Gary Larson spent The Far Side‘s 1980 to 1994 run publishing classic after classic, meaning that every month sees one or more of his greatest creations hit a major milestone. This time, we’re looking at The Far Side comics that just turned 30 – originally published in August 1994 – including a genius #1 that will make even the biggest pun-hater grin.
These strips include some of Larson’s most iconic running themes and characters, including deadly piranhas, clueless cowboys, surreal scientists, and of course a healthy portion of animals acting like humans. Let us know in the comments below if you agree with our top picks.
13 Lucky Skunk
Far Side’s August 19, 1994 Comic
Larson loves taking idioms and sayings overly literally, and here the idea of someone being a “lucky skunk” applies to a literal pipe-smoking smoke whose good fortune has produced a life of luxury, including a grand piano and roaring fireplace. This strip contains perhaps The Far Side‘ best-ever named character – a sherry-swilling rabbit named “Bernard.”
12 Wonder Jaw
Far Side’s August 24, 1994 Comic
One of Gary Larson’s most under-acknowledged obsessions is his love of Americana, and infomercials selling impossibly helpful products definitely qualify. In this strip, Larson combines that idea with the concept of piranhas as voracious and frenzied killers, imagining the one infomercial product they’d actually have a use for – teeth that allow them to strip flesh from bone even faster.
While the idea of piranhas devouring a cow in minutes is essentially a myth, it’s one that The Far Side loves, with the deadly fish turning up again and again over the comic’s run. Of course, given the ubiquity of cows in The Far Side, it makes sense that their ‘natural predator’ would appear so often.
The myth of piranhas tearing large prey to pieces in minutes actually comes from President Theodore Roosevelt, whose 1914 book Through the Brazilian Wilderness had a major effect on piranhas’ reputation in pop culture (and especially in The Far Side.) It’s possible that Roosevelt did see what he reported, but given that piranhas don’t usually hunt in groups and tend to be too cautious to attack such large prey outright, it’s likely the stunt was staged with starving fish and would never happen in the wild.
11 Cowboy Wax Museum
Far Side’s August 23, 1994 Comic
Larson loves to visit the Old West in The Far Side, adding goofy new twists and turns to the dangerous, thankless life of rootin’-tootin’ cowboys. In this strip, a group of cowboys visit a horror-themed wax museum, encountering horrifying (but impossible) exhibits like a stampede where the cows are wearing spiked shoes, a cattle rustler whose immortality means he can never be stopped, and some unaccountably horrifying sheep ranchers.
One of Larson’s funniest tricks is to treat different professions as if they’re animal species, with figures like clowns, cowboys and pirates not just being people with unusual jobs, but an entirely separate groups with their own mating rituals, bizarre habitats and – clearly – their own ideas of what counts as ‘scary.’
10 The Grizzly Ball
Far Side’s August 4, 1994 Comic
In some delightful wordplay, Larson has real-life animal trainer John “Grizzly” Adams visit a “Grizzly ball,” only to find that every other member is a bear who doesn’t want anything to do with him. Living in the 1800s, Grizzly Adams was famous for providing wild animals to circuses and private zoos, and was known to wrestle bears as part of training them for captivity. It therefore makes sense that the bears throwing the Grizzly Ball wouldn’t be huge fans of Adams, though this strip does raise the question of exactly who he thought would be attending the ball.
9 Tunnel Vision
Far Side’s August 1, 1994 Comic
In another pun-based strip, a mole couple break up because the husband lacks the “tunnel vision” his wife demands. While the term usually refers to becoming overly focused on one topic, it makes sense that in the world of moles, “tunnel vision” would essentially just mean ambition, since the tunnel is all there is. Larson loved throwing bizarre characters into marital strife, whether they were moles, aliens or robots.
8 Pandora’s Box
Far Side’s August 30, 1994 Comic
Classical mythology nerds rejoice, as The Far Side turns the myth of Pandora’s Box into the story of a schoolgirl’s prank on her mean-spirited former class and teacher. In the Ancient Greek myth, Pandora’s curiosity causes her to open a container gifted by the Gods, accidentally unleashes all the world’s evils into existence. In Larson’s version, Pandora knew exactly what she was doing, but seemingly accepts introducing evil into the world as a reasonable price for getting her own back on Ms. Kilgore.
7 Maniacal Laughter
Far Side’s August 25, 1994 Comic
Gary Larson’s number one obsession throughout The Far Side is scientists behaving badly, combining real-life chemists and biologists with iconic horror movie mad scientists. In this Far Side strip, fans learn exactly why the scientists of Larson’s comic are so badly behaved – they’re actually trained in it, including how to bellow out maniacal laughter when their grisly plans come to fruition.
6 The Battle of Bunker Hill
Far Side’s August 26, 1994 Comic
As with Roosevelt’s piranha story, this strip embraces the apocryphal story that – in 1775’s Battle of Bunker Hill – soldiers were ordered not to fire until they could see the whites of their enemies’ eyes, therefore making the most of the one shot they were likely to get off before fighting close-quarters. The story almost certainly isn’t true, given no-one can agree who said it and the quote has an even longer history going back to the 1600s – but Larson has never been one to let hard facts get in the way of a good gag, even when the joke is about a real battle.
It might surprise some Far Side fans that Larson was willing to make fun of real-world conflicts, including the Revolutionary War, the Vietnam War and the Iran-Iraq War. However, warfare was actually a major influence on Larson’s sense of humor. In a 1987 interview with 20/20, Larson shared that growing up during the Cold War contributed to his surreal, somewhat dark sensibilities, with the Cuban Missile Crisis in particular seeing him going to school and hanging out with his family even as the threat of nuclear armageddon hung overhead. Larsons said the experience “made you look at the world a little bit askew.”
5 Herd Animal
Far Side’s August 29, 1994 Comic
In a world where animals have human intelligence, sooner or later one of them is going to decide it’s done being prey. That’s the case for the gazelle in this strip, whose badass attitude (including a Stetson manifesting between its horns) will hopefully work out for the best when faced with two hungry lions.
4 Autobahn
Far Side’s August 31, 1994 Comic
In another gag based on animals having human perceptions, it turns out that German sloths regularly dare each other to cross the multi-lane Autobahn highway, knowing that they’re particularly slow and that this increases the odds of injury. Sloths daring each other to cross the road is a classic example of Gary Larson’s sense of humor, though setting this scene in Germany (where sloths of course aren’t native) is a touch of surreal brilliance to bring the gag home.
3 Mime
Far Side’s August 12, 1994 Comic
If The Far Side hates anyone (not counting accordion players), it’s mimes, with the silent performers coming to sticky ends every time they appear. In this tragic case, the mime in question didn’t even choose his profession, but is instead forced into the greasepaint by brutal gangsters with a nasty sense of humor. Larson liked making fun of mobsters in his comics, though they’re rarely as darkly intelligent as in this strip.
2 Wart
Far Side’s August 9, 1994 Comic
Monsters thinking that bad=good is a classic gag, and that’s the case in this strip where a witch goes to a plastic surgeon in order to enhance her wart, expanding it to a gigantic size. The inclusion of gingerbread houses is a great gag, and of course any Far Side witch has to have a name like ‘Griselda.’
Witches appear multiple times across Far Side‘s run, often with a focus on their habit of eating children, but sometimes in references to Larson’s beloved Wizard of Oz – the topic of Far Side‘s last ever comic.
1 Mango
Far Side’s August 8, 1994 Comic
In what we’re calling Larson’s best ever pun gag, two apes get surprisingly far into dancing the tango before one informs the other that they probably misheard their request. The joke uses one of Far Side‘s best tricks by having the reader complete the joke in their own head, figuring out what the unhead word was on their own time.
Those were the best comics from August 1994, with Larson’s final year including a selection of genius strips. Don’t forget to let us know your pick for Gary Larson’s best The Far Side comic that just turned 40 in the comments below.
The Far Side
The Far Side is a humorous comic series developed by Gary Larson. The series has been in production since 1979 and features a wide array of comic collections, calendars, art, and other miscellaneous items.
