Gary Larson teased he was working on something new awhile ago, but yesterday he finally posted some of his new work on his site. He writes:

So a few years ago–finally fed up with my once-loyal but now reliably traitorous pen–I decided to try a digital tablet. I knew nothing about these devices but hoped it would just get me through my annual Christmas card ordeal. I got one, fired it up, and lo and behold, something totally unexpected happened: within moments, I was having fun drawing again. I was stunned at all the tools the thing offered, all the creative potential it contained. I simply had no idea how far these things had evolved. Perhaps fittingly, the first thing I drew was a caveman.

The “New Stuff” that you’ll see here is the result of my journey into the world of digital art. Believe me, this has been a bit of a learning curve for me. I hail from a world of pen and ink, and suddenly I was feeling like I was sitting at the controls of a 747. (True, I don’t get out much.) But as overwhelmed as I was, there was still something familiar there–a sense of adventure. That had always been at the core of what I enjoyed most when I was drawing The Far Side, that sense of exploring, reaching for something, taking some risks, sometimes hitting a home run and sometimes coming up with “Cow tools.” (Let’s not get into that.) But as a jazz teacher once said to me about improvisation, “You want to try and take people somewhere where they might not have been before.” I think that my approach to cartooning was similar–I’m just not sure if even I knew where I was going. But I was having fun.

So all it took for Gary Larson to start making strips again was getting his hands on an iPad. Sure, they completely revolutionized smartphones and the way we engage with our digital world, but getting Gary Larson to create new The Far Side strips should be Apple’s crowning achievement. They might as well just shut down the company because this was their endgame all along, right?

You can check out his new strips here.

EDIT: Larson only mentions ‘digital tablet’ so it’s not verified it’s an iPad, but the strips definitely have a Procreate feel to them.

Source: Geekologie – Gary Larson reveals new ‘The Far Side’ comic strips