Gary Larson The Complete Far Side

How to Get the Complete Far Side Without Wasting Money or Time

Most people looking for Gary Larson The Complete Far Side have no idea they actually want three separate books that together clock in at nearly 1,200 pages. The collection wasn't released as one volume initially. Andrews McMeel Publishing split it across three editions — The Complete Far Side, More Far Side, and Ultimate Far Side — and even then Larson kept adding to them after each release because he was still producing strips. This creates a real problem if you're trying to complete the set, because later printings include bonus material that earlier ones don't. I spent about six months tracking down every legitimate edition because I kept finding gaps. Someone on a message board once recommended a single PDF compilation they claimed had everything. It was missing roughly forty strips from the late 1990s and had several images flipped sideways because the scanner operator got lazy. I ended up buying the hardcover editions from Amazon and the Barnes & Noble warehouse outlet, which saved me about forty percent compared to the list price. The warehouse outlet books are the first printings, so they lack the extra pages that appear in later editions. That turned out to be fine for my purposes since I had the later editions separately.

Where to Actually Find Gary Larson The Complete Far Side

The official compilation exists in hardcover and paperback. If you just want the comics in order, start with the three-book set. The 1995 original, the 1996 follow-up, and the 2001 Ultimate Far Side cover the complete run from 1980 through 2000. After 2001 Larson stopped producing new strips for The Far Side, so everything published after that is supplementary material like sketches, unused artwork, and notes from the archives. Here is what most buyers miss. The Ultimate Far Side includes material that appeared in the first two books plus additional strips and never-before-seen artwork. So if you buy all three, you own duplicates. The smart approach is to get the first two in any condition — even used paperbacks work since the images are black and white — and then add the Ultimate edition for the extra content. That way you are not paying for overlapping material twice. I found a used copy of the first two for under twenty dollars total at a half-price books bin, and the Ultimate edition ran about thirty-five dollars used in acceptable condition. For digital options, the only legal source is the Amazon Kindle edition or the Barnes & Noble Nook version. Some people try to find scanned copies online, but the resolution on those is usually terrible. The Far Side comics rely on small details in the background — the kind of stuff Larson would hide in corners like a second-grade teacher looking for a pop quiz answer. A low-resolution scan turns those details into gray blobs, and you miss half the jokes. I learned this when I borrowed a scanned copy from a friend and could barely make out what half the panels showed. I returned it the next day and bought the Kindle version instead.

One technical detail that matters more than you would expect. The Far Side strips were originally drawn with ink on bristol board. That means the line work has a certain weight and texture that digital reproductions can preserve or destroy depending on the edition. The hardcover editions from Andrews McMeel use heavier paper stock and better ink coverage. The cheap paperback reprints sometimes compress the images slightly, and the text becomes harder to read on panels that already have small lettering. If you care about reproducing the originals accurately, stick with the hardcover or the Kindle version where you can zoom in. Another thing nobody warns you about. Gary Larson did not sign off on most of the fan-made compilations floating around the internet. Several of those sites have stripped the copyright notices and rearranged the strips out of chronological order. Larson himself has been pretty clear over the years that he does not support unauthorized digital distributions. The legal route is straightforward and not expensive if you buy used. The complete three-book set in good condition usually runs between fifty and eighty dollars depending on which edition you get and whether the dust jackets are included. The dust jackets matter if you are collecting, because the Ultimate Far Side cover art changes between printings and some of the rarer editions have different jacket designs. If you are reading this and you already have a copy, you might not need any of this. But if you are starting out and do not want to waste money on duplicates or bad scans, the three-book strategy is the one that works. Buy the first two used in any format, add the Ultimate hardcover for the bonus material, and skip the rest. The strips are timeless regardless of how you get them.