When Larson returned to Seattle, he received a letter informing him "Nature's Way" had been canceled because it generated too many complaints; he attributes this to the fact it ran next to a crossword puzzle aimed at children. Larson believes had this happened a week before, he would not have gone to San Francisco. The next day, Arnold called Larson and told him the syndicate affiliate of the "Chronicle" decided to syndicate his work. The affiliate, Chronicle Features, coined the name "The Far Side"; Larson joked Chronicle "could have called it "Revenge of the Zucchini People" for all I cared." Larson's initial contract for "The Far Side" called for it to have a cast of recurring characters (like how "Peanuts" had Charlie Brown), because Chronicle believed newspaper comics needed familiar characters to be successful. However, Larson disagreed, feeling it would be limiting and diminish the humor of the strip. In his first month of syndication, Larson made about 100. The contract with Chronicle lasted four years. After it expired, Universal Press Syndicate picked up the syndication rights.