Nine Classic Far Side Comics From the 1990s

The 1980s were the best decade of The Far Side for one simple reason: there were just a heck of a lot more of them. Gary Larson’s comic strip debuted in 1980 in The San Francisco Chronicle and slowly expanded to more papers throughout the 1980s. Larson initially drew six cartoons a week before expanding to seven. He continued until October 1988 when he took a sabbatical until January 1990. When he returned, he did just five comics weekly until the strip ended in 1995. Roughly two-thirds of Gary Larson’s The Far Side came from the 1980s.

The quality of his comics never declined, which means the 1990s still generated hundreds of hilarious Far Side comics. Here are just nine of them that are completely perfect, proving that Gary Larson is an absolute genius.

Sale!

The beauty of The Far Side was the wide-ranging humor. Sometimes the comics were incredibly subtle, requiring readers to carefully read over the strip and inspect it a few times before putting all the pieces together to get the joke. Other times the comics featured a simple, funny idea that was immediately clear. This comic strip is a great example of the latter, where cows can be purchased piecemeal, getting one part at a time. The image of the headless cow in the back of the farmer’s truck is especially funny.

Dachshund delivery

This is another comic driven by a simple, funny concept that is immediately clear to the reader. The idea that wiener dogs are transported via shipping tubes is incredibly silly, and Larson’s drawing makes the idea abundantly clear by showing dogs brought from the back, stuffed into tubes, and sent out for delivery all in one rectangle. While there is a lot going on in the cartoon, the absurd concept is what makes it so funny.

Not what you want to hear

On the other end of the spectrum is this comic, which has a pretty long caption for a Far Side cartoon. Usually Larson relied more on the visual, but this is an example where readers really have to read the whole thing to figure out the punchline. At first, the man seems to be talking about ending his own life and jumping from the high-rise construction site. The final line reveals that he is actually considering pushing the other man off. It is a hilarious slow burn that pays off masterfully.

A peanut’s worst nightmare

When people think of Gary Larson comics, animals, dinosaurs, and strange-looking people usually come to mind, but sometimes Larson anthropomorphized non-living things as well. This cartoon features an adult peanut telling a scary campfire story to two little peanuts. Because they are peanuts, the story centers on the most frightening thing imaginable to them: peanut butter.

Poor scissors

This is another example of Larson anthropomorphizing non-living things to convey human emotions. In this case, Larson brought the phrase do not run with scissors to its most ridiculous extreme by introducing a jogger who regularly runs with a living pair of scissors and breaks the news to his exercise partner that they can no longer run together. The cute little pair of scissors in running gear is especially great. Larson hardly ever drew cute characters, but readers cannot help feeling sad for this little pair of scissors.

Don’t touch

Like the running with scissors comic strip, this is another example of Larson taking a common turn of phrase and bringing it to its most absurd conclusion. He tackled a face in the crowd by presenting the face as just a face, without a body or anything else. The result is so absurd that it looks genuinely creepy.

This sounds about right

The genius part of this comic strip is the overkill of it all. The idea of a scientist creating a translator for dogs is funny on its own, but realistically, dogs probably do not have much to say. Repeating hey over and over again is likely quite accurate. An extra layer of humor comes from the disappointment the scientist feels once he realizes how much time he wasted.

Just Say No

Sometimes Gary Larson’s subject matter was so edgy that it makes readers wonder how these comics ran in hundreds of newspapers next to kiddie fare like The Family Circus. This comic strip, which features addicted wolves snorting quack, is a prime example of how he managed to publish such material.

I wonder what Bob Ross thought of this one

Gary Larson’s comic strip was often very dark, with gruesome death serving as a recurring punchline. Even the most peaceful subject matter was sometimes distorted through his disturbed filter, such as this parody of the artist Bob Ross, who used to talk about painting happy trees on his public access instructional painting show. The idea that Larson could see that peaceful little show and turn it into a tree falling on a person proves that Larson was a darkly comedic genius.

 

Source: Polygon