This Far Side Rip-Off Tried To Fill the Void When Gary Larson Retired
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Published Apr 14, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT
Ambrose Tardive is an editor on ScreenRant's Comics team. Over the past two years, he has developed into the internet's foremost authority on The Far Side. Outside of his work for ScreenRant, Ambrose works as an Adjunct English Instructor.
The Far Sidehas no equals, but it has plenty of imitators. Chief among them? John McPhearson's Close to Home, which hits a little too close to home for fans of Gary Larson's work. When Larson unexpectedly retired in the mid-1990s, many cartoonists tried to fill the void it left in the funny pages, but few were as blatant about it as Close to Home.
For those of you that feel less generous, the alternative is to call Close to Home a crude Far Side knock-off. Let's take a closer look, and try to figure out which is more of the case.
"Close To Home," The '90s Newspaper Comic That Tried To Be An Alternative To "The Far Side"
Comparing/Contrasting The Far Side & Its #1 "Weird Cartoon" Imitator
Close to Home debuted in select newspapers in late 1992. Meaning for just over two years, it actually coexisted with The Far Side. When Gary Larson called it a career at the start of 1995, The Far Side was running in hundreds of newspapers across the country. While the cartoon persisted in reprints in some markets, most papers sought a replacement. Close to Home was one of them.
Like The Far Side, Close to Home is a single-panel comic, mostly published in black-and-white. It depicts a mix of absurdist and "slice of life" commentary, featuring hyperbolic caricatures of people. It is clearly trying to re-create the vibe of The Far Side, and maybe even to make people mistake it for The Far Side.
Yet this only highlights everything about The Far Side that Close to Home is not. Where The Far Side could be subtle, and tended toward being obscure, Close to Home is overt and on-the-nose. To put it another way, Gary Larson didn't care if you "got" The Far Side; it's clear from Close to Home that John McPhearson didn't want to risk anyone missing his punchlines.
"Close To Home" Could Replicate The Form Of The Far Side, But Not Its Substance
The Imitation's Hollowness, Explained
There's an interesting phenomenon with Close to Home, where, in its drive to replicate The Far Side, it actually manages to simultaneously go too far and not far enough. Gary Larson's surreality tended to be cerebral; Close to Home's is a more brutish weirdness. Yet at the same time, it is also somehow more "normie" coded.
That is, it feels like what happens when punk rock goes mainstream. Close to Home takes the form of The Far Side, but lacks its underground spirit. Gary Larson was doing The Far Side when no one cared, when it was only in one newspaper, and he was rewarded with unexpected popularity. Close to Home and other Far Side imitators were consciously trying to appeal to an existing market. Big difference.
The Far Side Could Be Copied, But The Mind Behind It Couldn't
There Was No One In Comics Like Gary Larson
The Far Side wasn't without its precedents, notably earlier cartoonists like Gahan Wilson. Still, Gary Larson's work was singular. Larson's idiosyncratic worldview and style made The Far Side what it was. Close to Home's perspective and tone ultimately don't hold a candle to Larson's. It might repeat some of Far Side's familiar set-ups and themes, and even crib some of its visual motifs, but the similarities don't go beyond the surface level.
Essentially, The Far Side created a genre. And when the comic ended, it left behind heirs that couldn't quite match its glory, but still scratched a certain kind of itch for newspaper readers. It's funny: people who grew up in the '90s are always going online trying to find a deep-cut Far Side comic they remember. Sometimes they describe Far Side comics that seemingly don't exist.
Let's dig deep into The Far Side's vast catalog of comic panels and look at some of Gary Larson's cartoons that have gotten funnier with age.
At least some of these misrememberings can likely be attributed to Close to Home. At its best, Close to Home could confuse uninitiated readers into thinking it was a Far Sidecomic, but real ones know, and that is the real legacy of the comic. As a successor, but not necessarily a successful follow-up act.
Sound off, Far Side fans. What do you think about Close to Home? Heir to The Far Side or cheap copycat?
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