In 1976, Larson was working as a cashier at a retail music store when he realized how much he hated his job. Two days into this "career crisis", Larson sat down at his kitchen table and drew six cartoons. The next day, he showed the cartoons to an editor at the local magazine "Pacific Search". The editor was impressed and paid him 90, so Larson quit his job to start cartooning and created "Nature's Way", a single-panel comic strip that served as the basis for "The Far Side". Larson showed "Nature's Way" to the editor of the weekly newspaper "Summer News Review", who began to publish it on a regular basis.