While fans the world over remember Roger Ebert for his uplifting writing about the art of film (including some beloved, blistering reviews), few know that he produced over a hundred single-panel comics, similar in tone and subject matter to Gary Larson’s The Far Side. However, of the many funny entries in Ebert’s body of work, one stands out as the greatest success. (Of course, if you disagree, stick around to vote in our end-of-article poll on which of Ebert’s comics is the funniest.)
Despite his quick wit, Ebert doesn’t deserve all the credit for the comics he helped create. In a post on RogerEbert.com, the film critic and journalist revealed that he had a long history of entering The New Yorker‘s cartoon caption contest – a weekly competition in which fans of the magazine send in possible captions to give a single-panel comic the best punchline. In the post, Ebert revealed he had submitted countless unsuccessful entries before finally having his caption chosen as the winner.
In 2011, The New Yorker finally gave Ebert the honor of first place, choosing his caption for a comic depicting a couple walking through the desert (shared in full below.) It was a feel good end to Ebert’s efforts, especially given his frustration over the contest, writing:
I have done more writing for free for the New Yorker in the last five years than for anybody in the previous 40 years.
It’s not that I think my cartoon captions are better than anyone else’s, although some weeks, understandably, I do. It’s that just once I want to see one of my damn captions in the magazine that publishes the best cartoons in the world. Is that too much to ask?
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Ebert Only Won Once, But Entered Over a Hundred Times
When Ebert scooped first place for his caption to Tom Cheney’s art (above), The New Yorker itself celebrated the victory, publishing an article congratulating Ebert and sharing several of what cartoon editor Robert Mankoff considered his best ‘failed’ entries. While some are better than others, a monster truck crashing into the symphony and a risqué airplane joke stand out as the cream of the crop. Witty, surreal, and a little morbid, it’s only the absence of Gary Larson’s distinctive art style that would stop these appearing in one of The Far Side‘s many collections.
The first critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, Ebert was an immensely influential figure in film journalism, and is remembered for his “Two Thumbs Up” seal of approval for a movie with collaborator and fellow critic Gene Siskel. Ebert was also known for witty putdowns of those films which offended his tastes, for example saying of 1996’s Mad Dog Time:
“Mad Dog Time” is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time.
And slamming 1997’s Spice Girl vehicle Spice World with:
The Spice Girls are easier to tell apart than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that is small consolation: What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names?
However, neither Ebert’s skill with words or his fame got him preferential treatment from the New Yorker. In its article congratulating Ebert, the publication revealed that he had entered 107 of the possible 281 contests at that time (winning #281), which surprisingly didn’t even put him in the top hundred most frequent contributors. However, his frequent entries don’t diminish his success, as The New Yorker had previously put the odds of winning at 10,000:1.
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What’s strange about Roger Ebert’s comic entries is how his body of work complements Gary Larson’s The Far Side. The Far Side ran in newspapers across America from 1979 to 1995, and continues to release new content online to this day. Larson’s work is marked by single-panel surrealism, with his most famous comics depicting the troubles of caveperson life, animals dealing with everyday troubles, and bizarre creatures in domestic situations. The description is equally applicable to Ebert’s contributions, though to be fair, The New Yorker was truly responsible for offering up the available subject matter – Ebert just picked which images fired his imagination.
One area in which Ebert’s work differs from The Far Side is in the use of religious themes and more risque punchlines. Larson consciously avoided leaning too hard into religion in his comics, and shares in The Pre-History of The Far Side that he was always concerned any comic depicting god would receive hate mail. Despite this, Larson was a huge fan of The New Yorker. In 2003, he went as far as to come out of retirement to draw a New Yorker cover, where two cowboys duel using mean-spirited caricatures rather than six-shooters. Interestingly, while Ebert was repeatedly trying his hand at comics, Larson also dabbled in movie criticism, though it didn’t go as well…
Gary Larson Regretted 1 Far Side Comic Picking on a Movie Flop
Ebert Hated the Movie, But Larson Regretted Calling It Out
While Roger Ebert had a surprising skill at creating comics, Gary Larson was no stranger to satirizing movies. Some of Larson’s best comics target famous movies like Jaws and Psycho, though only one strip can actually be called outright criticism. In the strip ‘Hell’s Video Store,’ Larson drew the infernal lending library as containing only one movie – 1987’s Ishtar, starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beaty. The movie was a famous dud, with Ebert himself giving it only half a star and writing:
The best that can be said for “Ishtar” is that Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, two of the most intelligent actors of their generation, play dumb so successfully that on the basis of this film there’s no evidence why they’ve made it in the movies. … This movie is a long, dry slog. It’s not funny, it’s not smart and it’s interesting only in the way a traffic accident is interesting.
However, while Ebert considered the movie contemptible, Larson actually went back on his assessment. In The Complete Far Side. Vol. 3, Larson includes a note to the reader admitting that when he wrote the strip, he’d never actually seen Ishtar – he just knew it was a famously terrible film that would make the joke clear. However, Larson actually sat down to watch Ishtar later in life, and writes:
Years later, I saw it on an airplane, and was stunned at what was happening to me: I was being entertained. Sure, maybe it’s not the greatest film ever made, but my cartoon was way off the mark. There are so many cartoons for which I should probably write an apology, but this is the only one that compels me to do so.
It seems that while Ebert and Larson’s skills overlapped, The Far Side‘s creator was way less comfortable tearing bad movies to shreds.
For fans of The Far Side and Ebert’s journalism, his ‘failed’ New Yorker comics are a little-known joy, and if Roger Ebert‘s eventual success serves as inspiration, you can enter the New Yorker caption competition here.
Sources: Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com; Robert Mankoff, The New Yorker; Gary Larson, The Pre-History of The Far Side
