The front side Known for his often inscrutable punchlines, creator Gary Larson’s audit of one of his less successful cartoons offers great insight into how and why his work earned his reputation for being “Confusing, confusing, esoteric and strange.” Impressive, The front side Was able to be dark in several different ways, on multiple different levels.
in The Complete Front Side Volume Two, Larson was as close as he ever got to directly explaining a For side joke, break down one of his patented head-scratchers and make it clear that the joke is actually obvious – At least, if the reader knew what to look for. Not only does this exercise reveal a lot about Larson’s style of humor, it also emphasizes the reader’s role as the essential second half of the equation, which results in a For side Panel’s success or failure.
Gary Larson Explains His “Low Tide/High Tide” Joke (And It’s Actually Very Funny)
First published: January 15, 1991
First, it would be best to describe the panel as a reader would encounter it “out in the wild”—that is, without any context but the image, the caption, and any pre-existing knowledge of The front side The reader should have. Most readers’ attention will be immediately drawn to the foreground, where two people cling to a rock. This is one of Gary Larson’s many cartoons about people lost at sea. Although the cartoons have not always explained how their characters end up in such a predicament, here readers will further notice the tail of an airplane sinking under the waves.
The caption is progressive on the image, as the man at the top of the rock yells down to the woman at the base:
Well, we’ll never want to eat, Doris… The rock is absolutely encrusted with oysters and mussels – all the way to the top!
At first glance, one might think that the humor of the panel refers to the optimism of a person in the midst of an incomprehensible terrible situation, but as it turns out, this is not the case. In fact, the punchline of this panel relies on the reader knowing something the characters don’t. Unfortunately, most readers were in the same boat as the characters – missing a crucial piece of information that changes like this For side Panel is read.
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Or, at least, they missed the cue that they were supposed to provide this For side Panel with this important detail itself. Here’s how Gary Larson explains it:
For show ‘n’ tell, I’ve found a cartoon (oh, the choices) that, in hindsight, I admit is just a little too cumbersome and obtuse.
Let me be the first to admit that even if you understood this, it wouldn’t exactly make you laugh. (Let’s just call it “quiet humor,” okay?) Here’s the cartoon decoded: If you’ve managed to escape some disastrous event at sea, you’d be well advised to note where the various crustaceans and mollusks make their little homes. Because “home” to these creatures is somewhere that is comfortably below the tide. (I knew I was in trouble when a marine biologist friend called me and asked me to explain this one.)
Notice how, even here, Larson dances around the hard, cold truth of the joke: that the couple will drown when the tide comes in. This For side Panel is a lot funnier than it might initially seem – if readers can provide their end of the punchline.
The role of the reader in making funny comics on the far side is more important than people realize
The second half of the equation
A lot has been said about the way Gary Larson used familiar tropes and pop culture images throughout The front side. This is usually discussed in the context of Larson’s technique of subversion; He would offer something recognizable, only to do something strange or unexpected with it. In a way, this also served to establish its strangeness, to attach it to something the reader could understand, but there is also a flip side. By doing this, Larson placed implicit faith in his readers that they would get the reference.
Meaning, of course, if the reference was too dark, it often meant the risk of the cartoon failing to get a reaction. This was the case with The front side “High Tide/Low Tide” joke. In that sense, Larson gambled that the average reader would know enough about shellfish habitats and tidal patterns to recognize the punchline, but in this case, the bet didn’t pay off. for For side Fans, when they come across a perplexing panel, it makes it worth pausing and wondering if there is something they need to fill out.
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At the same time, it also emphasizes the idea that each individual For side Panel is a kind of exchange between artist and reader. A For side Cartoon is just Gary Larson’s half of a dialogue; It is up to the reader to know how to respond. Another way to put it: If a For side Panel fails to elicit a response from the reader, rather than asking what the comic is missing, the reader should ask if they are, in fact, missing something.
A new way to read classic far side cartoons
Fresh eyes
Certainly, Gary Larson’s sense of humor is far from conventional, and his willingness to go places that other humorists would not give him a reputation for being “dark” as much as he earned one for being “mixed.” That said, For side Fans can approach Larson’s work with a fresh set of eyes by reconsidering what they bring into a reading From his cartoons themselves. returned to The front side It always has its share of surprises, but a different perspective allows even the most recognizable comics to be reconsidered as if for the first time.
That’s not to say that the artist can be absolved of blame for every weird, hard-to-decipher For side strips, but through this new lens, readers can revisit some of Larson’s hardest-to-understand panels and realize that they actually have punchlines that are just easy to miss. Just reading a novel twice a decade apart can make the reader feel like it was a completely different book, a reader can revisit Gary Larson’s work and discover they “get” his humor more than they used to.
Sometimes it was the notes that Gary Larson didn’t play
Obscurity as a virtue
In addition to being a cartoonist, Gary Larson was a jazz guitarist, and thus the humor of The front side Can be summed up with a spin on an old musical adage – sometimes it was what Larson didn’t say, or didn’t show, that could make or break one of his jokes. This made a lot of faith in the reader, sometimes perhaps too much. Still, it was essential to the comic’s style, as exemplified by the “High Tide/Low Tide” panel.
A version of the joke where the punchline was obvious might have confused less people, but it wouldn’t necessarily have gotten more laughs than the confusing version. That is to say, for better or worse, The essence of the joke is its understanding. Or another way to put it: perhaps it was better to quit than a For side Panel how to succeed like no other comic strip in the world. As much as it may have left readers asking “what-the?Rather than prompting a hearty laugh—or even a soft chuckle—it was unequivocally The For side.
Source: The Complete Front Side Volume Two