Comments

  1. bcwebb says

  2. robro says

    Perhaps he got complaints from readers about showing spiders in the strip. You know how people are about spider photos. Maybe it’s the similar for spider cartoons.

  3. Kevin Karplus says

    He did quite a few. Try a google image search for
    Gary Larson spider
    It is true that he did more with dinosaurs and cows, but spiders were not neglected. I think he did more spider cartoons than insect cartoons, if that is any consolation.

  4. PaulBC says

    The idea of a spider as a fisherman with a net was also used by science fiction author Philip K. Dick (though it feels like it must be an ancient idea, like the spider as a weaver). I have always loved this image from Galactic Pot Healer

    Think about the spider, Joe Fernwright. He makes his web. Then he makes a little silk cave at the end of the web to sit in. He holds strands that lead to every part of the web, so that he will know when something to eat, something he must have to live, arrives. He waits. A day goes by. Two days. A week. He waits on; there is nothing he can do but wait. The little fisherman of the night . . . and perhaps something comes, and he lives, or nothing comes, and he waits and he thinks, ‘It won’t come in time. It is too late.’ And he is right; he dies still waiting.

  5. dethomps says

    One of the best Larson cartoons ever was the spiders and web at the bottom of the playground slide, with the caption “If we pull this off, we’ll eat like kings!”

  6. wzrd1 says

    The spiders never call out, might spook the prey. Only stupid humans do that, spooking their prey.
    I’ve actually experienced that bit. I wasn’t as irritated as I should have been, as I never even bothered to load the rifle.
    Archery season is first, black powder, second, senior/disabled/youth in the middle of those and finally, rifle season, so all of the deer are in the Bahamas on vacation.
    OK, seriously up in the hills, where I’m totally unwilling to even consider trying to drag meat back home and leave two bodies in the forest to decay. But, it’s time in the forest and that counts for a lot.
    I’m also known to do the same during the warmer months, without lugging a rifle.
    Did get to pet a fawn once.