Some background on this comic:

Transcript:

The Far Side starts off being drawn in a 6" x 7.5" size. In pencil, I rough in and then refine the image until it fairly closely approximates what’s in my head. (That’s a scary thought.) Inking and shading are my last steps. The caption is handwritten in pencil in the area where it would normally appear. When the syndicate receives this original, the caption is set into its usual typeface, the copyright and publication date are added, and the whole thing is reduced down to the size normally seen in newspapers. Six of these “ready-to-go” cartoons are compiled into a mailer representing one week’s worth of material, and then shipped to newspaper clients a few weeks in advance of their usage.

I receive the mailers as well, and the day this cartoon showed up I was horrified to see that the last two letters in the caption had been deleted. Instead of “Yeeeeeeeeha,” it read “Yeeeeeeeeeee.” Someone at the syndicate had screwed up.

Obviously, this small error had a significant impact on the feel of the cartoon. But I hadn’t been drawing The Far Side for very long, and I was nervous about calling up my editor and complaining. Correcting the caption required sending out a special mailing to the client newspapers (all twelve of them) and I knew it would involve time and added expense. Plus, I didn’t want to give the impression that I equated cartooning with a cure for cancer.

On the phone, I explained to my editor what had happened, and he got out his copy of the cartoon and looked at it. After a few seconds, he told me he really didn’t think the cartoon had been affected that much by the change. Inside, I died—but I apologized for bothering him and said goodbye. I sat there for a while, looking at the cartoon, and suddenly I realized that, with the caption mistake, it might be interpreted that it’s the people doing the yelling, not the aliens. It was getting worse in my mind. A few minutes later, curing cancer meant nothing compared to getting this caption right.

I called my editor back and tried once again to convince him that the cartoon had been mortally wounded by the caption error. This time he agreed, and cheerfully offered to send out corrected versions to the various newspapers. My relief was overwhelming.

Now, I have to admit that I don’t know how interesting this little anecdote is to anyone, but it was definitely a significant event in my cartooning life, because, over the years, lots of mistakes and last-minute changes on both sides of the fence were to take place. And this experience with the “alien” cartoon inspired me to always “negotiate” on various complications whenever they happened.