Gary Larson

Gary Larson was an amazing cartoonist. I am sure that most everyone who will read this has, at one point or another, seen one of the cartoons from his most famous cartoon series: “The Far Side”. While many of his cartoons were blazingly simple, with jokes and ideas that made you go into hysterics in just seconds, others were very multi-faceted, having several jokes intertwined together to achieve a larger punch line. Many times, it would take several read-throughs to find and appreciate all the complexities within the 4.5 by 3.5 inch frame (or there-abouts). Here is an example of such a cartoon.

Let’s start with the basics- it's setting.

When: Sometime in the middle ages

Where: A castle

What: An army of raiders charges over a moat and into a castle, from which arrows are being fired upon the raiders.

Who: A guy notices something in the castle's landscaping.

Why is it funny? Let's look at three possible reasons:

1. Let’s examine the minds of the castle's designers. The standard moat-of-death full of alligators has been replaced by a goldfish pond most commonly found in Japanese gardens. Who in the world would put goldfish into a moat? Are the defenders Japanese arborists? Or are they just slightly loony? Who knows.

2. Here’s a guy, right in the middle of an assault. Usually, when a man is going into battle, he is very pre-occupied with what is going on. Is he going to get wounded by those flying arrows? Killed? Will he have to kill anyone? Well, not this guy. He’s just curious of his surroundings. He looks at the castle, looks at the pretty birds in the air, and then looks down at the water, and notices that there’s goldfish in the moat. Either he is a completely brave soul, with no concern for death, or he is a complete nut job, who’s out to lunch, and notices these fish he’s running over. Since he’s in the army, he must be relatively sane. Either that, or this is quite a rediculous army.

3. Now, even if you reconcile those two things as sane, you have one more: he tells his buddies. This begs the question: Which one of them is going to give a darn? Here’s Bob, running into battle, when he hears his buddy Joe yell “Oo! Goldfish, everyone! Goldfish!” What will he do? Will he roll his eyes, or just say “Joe. Shut up.”? But, considering the fact that he hangs out with Joe, it wouldn’t be so far fetched to say that he might actually look himself.

I’m glad to realize that at least at one point in time, someone was brave enough to put something complex in the mass media, even if it is just a cartoon. While I am sure there are many cartoons at hand with intricate punch lines, they are outweighed by the pure and simple ones.

Now, I am not saying that simple cartoons are stupid, quite the opposite- I love stupid cartoons. What I am trying to say is that there is a time and a place for both. Maybe our society is at a point now where simple is better. Maybe our society is just stupid. I don’t know.

Foy Lyndström