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Jim Bliss tweeted this Gary Larson cartoon and wrote
"I love this. When the Far Side came out in 1982, paleontologists realised they'd never actually named that part of a stegosaurus and began using the term informally. And now, 36 years later, if you type "Thagomizer" into a search engine…â€
Try it and see. Or just read on and see me saying, that’s now it’s agreed upon name. You’ve got to love stuff like that.
But it also reminded me of how much I love Gary Larson, whose work has been more influential than I think anyone really acknowledges. Not just in similar comic strips, but loads of comedians too.I often forget to list him when asked about my own influences, but he’s certainly up there.
I can remember the first time I saw his stuff, which is pretty unusual in itself. I was at Camp Mendocino in California in the summer of 1986, looking through a trunk of stuff in a little hut used by the Tribe Chiefs (after a dazzling first session where I had been garlanded with awards, I had been promoted to be put in charge of four cabins of kids, rather than one - the kids were much younger and more unruly in the next session and I did not cope well with the responsibility and pressure and was swiftly demoted and nearly sent home - maybe one day I will write about it in more detail). I discovered one of the little landscape shaped Gary Larson books, and always having liked funny cartoons, flicked through this new one and was blown away by how brilliant and subversive it was. Sure Peanuts had been idly interesting to me, but this was like Peanuts dipped in acid, so that all the Peanuts strip disappeared and then someone waited for the paper to dry and then did a totally different cartoon on it. Exactly like that.
I had a very weird time at that summer camp, beginning as hero, somehow ending up as a bad boy, failing to lose my virginity (a remarkable achievement) though getting my first blow job from a 24 year old divorcee (it was both my first one from a 24 year old divorcee and my first one ever - I had lived a sheltered life. I turned 19 during the summer) and nearly being burned to death in a huge fire on the final day. It’s remarkable that I have not really ever tried to write anything based on this experience.
But finding Gary Larson was the second best thing that happened to me over those months (the first being the blow job obviously - the one solitary blow job. My next one was nearly a year away). That book was the closest I’ve got to finding buried treasure, it felt like it had been left there for me and over the next few years I managed to track down all of his books in the UK, before he got mildly popular here too.
It’s hard to explain why it’s so good in words really. But whilst some of it is silly (though still quite abstract) puns or switch-arounds, it’s got a level of sophistication that makes it enjoyable on repeated viewing and where it sometimes takes much thought to get the joke. He seems like a lovely man. He did brilliant stuff for 15 years and then retired, which I regret as a fan, but admire as a creator. Increasingly I see the appeal of that.§
If you haven’t seen all of his stuff, or have but would like to see it again, then I thoroughly remember this ridiculous two volume set. It's more like a Bible than a book of cartoons. But it's a lot funnier and much less judgy. I might have to go and read all of mine again. Thanks Gary for the laughs. And thanks Debbie for the blow job. Sorry I was wearing weird old Marks and Spencers pants that had been bought by my mum. Christ I was an embarrassment.
