In 1993, The Far Side (R) was awarded the Max and Moritz Award for Best International Comic Strip/Panel by the International Comic Salon. The National Cartoonists Society also named Larson Best Syndicated Panel Cartoonist in both 19. Larson's work on The Far Side (R) has earned him numerous awards, including the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year from the National Cartoonists Society in 19. In another fitting tribute, the scientific community named a chewing louse after Larson (Strigiphilus garylarsoni), and paleontologists refer to the distinctive array of previously unnamed tail spikes on a stegosaurus as the 'thagomizer,' thanks to one of his cartoons. In 1988, Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould, a prominent science writer and a member of the museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology, dubbed Larson 'the national humorist of natural history' in his foreword to The Far Side (R) Gallery 3. In 1985, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco premiered a collection of four hundred of Larson's originals in The Far Side (R) of Science exhibit, which later traveled to science venues across North America, including the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History. His talk was titled 'The Importance of Being Weird.' His interest in science was a frequent topic in many of The Far Side (R) cartoons, which he created for fifteen years, from January 1, 1980, to January 1, 1995. In 1990, Larson received the Regents' Distinguished Alumnus Award and was the centennial commencement speaker.

He graduated in 1972 from Washington State University with a degree in communications but took many classes in the sciences. Though he loved to draw as a child, Larson didn't formally study art, nor did he consider being a cartoonist. Always drawn to nature, he and his older brother spent much of their youth exploring the woods and swamps of the Pacific Northwest, and the tidelands and waters of Puget Sound. Gary Larson was born August 14, 1950, in Tacoma, Washington.

Gary larson the far side gallery 3