What was the secret ingredient to Gary Larson’s The Far Side? Coffee, obviously

“I don’t know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen.”
— Gary Larson

“Weird things” of course were what brought millions of people back to Larson’s much-loved, much-missed strip The Far Side, which ran in newspapers around the world for only 15 years. Larson put away his pens and inks in early 1995, when he was just 44.

In 2019, Larson delighted fans by bringing The Far Side into the digital world, launching TheFarSide.com. You can get a “daily dose” of Larson, and get nostalgic about some greatest hits. (A bit of St. John’s comedy history: Mark Critch’s teenage troupe was called Cat Fud, named after a famous Larson cartoon.)

Scientists loved The Far Side, and for good reason. Apart from his exacting technical skill, Larson did his research and centered many of his panels in and about labs, nature, animals and so on.

As a good Seattle boy, Larson’s love for coffee is well noted. Coffee inspired some of his very best work, I say to myself as I sip a strong cup this morning.

Ah, coffee. How else to explain why some little dogs yap so much more than others?

I love the espresso machine on the counter. And the little stool. This little dog means business!

Larson knows his high-end coffee … and knew how to make it funny in the strip.

Larson has also had thoughts about coffee without caffeine:

Larson imagined that he was surely not the only creature that needed caffeine first thing in the morning:

Watch out for rhinos with moka pots.

And what would coffee be like in hell, where the flames are always licking? Served from an industrial urn, and cold, of course!

When Larson started his site, he also started producing some new work. He describes the process here, which is also the gateway to an intermittently updated gallery. I was not one bit surprised to learn that his love for coffee still endures. Here’s what he wrote more recently:

So here goes. I’ve got my coffee, I’ve got this cool gizmo [a digital tablet], and I’ve got no deadlines. And—to borrow from Sherlock Holmes — the game is afoot.

That quote at the top, by the way, comes from The PreHistory of the Far Side, which marked the 10th anniversary of the strip. I had no idea at the time that he was already taking the strip into its home stretch.