My favorite is 'old dog new trick.' I won't post a link myself because I once spent a long email thread with Larson's secretary trying, and failing, to get permission to use the cartoon in a slide deck. He has described that he thinks of the cartoons as his children and that, like children, he wants to know where they are. I respect that, though I wish he felt differently.
For what it is worth, Yankovick has done the opposite of your comment at least once.
Yankovic specifically got legal permission for his song Amish Paradise but not what was arguably "right" meaning permission from the artist Coolio who said no. Yankovic did it anyway.
From what I've read he knew he had permission from the record label, and knew he didn't have Coolio's blessing. I wasn't there, but it seems unlikely that if he immediately had turned around like "wow I didn't know" the so-called beef wouldn't have lasted years until they made nice.
>Coolio said when Weird Al initially requested to remake the song, he said, "No," but later realized that, due to the fair use copyright laws, he could not stop the production.
>Coolio later reconsidered Weird Al's proposal. "I sat down, and I really thought it out," he told the students at IPR. "I was like, 'Wait a minute.' I was like, 'Coolio, who the f—k do you think you are? He did Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson didn't get mad.'"
You're citing an interview with Coolio, which doesn't reflect Weird Al's experience. I don't have a citation on hand, but the story I've always read is Weird Al asked Coolio's label, got a "yes" back, and believed that the label had asked Coolio. Ever since then he made sure to get the answer directly from the artist in question.
It is impossible to overstate how much laughter and joy 'The Far Side' brought me growing up. Between 'The Far Side' and 'Calvin and Hobbes' I was set.
Yeah I think that's somehow cooler than the species. There are a lot of obscure species that get named for someone, but being the guy who named something that every kid is familiar with... that's pretty cool! (And I came here to post about that too).
You know how people always say "back in my day, things were better!" (in between saying "you kids don't know how easy you have it")? For me, while there are plenty of differences between now and when I grew up, and these differences are sometimes good and sometimes bad, there are only two things I've been solid on.
The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes.
The bad part is that we aren't getting more. The good part is that we still have access to them.
I have all my old copies of The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes in my library waiting for my daughter. Some of my most fond early memories are of Calvin and Hobbes specifically and it resonates with me in a completely different way now than it did then, obviously. I have to imagine there are other great works being made now that I might be missing out on because of my age?
One person that I think fits the bill, but isn't currently making comics is Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half is on the level.
Anyone have something new you recommend I check out?
I think you missed some of the context earlier in this thread. There is no disagreement that Watterson drew a few strips of PBS. The post you replied to asserted that this wasn't a swap between Watterson and Pastis. If you can explain how Watterson doing guest content creation constitutes a swap please go ahead.
A couple years ago, Berkeley Breathed also decided that making comics was pretty enjoyable if he didn't have to meet deadlines. He's been posting new strips intermittently on Facebook. https://facebook.com/berkeleybreathed/
When I saw him talk at the National Book Fair in DC in 2016 shortly after he resumed, he explicitly blamed Harvey and Bob Weinstein for the lack of a movie.
Good to see he still doesn't get it. The Far Side really is about nostalgia now so I kinda like that too.
Very interested to see if he will adapt to the new evolved playing field of humour or will stick with nostalgia. Both have value. From the letter it seems like the later.
Why was this link changed? Most of the time that the moderators switch in a link, they are functionally the same, but this is an interview rather than a direct link to the content of the email that was sent out, hosted on the site discussed in the email. Also, the New York Times is paywalled, which is fine by HN policy, but its one thing when the only source of a particular article is paywalled. Its another thing to change the link to the paywalled version...
> Mainly to prevent opening the context menu - probably to make copying images harder...
I feel like Gary Larson is still new to the Internet. I mean, the prevalence of Twitter screenshots alone should demonstrate the futility of such efforts. Though it may be that he just doesn't want to tell with supporting the image link traffic.
However, given that uMatrix reports blocking >5K, my suspicion is that he or whoever he has doing his site may not be all that clever. (I haven't any plans to dig into why uMatrix is reporting so much.)
> I’ll forever be grateful to fans, who in those early days often rescued “The Far Side” from cancellation
I'd like to read more about the "controversies" and the complaints against his cartoons then. It's probably instructive to see how easy people can be offended and an author becoming a target of forces that he couldn't perceive.
I remember the first one I ever saw. It was a bunch of porcupines standing around looking at a mattress with a porcupine lying on it. I didn't see another for months. I am embarrassed at how long it took me to get it, but it stuck with me until I did. I haven't seen it in any of the books.
The article should have mentioned the Thagomizer ("after the late Thag Simmons"). Hmm, another obscure mattress reference I never noticed before this moment, 35 years later...
71 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadhttps://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/75/31/d77531ddeaf83c8375c2...
For a similar reason, Weird Al Yankovic always gets permission before publishing his parodies even though he doesn't have to.
Yankovic specifically got legal permission for his song Amish Paradise but not what was arguably "right" meaning permission from the artist Coolio who said no. Yankovic did it anyway.
Years later, they are reportedly "cool" now according to Yankovic: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1h7afc/i_am_weird_al_...
Yankovic _thought_ he had gotten permission and when he later found out Coolio hadn't been consulted he was mortified.
From: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bp/coolio-did-not-want-w...
>Coolio said when Weird Al initially requested to remake the song, he said, "No," but later realized that, due to the fair use copyright laws, he could not stop the production.
>Coolio later reconsidered Weird Al's proposal. "I sat down, and I really thought it out," he told the students at IPR. "I was like, 'Wait a minute.' I was like, 'Coolio, who the f—k do you think you are? He did Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson didn't get mad.'"
----->
"Oh wait! wait! Looks like we're coming into some more Turbulence!"
"Everything's squared away, yessir, squaaaaaaared away."
"Now this end is called the thagomizer... after the late Thag Simmons"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer
The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes.
The bad part is that we aren't getting more. The good part is that we still have access to them.
One person that I think fits the bill, but isn't currently making comics is Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half is on the level.
Anyone have something new you recommend I check out?
Dumb phones + pagers + hardlines + internet on desktops, was a pretty great time to be alive.
That said, comics have changed a lot since those books were published, and part of me wonders if The Far Side would've succeeded today.
Considering most active internet-dwellers these days have no memory of The Far Side, I guess we'll find out.
Good to see he still doesn't get it. The Far Side really is about nostalgia now so I kinda like that too.
Very interested to see if he will adapt to the new evolved playing field of humour or will stick with nostalgia. Both have value. From the letter it seems like the later.
For reference, this used to point to:
https://www.thefarside.com/about/48/a-letter-from-gary-larso...
It currently points to:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/arts/far-side-gary-larson...
EDIT: Looking through what happened, I think the two were merged together as a dupe, but the interview was chosen over the letter itself.
Similar but darker and weirder was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Kliban
Nice essay - http://www.thepaincomics.com/Kliban.pdf
Just as funny to me.
Do a web search for Kliban without "cat" for a taste.
https://i.imgur.com/xTrQtPo.png
I feel like Gary Larson is still new to the Internet. I mean, the prevalence of Twitter screenshots alone should demonstrate the futility of such efforts. Though it may be that he just doesn't want to tell with supporting the image link traffic.
However, given that uMatrix reports blocking >5K, my suspicion is that he or whoever he has doing his site may not be all that clever. (I haven't any plans to dig into why uMatrix is reporting so much.)
I'd like to read more about the "controversies" and the complaints against his cartoons then. It's probably instructive to see how easy people can be offended and an author becoming a target of forces that he couldn't perceive.
Though, there are so many favorites, it's difficult not to come up with a long list.
The article should have mentioned the Thagomizer ("after the late Thag Simmons"). Hmm, another obscure mattress reference I never noticed before this moment, 35 years later...