this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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The Far Side

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Hello fellow Far Side fans!

About this community and how I post the comic strip… Many moons ago, I would ask my Dad to save the newspaper for me everyday so I could read my favorite comic strips and one of those was The Far Side. These days of course you find just about anything online including www.thefarside.com where they post several comics a day and I repost them here. Just to note, the date you see in my posts is not the initial release date, but the date they were posted on the website.

The Far Side is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world, logical fallacies, impending bizarre disasters, (often twisted) references to proverbs, or the search for meaning in life… Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Side

Hope you enjoy and feel free to contribute to the community with art, cool stuff about the author, tattoos, toys and anything else, as long it’s The Far Side!

Ps. Sub to all my comic strip communities:

Bello Bear !BelloBear@lemmy.world https://lemmy.world/c/bellobearofficial

Bloom County !bloomcounty@lemm.ee https://lemm.ee/c/bloomcounty

Calvin and Hobbes !calvinandhobbes@lemmy.world https://lemmy.world/c/calvinandhobbes

Cyanide and Happiness !cyanideandhappiness https://lemm.ee/c/cyanideandhappiness

Garfield !garfield@lemmy.world https://lemmy.world/c/garfield

The Far Side !thefarside@sh.itjust.works https://lemmy.world/c/thefarside@sh.itjust.works

Fine print: All comics I post are freely available online. In no way am I claiming ownership, copyright or anything else. This is a not for profit community, we just want to enjoy our comics, thank you.

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Caption:

J. W. Miller with his staff and rod

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[–] zabadoh@ani.social 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'll just point to a reddit post about this one, from which I am mostly stealing the below: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFarSide/comments/x39n7i/jw_miller/

"Staff and rod" are a Biblical reference to shepherding equipment and symbols of leadership, rest, protection, and love. As good an explanation as any.

"J W Miller" might be a reference to a 19th Century preacher, William Miller, who popularized the whole "calculating the Second Coming of Jesus Christ" doomsday thing, in later religious movements and doomsday prophecies. But I can't find anything about having a "J" as part of his name.

Someone thought that Miller was also a reference to a boat building company, but this is the only one that came up on a google. I have no idea how popular the Miller boats are or were. But again, no "J" in the name here.

The boat might only be there to work in the "Rod == fishing rod" angle.

"J W Miller" might just be some random guy stuck in a biblical reference.