Gary Larson Made Me Do It. | Humor

By RickLondon
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Word Count: 555

Around 1986, I was a happy-go-lucky tv producer and playwright in Washington, D.C. I wore the gratuitous gray pinstripe suite and red or yellow power tie. I lived on Capital Hill, just a few blocks from the Smithsonian. I never went unless I had out-of-town guests.

The phone rang about 3 p.m one Thursday. It was my two friends Julie and Beverly, originally from Mississippi like me, and now my neighbors on The Hill. I was being invited to a Far Side exhibit at the museum. I wanted to sleep. They talked me into going.

Don't get me wrong, I loved and still love The Far Side, but at the end of the day I was usually exhausted and the though that went through my head was, "Why wait in a long line for an exhibit, when I can simply open the Washington Post the following day and see the cartoon?"

The girls insisted I go with them. So I did. They picked me up and we were on our way. The lines, though long, moved quickly and the exhibit was beyond my wildest imagination. The panel cartoons had been blown up onto 5 or 6 foot poster boards and were hanging from the ceiling. Many of them were my Far Sides of all time.

The blown up paperboard only served to make the Far Side better and funnier. The details that made it so brilliant were no longer so subtle or hidden. It was like Disneyland.

Something inside me started going wrong. My nervers were twitching and I had trouble catching my breath. Could it have been a heart attack? I went home that night and cried, not knowing why at first.

After exhibit I went straight home and couldn't hold back the tears much longer. I remembered something very important from 3 decades earler. I had written a shoebox full of cartoons very much like the futre Far Side. The year was 1973 and it did not yet exist. I put that, and many other dreams behind me to make a living. But this one persisted. I had to try it before my death.

I remember making the mistake of showing them to my mom, who told me to "throw them away and do my homework". I continued to do my homework, but I never through away the cartoons. They remained in my closet until that very night.

Publishing and newspaper syndication are a difficult business for cartoonists. Nedles to say, most do not get published.

Ten years later, I launched Londons Times Cartoons with one other artist. Since that time I have worked with numerous artists and I've continued writing and assigning the cartoons. The site has become the biggest of its kind on the Internet and certainly the most visited (over 8.9 million visitors since 2005 when we began counting). The cartoon itself is nearly 11 years old. We have seven cartoon merchandise stores.

The motto of this story is "build it and they will come"; though that was not my favorite Kevin Kostner quote of his movie career. But the concept is true. If one focuses hard enough on a project or profession, sooner or later, something will break. The secret is being patient enough to hang in there until it does.

About the Author

Rick London once considered himsself a failure in every apect of his life. Now he owns 8 e-stores and a main cartoon site of offbeat Londons Times Cartoons It's All Gary Larson's Fault

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