Well before Jerry Seinfeld shocked TV viewers with his desire to end his show "on top," Gary Larson surprised his fans by announcing he would retire his beloved comic strip The Far Side. For the most part, the comics page has been a blank slate of pale imitations and unworthy successors ever since. There's A Hair In My Dirt! is Larson's first effort since he stopped doing The Far Side, and the twisted humor of his past work remains hilariously intact. The book is written and executed like a children's book, but like most of Larson's work, this isn't the stuff of bedtime stories. There's A Hair In My Dirt!: A Worm's Story concerns a young, bespeckled worm who finds a blonde hair in his dirt dinner, prompting his stern father to regale him with a fairy-tale-like story that traces the origin of that misplaced strand. As usual, Larson throws plenty of biological facts into his plot, extolling the wonders of nature's unique creations. But what begins as an ecologically minded adventure ends in typically gruesome fashion, and along the way, Larson sticks sick little mini-cartoons—like a malicious flower hovering over the "decapitated" stem of his friend with a pair of garden shears—in the corners of his bright, page-sized illustrations. To say any more would be like giving away the punchlines to a dozen good jokes; flipping through There's A Hair In My Dirt! before reading it will rob you of the biggest surprises. Needless to say, this is not for little kids, but anyone who has ever enjoyed Larson's unique vision will enjoy what he's done here.