The cavemen get involved with art by being smashed into canvases by the mammoth. One of the cavemen almost notices.
instead of pictures of animals being speared by hunters, these cave paintings are pictures of human hunters being gored and crushed by the more dangerous game.
I agree with the two above. But I’m wondering where the ants
come in.
“I’m wondering where the ants come in.”
The ants come marching…
The ants come marching…
I thought about that as soon as I hit post.
Isn’t there an elephant in a zoo somewhere that ‘paints’ with its trunk? This is just a different method of ‘painting’.
I thought “ants” was one of Bill’s typos, for “arts”. The comic is called “Loose Parts”, naming this thread “Loose Arts” would have been a worthy pun.
And one I would understand. ‘Ants’ is still an IDU 4 me
It took me a long time to get this. The problem is that you actually have to focus on the “paintings” and not just read them as background. This must be almost impossible to get in a newspaper. The key feature would be so small, it would just be smudges.
Add me to those who don’t get the ants thing.
What was the old Far Side cartoon, something about cavemen’s remains stuck between the toes of wooly mammoths? (Not to mention the, please correct my spelling, the infamous “Thag-o-mizer.”)
also, minus one “the” ^
While you may not like the final product you have to admit that every customer is impressed by the process.
I don’t think those are actually paints but cavemen that the mammoth has crushed on to a canvas. The mammoth has two more canvases laid out on the ground for the two cavemen. That’s how they get involved in art, they become art.
Not sure what ants people are talking about. Unless its those lines that are meant to give texture to the ground so you know it is a dirt floor.
Ants = heading and ‘explanations’ thereof from Mr. Pollack and Mr. Arthur.
And then again, maybe the woolly mammoth’s name is Art and he wants you to ‘get involved’ with him.
Add me to those confused about ants. I know there’s a song “the ants go marching two by two, the little one stops to tie his shoe and they all go marching round and round and into the ground (and out of the rain).” But I have no clue what that has to do with this comic strip at all.
And thanks to those who explained that the artwork was smashed cavemen, because I didn’t see that either, though it’s clear now that I should have. I had thought they were attending an art class and the painter was very Picasso-esque, and the one caveman was critiquing the art. I thought the mamoth was the next model.
I had to enlarge it on my small phone and then it was obvious. And I think Kilby has the correct explanation of the heading.
@ padraig – There are actually two relevant Far Side cartoons. In the one you were thinking of (2-May-80), the mammoth is checking the bottom of his foot. According to Larson, his original caption was going to be “I thought I heard something squeak.“, but then he changed it to read “Well, what the… I THOUGHT I smelled something.” (despite his worries that the syndicate might not like it). In the “other” panel (16-Jan-84), the squished caveman is on the mammoth’s right buttock, about which another mammoth exclaims, “Whoa, Frank… Guess what youuuuuuu sat in!“.
P.S. The only reason I was able to identify and date these two so fast is that I’ve been reading “The Complete Far Side” with my son.
P.P.S. Even a wonderful new template cannot rescue mistype italic tags.
Ah, now I finally get it, and Bill fixed the header, so Kilby was right, and there are no more ants.
There was a Jewish entomologist who undertook a complete classification of all the different species of ants. He classified them by size and assigned Hebrew letters to them. There were gimel ants, beth ants and so on. The largest, of course, were the aleph ants.
Comics I Don't Understand 
The cavemen get involved with art by being smashed into canvases by the mammoth. One of the cavemen almost notices.
instead of pictures of animals being speared by hunters, these cave paintings are pictures of human hunters being gored and crushed by the more dangerous game.
I agree with the two above. But I’m wondering where the ants
come in.
“I’m wondering where the ants come in.”
The ants come marching…
I thought about that as soon as I hit post.
Isn’t there an elephant in a zoo somewhere that ‘paints’ with its trunk? This is just a different method of ‘painting’.
I thought “ants” was one of Bill’s typos, for “arts”. The comic is called “Loose Parts”, naming this thread “Loose Arts” would have been a worthy pun.
And one I would understand. ‘Ants’ is still an IDU 4 me
It took me a long time to get this. The problem is that you actually have to focus on the “paintings” and not just read them as background. This must be almost impossible to get in a newspaper. The key feature would be so small, it would just be smudges.
Add me to those who don’t get the ants thing.
What was the old Far Side cartoon, something about cavemen’s remains stuck between the toes of wooly mammoths? (Not to mention the, please correct my spelling, the infamous “Thag-o-mizer.”)
also, minus one “the” ^
While you may not like the final product you have to admit that every customer is impressed by the process.
I don’t think those are actually paints but cavemen that the mammoth has crushed on to a canvas. The mammoth has two more canvases laid out on the ground for the two cavemen. That’s how they get involved in art, they become art.
Not sure what ants people are talking about. Unless its those lines that are meant to give texture to the ground so you know it is a dirt floor.
Ants = heading and ‘explanations’ thereof from Mr. Pollack and Mr. Arthur.
And then again, maybe the woolly mammoth’s name is Art and he wants you to ‘get involved’ with him.
Add me to those confused about ants. I know there’s a song “the ants go marching two by two, the little one stops to tie his shoe and they all go marching round and round and into the ground (and out of the rain).” But I have no clue what that has to do with this comic strip at all.
And thanks to those who explained that the artwork was smashed cavemen, because I didn’t see that either, though it’s clear now that I should have. I had thought they were attending an art class and the painter was very Picasso-esque, and the one caveman was critiquing the art. I thought the mamoth was the next model.
I had to enlarge it on my small phone and then it was obvious. And I think Kilby has the correct explanation of the heading.
@ padraig – There are actually two relevant Far Side cartoons. In the one you were thinking of (2-May-80), the mammoth is checking the bottom of his foot. According to Larson, his original caption was going to be “I thought I heard something squeak.“, but then he changed it to read “Well, what the… I THOUGHT I smelled something.” (despite his worries that the syndicate might not like it). In the “other” panel (16-Jan-84), the squished caveman is on the mammoth’s right buttock, about which another mammoth exclaims, “Whoa, Frank… Guess what youuuuuuu sat in!“.
P.S. The only reason I was able to identify and date these two so fast is that I’ve been reading “The Complete Far Side” with my son.
P.P.S. Even a wonderful new template cannot rescue mistype italic tags.
Ah, now I finally get it, and Bill fixed the header, so Kilby was right, and there are no more ants.
There was a Jewish entomologist who undertook a complete classification of all the different species of ants. He classified them by size and assigned Hebrew letters to them. There were gimel ants, beth ants and so on. The largest, of course, were the aleph ants.
Mark in Boston – :-)