OPEN POST: Sunday Comics With Gary Larson!

Everyone has their favorite Gary Larson comic, right? The creator of "The Far Side," an artist who's now heavy into environmental causes, started the strip on a lark while working at a record store in Seattle. After submitting a few dashed-off, single-panel comics to local newspapers, he was surprised by the reception. The papers loved them - and so did their readers, who reveled in his dark, surreal vision of life, people, animals and even wee insects. The strip ran nationally for 15 years, its finale in January, 1995. 

To me, "The Far Side" has always been an anomaly in the comic strip world. Children as well as adults used to look forward to their favorite newspaper comics in the morning - with cereal! - because they wanted to laugh with their favorite characters, like Snoopy or Cathy or Ziggy or Hobbes. But with "The Far Side," you weren't looking forward to recurring characters, you were looking forward to what Gary, the artist, was going to pull off, to what freaky, side-splitting, sometimes jaw-dropping, vision he had in store. 

As a kid, I marveled that someone could come up with such eye-popping comics, and by the time I turned 12, secretly decided that he would be my boyfriend. I never reached out to him, thank goodness - getting a restraining order as a tween would have been embarrassing - but I still find artistic talent, in him and others, very attractive. 

What are your favorite strips from "The Far Side?"

Artwork: Gary Larson/Universal Press Syndicate