Note that this is Jane Goodall (a famous researcher on chimpanzees, who studied a troupe in Africa for some time). Relevant:

https://files.catbox.moe/1h368p.jpg

This sparked a controversy:

https://www.cbr.com/far-side-jane-goodall-gary-larson-feud/

Okay, in August 1987, Larson did a strip where the punchline involved Goodall. The strip drew the following letter to the editor at the Arizona Daily Star...

To the editor:

I was appalled when I saw Gary Larson's "The Far Side" cartoon in the Star Aug. 26. This was of two Larson animals - presumably chimpanzees - in a tree. One, which was evidently supposed to be the female, was picking a long hair from the other's shoulder. The caption read: "Well, well - another blond hair...Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?"

To refer to Dr. Goodall as a tramp is inexcusable - even by a self-described "loony" as Larson. The cartoon was incredibly offensive and in such poor taste that readers might well question the editorial judgment of running such an atrocity in a newspaper that reputes to be supplying the news to persons with a better than average intelligence. The cartoon and its message were absolutely stupid.

Dr. Goodall is a world-renowned scientist who has devoted 28 years of her life to studying chimpanzees in the wild. Her findings have caused the scientific world to redefine the meaning of the word "mankind" with her discoveries that include the erroneous presumption that man was the only primate to make and use tools, a distinction that - until her findings disproved it - been a measure of superiority of human beings over other primates.

With no alignment to any animal welfare group, Dr. Goodall is working very hard to instigate better treatment of chimpanzees in biomedical laboratories. Dr. Goodall has vowed to speak out for those animals that cannot speak for themselves.

"Tramp?" Hardly.

The irresponsibility of the Star in choosing to run such an obscenity is disgusting. In fact, any woman should be insulted by the reference that the female - in this case, a typical Larson eyeglass-wearing animal - would be unaware of what Dr. Goodall's research really is, its seriousness and the assumption that a female only would have the mentality to look for sexual implications.

Sue Engel

Executive Director

The Jane Goodall Institute

Yikes, so I guess Larson really offended Goodall, huh? Well, not so fast...

Goodall hadn't actually seen the strip herself, and when she DID see it, she thought it was funny. She didn't think it was ACTUALLY calling her a tramp (and that's clearly not the implication of the strip). She would later write an introduction to one of Larson's Far Side collections.

Going further, she even licensed the strip for shirts that were sold at The Jane Goodall Institute for years!

EDIT: Ah, I just discovered that someone else just posted this in another post on !thefarside@sh.itjust.works, and I assume that merde

being merde

probably posted this image in response, so I'm probably working backwards here, but I'll leave it up.