maybe try the Wizard down the road.”
I dunno. Those are pretty funny, but neither the drawing nor (except for the first you listed) the subject-matter is terribly similar to that of Larson.
In terms of drawing style, Kliban is more detailed, Larson more stylized; in terms of subject-matter, Kliban as you note is more “conceptual”, and the focus is different - Kliban’s humour is more likely to be focused on sex and its absurdities, Larson on science.
I see them as very different, myself. I like both, but for me Larson has the edge because I prefer the focus of his humor.
Just saw a reprint of this one recently…
Two cavemen standing inside a baited box trap, with saber tooth tiger sneaking up on it. Caption is “Be Quiet! Here he come!”
Actually laughed out loud…
Regards
FML
View through a rifle’s scope. The bear in the crosshairs is pointing pleadingly at another bear.
Farmer catches cows looking at an anatomical diagram of a human being, with different cuts of meat marked on it. “Somewhere, far off in the distance, a dog barked.”
God is winning a TV trivia contest by a score of 8,098,762 to 0. The other player, “our defending champion,” has his hands on his hips and looks annoyed.
I’m curious as to why you think that. I don’t see it. What about his style is similar? (Or, to be more precise, more similar as opposed to what you’d expect between two single-panel cartoonists.) In your fifth link, Kliban appears to be aping Johnny Hart.
I must have not read any early Larson because I don’t remember him being that dull. I don’t see any more connection between Kliban and Larson than I do between, say, Jim Unger and Larson.