Gary Larson - The Chickens Are Restless

I've been immersing myself lately in some heavy reading material and have had to concentrate on it deeply to try to understand it's complete meaning. I've studied each and every page carefully, pondering and poring over the nuances of subtle wisdom shared by the author.

I have studied chickens, snakes, cows, life on the farm and life in hell. The antics of farmers, dogs, ducks, and cats, other family pets, branching out into the study of castaways on deserted islands, also including but not limited to, cavemen, dinosaurs, nerds, and scientists in white lab coats became subjects in this realm and furthered my understanding of their meaning in the universe. God, with a flowing white beard, amoebas, insects and other microscopic creatures living in human society ....there was nothing left untouched by this man's mind and his philosophy.


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Who hasn't heard of Gary Larson and his Far Side comics? Gary Larson is known for his off the wall, witty, odd, quirky humor which comes to us, his readers, in the form of cartoons. For example, this book filled (mostly) with chicken jokes had me giggling, laughing, snickering and smiling as I read it.

Larson had a daily cartoon for many years, but retired his cartoon column from newspapers on January 1, 1995, and has since been busy publishing books. I was disappointed when he retired from his daily cartoon, thinking I would never be able to find his humor again, but luckily I was mistaken.

He draws bugs, odd-looking people, animals, you name it and makes them come to life with his strangely appealing sense of humor. There are mostly two jokes on each of the book's pages and there are a large variety of jokes, not limited to just chicken jokes in this particular book. On some pages the drawing are larger with just one joke on a page.

I noticed that Larson's 'people' characters are mostly overweight and wear glasses. Also, worth noting, the women he draws usually have an old-fashioned 'beehive' hairdo, which in itself is hilarious.

Larson's humor usually includes a "trouble brewing" theme aspect. A couple of examples from this book, which are hilarious:

. **A falconer's convention meeting next to the 12th Annual Teacup Poodle Fanciers Picnic, separated only by a thin row of shrubs.

. **A cartoon which shows Madonna falling and puncturing holes in an emergency raft with the familiar cone-shaped top that she wore in the 1980s music videos.

I want to mention a few others that were among my favorites:

. **One cartoon shows Moses standing before a mirror with his arms out to his sides. The caption reads: "Moses parting his hair."

. **Another wonderful cartoon shows a witch looking out her window watching two children approach a cottage made of candy and gingerbread. She thinks to herself: "Dang, Zelda seems to attract all the little kids." At the bottom of the cartoon the caption reads, "Later, Edna was forced to sell her brussels sprout house." Definitely bizarre, but very funny too!


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Gary Larson has produced 23 Far Side books, all of which have made it to the New York Times bestseller list.

Another Gary Larson book I would eventually like to buy was published in August 2003: "The Complete Far Side: 1980-1994" (ISBN 0-7407-2113-5).

Gary Larson's The Far Side (official site) is: www.thefarside.com

A Far Side Collection by Gary Larson: The Chickens are Restless
(November 1993)

ISBN 0-8362-1717-9

Andrews and McMeel, A Universal Press Syndicate Company, Kansas City

$8.95 (or less)

ISBN 0-8362-1717-9

Published by FarWorks, Inc.

It's 95 pages of pure fun...


~thanks for reading~

gkm.


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