Gary Larson's The Far Side Observer --- The 8th Great Comic Collection

With his eighth collection of cartoons, author/cartoonist Gary Larson released The Far Side Observer. Released in 1987 as its first print, the book was set up to showcase quite a few of the best comics that Gary Larson had created in the few prior years, and after the previously released 7th collection. For those who don't know much about Gary Larson and his comics, he was a cartoonist that came up with the great idea behind the Far Side comics. They were published in newspapers around the country, and though they were normally only 1 frame each, they all presented a unique view at the world from the perspective of one Gary Larson. Some might call his comics dark, some might call them a strain on reality, but most people would agree that many of his comics were indeed very funny.

With this 8th book, Larson again presented a view of some great comic genius, and though none of the comics were original at the time of publishing (having all been in newspapers before), they were still funny to this particular reader. For people that didn't know much about Gary Larson and The Far Side, or didn't subscribe to newspapers, this was a brand new release that would give them many, many new comics with which to gain some laughter. With this book, Larson presents 100 pages of comics, most of the pages with 2 comics and some spread out for a full-page spread. Each one of them is presented exactly as in the newspapers, with the comic taking up a majority of the space, and then his typical sentence or two narrating what is going on located right below the comic itself.

It's a little hard to explain the humor of Gary Larson to someone that has not read his works before, and it is even more difficult to explain how some of them are just pictures depicting an action taking place that is just really funny to look at. That isn't going to stop me from trying though, and I am going to try to relate some of the humor. One of the cool ones in the book is a one frame comic that depicts a beaver in the downstairs of his house, obviously at night-time, peering into his fridge. Within the fridge are different types of wood. The humor lies in the understated part of the joke, and works quite well. In another comic depicted as "horror films of the wild", it shows a theater full of deer watching a movie of a deer about to go into a house with mounted heads in the hallway. One deer is bubbled saying "don't go in there!". There in lies the joke of your typical horror movie, but shown through different eyes.

Gary Larson was an innovative artist and cartoonist, and his brilliant mind worked again with the comics that were posted in this 8th edition of his Far Side Comics making it to books. The book works perfectly as one of those that can be read multiple times, and which can be placed on the shelf, and then looked at other times down the line. It also serves as another great table-top book that can be read by guests who are waiting, or if you just want something for people to read in your living room. It's a fun book, that really typifies his type of humor, and its one that I have enjoyed reading numerous times. It has gone up in price since the $5.95 I purchased it at a few years ago, but it is still very much worth it due to just how funny the book really is. I highly recommend Gary Larson's The Far Side Observer.