Not Sweating the Small Stuff

Gary Larson - Seriously Off-Beat Cartoonist

I was living in Beijing for the whole year of 1988 - just before the Tiananmen Square Massacre, when there was still a sense of 'opening-up' and people would stop Westerners in the street to talk, practise English, and gain a sense of the world outside the Middle Kingdom (中国) or China. Cos there was very little unofficial stuff on TV or in magazines or anywhere about the wider world.

I had an enormous old-style flat in the Friendship Hotel ('Yoyi Binguan')', in the Haidian district, north-east of the CBD. This gigantic complex was built in 1954 in a Russian style.

Anyway, one night an American friend gave me a pile of 'The Far Side' magazines, and so introduced me to Gary Larson, cartoonist extraordinaire:

One of the first cartoons I remember was this one - it got me really howling, and this didn't stop till I turned the last page in the last collection.
What I loved about this cartoon is the wild off-beat humour, quite wonderfully weird and unexpected.

Okay, here's a selection. Enjoy!















Well, how did you go? On a scale of 1-10, how hard did you howl? If you didn't manage even a decibel, you are in big big trouble, and in need of help. Though I suspect your condition is terminal!!!

Okay, you have one more chance, with this non-Larson effort:

Well ... ??? Did the gay content help? No! Dismiss yourself immediately!