The Far Sidehasa well-earned reputation for dark humor, which this collection of cartoons certifiably attests to.What some people forget is that Gary Larson’s sense of humor was just as often silly as it was shocking, and that it was, in fact, the admixture of the two that madeThe Far Sideso unpredictable.
That is, newspaper readers could open up to the funny pages on any given Monday morning and find a Larsonian parody of violence, and then the very next day, the artist would serve up one ofThe Far Side’spatented inane and ridiculous plays on words.
Then, of course, there are those sublimeFar Sidepanels that manage to synthesize the two, offering up jokes that were absurdly macabre, or surface-level innocuous, but hiding a deeper, darker truth. This list explores examples of each category, in order to better understand what makesThe Far Sideso legendary.
First Published: August 15, 2025
“There they go again…leaving the nest too early” a pair of birds remark,watching from their nest as a pair of legs – one a man’s, another a woman’s – go plummeting down the sheer cliff face, from the precipice above, which is marked with a sign that says “lover’s leap.”
Neither the comic’s meaning, nor its darkness, will connect with all readers immediately; it is thekind ofFar Sidecomic that invites scrutiny, and also leaves room for misinterpretation. In any case, the idea that a pair of lovers have thrown themselves from the cliff together, and that this is a regular occurrence, is a dark implication for a cartoon to make – assuming that is what is happening here.
9There Was No Escaping Gary Larson’s Twisted Sense Of Humor When It Came To The Far Side
First Published: July 09, 2025
ThisFar Sidecartoon is dark because its characters are doomedto a gruesome demise, but the truly bleakest part of it is their false hope, right up to the moment before their deaths. In the panel,a trio of convicts in classic black-and-white stripes have tunneled out of prison – and directly under the ocean, which is about to come crushing down on them.
The Far Side’s “Chicken Of Depression” Comic (And How It Shows Off Gary Larson’s Technique Of Taking Things Too Literally On Purpose)
Despite the Far Side’s reputation for sowing confusion, Gary Larson’s humor was often overly literal, as his “Chicken of Depression” comic shows.
“We’re almost free, everyone!” the prisoner at the head of the group shouts, as he is about to breach what he thinks is the surface, but is actually the ocean floor, ominously adding, “I just felt my first drop of rain!” It is, without question, a funny punchline, and an amusing visual, but the horrific nature of what is about to happen is also undeniable.
8There Were Limits To What The Far Side Would Joke About – But Gary Larson Pushed Them
First Published: July 09, 2025
This is one of the uncomfortable subset ofFar Sidejokes that makes light of suicide – or, at least, tries. Especially to contemporary readers, these are among the most jarring of Gary Larson’s jokes. WhileLarson, at times, did want to shock readers, he truly did not strive to offend. In any case, this panel –which features a spider that has woven “goodbye world” in its web and then apparently hanged itself– has perhaps grown more acceptable and more controversial at the same time, in the decades since it was published.
That is to say, this kind of humor now has a wider audience, but also that audiences are more sensitive, in general, to issues like this. In any case, it should be noted thatThe Far Side’sboundary-pushing strain of comics are essential to its legacy, even if not all of them remain highly regarded over time.
7Disaster Was Fodder For Punchlines On The Far Side
First Published: July 03, 2025
ThisFar Sidepanel is a great example of one that might strike the reader immediately as laugh-out-loud funny, but a prolonged analysis of the joke betrays its much darker substance. The illustration grabs readers right away, as itdepicts a bird in a recliner watch news footage on TV, with another bird reporting in front of a fiery plane crash – which the caption makes clear was caused by another bird, identified as “Harold Meeker,” flying into the engine.
Whether the bird watching TV is the mother, or wife, or even aunt of “Harold Meeker,“thisFar Sidecomic doesn’t reveal, but the possibility of this, along with the slightly-slumped posture of the bird watching television, combined with the terrible reality that birds really do cause plane crashes, all add up to a tragic undercurrent to this cartoon.
6The Far Side’s Ability To Mix Absurdist Imagery With Existential Horror Concepts Is Underappreciated
First Published: August 14, 2025
ThisFar Sidecomic isn’t just strange, it’s ridiculous, but wrapped up in that ridiculousness is a strikingly unsettling idea, which a touch of existential horror to it, making this a more dynamic, multi-dimensional joke than it might seem on the surface. The illustration featuresa cat popping a nickel in a gumball machine – which is full of mice, one of whom points at the unlucky specimen being fed to the feline and shouts “Randy’s goin' down!”
The Far Side Complete Collection
Fans of the far side can’t pass up this master collection of Gary Larson’s finest work. Originally published in hardcover in 2003, this paperback set comes complete with a newly designed slipcase that will look great on any shelf. The Complete Far Side contains every Far Side cartoon ever published, which amounts to over 4,000, plus more than 1,100 that have never before appeared in a book and even some made after Larson retired.
This cartoon also emphasizes theimportance of captions toThe Far Side. The image of the rodent-filled gumball machine is absurd, but by giving the unfortunate mouse a name, and personalizing the mice who live in the machine, the comic takes on the potential to evoke all kinds of questions about the nature of life.
5The Far Side Was An Outlet For Gary Larson – But Also A Source Of Stress Itself
First Published: July 12, 2025
“Hey…I feel better already,” a voice says from inside a top-floor room at the “Institute for the Study of Emotional Stress” – as an unfortunate researcher is blasted out of the window, presumably by the sheer force of the subject’s pent-up feelings. It is not hard to imagine that there were times when Gary Larson finished aFar Sidecartoon and felt like the voice in the room, while other times he probably felt like the physician.
That is, Gary Larson put himself on the page more than casualFar Sidefans realize, meaning that it was in some way cathartic for him to produce cartoons – yet, in an unfortunate paradox, the relentless production schedule was a major source of stress for Larson in its own right, leading tohis eventual retirement in 1995.
4Don’t Let The Fur Fool You, This Lemming Father Is One Of The Far Side’s Darkest Characters
First Published: August 06, 2025
“So help me I’ll just take this car and drive it off the first cliff I come to!” an angry father shouts at his kids, as a threat to get them to stop them from rough-housingin the back of the family car. The joke here, of course, is that the father and children are lemmings, animals with a reputation for herding themselves to death over steep ledges. Nevertheless, the idea of a dad annihilating his own family is an uneasy one, with the intensity dialed back by the parallel silliness of combining animal and human behaviors.
The Far Sidecertainly had its share of bad parents, but leaving aside his seemingly not-so-empty threat, the look of rage on the lemming father’s face in this comic elevates him to the top of the list of all-time-worstFar Sidedads.
3Sticking Your Neck Out Was Never A Smart Move On The Far Side
First Published: August 07, 2025
This is another example of aFar Sidejoke where the punchline is funny, while the premise of the joke is dark – especially if one dwells on it for too long. Justas the farmer in the panel dwells too long on which of his chickens to behead next, thinking “who’s it gonna be?” as he looks at a gaggle of hens, one of which has a comedically long neck, putting it heads above the rest, both literally and in terms of likelihood of being selected.
10 Far Side Comics That Have Aged Perfectly
Gary Larson’s The Far Side has more than stood the test of time, with many of his most memorable comics actually getting funnier with age.
The visual gag of the juxtaposition between the farmer’s uncertainty and the “obvious” choice of the long-necked chicken is classicFar Side, but so is the comic’s capacity to make readers reflect on a sad reality: that livestock live only at the mercy of the human beings that own them.
2This Might Actually Be The Far Side’s Darkest Comic – But Also It’s Most Striking Social Critique
First Published: June 24, 2025
Just as there is discourse around whichFar Sidecartoon is the most confusing, or which is the funniest, or which is Gary Larson’s “best” comic of all time, there is the endless question of which take the title of “darkest.“This wordlessFar Sidepanelhas as strong of a claim as any, but the argument can also be made that it is among the most overtly socially relevant of Larson’s comics.
The panel depicts three delivery vans, stuck in city traffic: one for Acme-brand guns, with a cartoon rabbit on the side of the van pointing a pistol at its own head and saying “goodbye world”; one for “Al’s Hanging Ropes,” with an image of a man hanging from a noose on the van’s side, andfinally, a van for Camel cigarettes, bearing the company’s familiar mascot.In essence, with this comic, Gary Larson makes the case that smoking is as good as taking one’s own life – a potent message, as thinly-veiled as the artist ever delivered, but also one of his darkest “jokes.”
1Another Day, Another Hilarious Murder On The Far Side
First Published: July 08, 2025
One ofThe Far Side’searliest, darkest comicsfeatured a man being ratted out by his pet bird for murdering his wife and over a decade later, in this panel, another wife returns the favor, shooting her husband dead at the breakfast table. Larson illustrates thegun on the floor still smoking, and the lady being cuffed by detectives, with the table covered in a newspaper with a giant hole blasted through it.
“You said you warned your husband to put the newspaper down or you’d blow him away,“one officer notes, taking the woman’s statement, in this unflinchingly dark joke about domestic murder. As always, Gary Larson treated this like just another day at the office; in retrospect, it is jokes like this that madeThe Far Sidesynonymous with macabre humor.
