The Far Left Side (Originally entitled, believe it or not, "The Far Right Side") is the result of a progressive fervor that gripped me leading up to the mid-term elections of 2006. In my own small way I did what I could to influence public opinion away from the madness of the far right back to the soft and cuddly political center.

The initial idea for the strip came from one single gag that had been bouncing around in my brain for the past several years, and you can see it here in the very first Far Left Side comic.

As you can see I was using Gary Larson's opus creation, The Far Side, as thematic fodder. I didn't rip off Mr. Larson's originals so much as re-imagine them in a left-wing sense. Basically, I used Mr. Larson's style as a template, much to the obvious distress of a handful of Larson purists, but I've more recently begun rendering the comics in a style more resembling my own though a faint resemblance to the original yet remains. It is safe to say, though, that anyone who confuses the current cartoons with Mr. Larson's works could use a few lessons in cartoon art history.

I should add that I recently received an email from Mr. Larson's legal eagles. Basically it said they were fine with the strip but that I should be more careful about borrowing art verbatim. Since I'd never actually copy/pasted any old Far Side art, only very carefully re-drawn a few panels, this wasn't a problem for me.

After the 2006 elections I kind of slacked-off a bit, generating only a handful of comics in the whole of 2007. (It didn't help that I was like crazy-busy.) But one day, in early 2008, I checked the log files for the site and, lo and behold, I discovered that people were reading these things. Lots of people! That's when I decided to take the strip "full-time" and since January of 2008 it's been a regular three-times-a-week feature.

Currently, the site is delivering about four million pages a year and that number is on the increase. If you happen to be among that number let me just say that I worry about you. Please don't have children.

This modest comic will never equal the original works of Mr. Larson, as that creative lightning strikes but once, but I hope those of you with a foot in reality's door enjoy it anyway.

I could go on and on about this stuff, and it seems like I have already, but I think it's clear that we shouldn't trust a Republican candidate or legislator closer than we can comfortably spit out a rat. And there are plenty of rats these days.

=Lefty=