TheseFar Sidecartoons from the final year of Gary Larson’s career are examples of his humor at peak absurdity, proving that once he had committed to retirement, and there was no holding back, the results were among his weirdest and most memorable cartoons. This sentTheFar Sideout on a high note, as Larson produced some of his best work in the home stretch of his run.
To be clear, Gary Larson’s sense of humor was weird, and macabre, and hyperbolic from the very start of the series in 1980, but there is definitely a discernible uptick of outrageous hilarity in the latter years ofThe Far Side’shistory.
In particular,the final year of Larson’s career seemed to be his most no-holds-barred era ever, as though knowing that the end was coming up gave him the freedom to venture into truly outrageous territory on a more regular basis. In any case, this list represents a collection of the funniestFar Sidecartoons from 1994.
10Heading Into 1994, Gary Larson Couldn’t Bear To Retire Without Producing A Few More Classic Far Side Comics
First Published: June 20, 2025
In thisFar Sidebear cartoon, a group of bears sitting around their cave realize they have an intruder in their midst, as “Professor Wainwright’s painstaking field research to decode the language of bears” goes horribly, hilariously awry. What makes this comic stand out is Gary Larson’s use of a longer caption, combined with in-panel dialogue, when often throughoutThe Far Side’shistory, he opted for one over the other.
Here, the doomed professor is a few seconds too late in realizing that the bears have identified the fact that he is, in fact, a man in a bear suit, as hebelatedly reaches the conclusion that the accusatory growl coming from the bear across from him, a sharp claw extended in his direction, is bear for “zipper.”
First Published: July 26, 2025
Cartoonish interpretations of horror imagery were aFar Sidestaple, with Gary Larson’s spine-tingingly comics becoming both sillier and more audacious as his career progressed. This panel embodies both those qualities, as an aging “headhunter” from an indigenous tribe watches a younger man watera garden full of sprouting human heads, complaining that “in my day, we collected wild heads from the jungle.”
In this way, Larson perfectly lampoons the idea of society “softening” over time; both characters here are interesting in collecting human heads, they just differ by way of methodology. “This just makes me sick,” the elder headhunter says, adding that “these things are all just sissies,” in a punchline that will have readers shaking their heads in disbelief, a classic response toTheFar Side.
8The Far Side Reveals The Extremes Some Animals Will Go To For An Easy Meal
First Published: July 14, 2025
Captioned “hunting techniques of the modern anteater,“thisFar Sidecomic brilliantlyfeatures a pair of the animals disguised as humans on a picnic date, withone of them loudly drawing attention to the fact that they are humans, who just happen to have, enticingly for ants, spilled some of their food on the ground.
“Oops! I DROPPED some potato salad at this, our PICNIC!” the male anteater says, in the kind of stilted language commonly used to convey a lack of familiarity with English. This is another cartoon that perfectly triangulates the humor of its caption, its dialogue, and its illustration, the latter adding to the surreal quality by depicting the anteaters in poorly fitting human outfits.
7Take A Closer Look At This Far Side Cartoon In Order To Fully Get The Joke
First Published: July 06, 2025
Captioned “more trouble brewing,” thisFar Sidecartoon is one of Gary Larson’s “disaster waiting to happen” punchlines, featuring a group of kids boarding a plane at “Anderson’s Sky Diving School,” which shares a fence with a “Crutchfield’s crocodile farm.”
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Crucially, the crux of this joke is a subtle one, which requires a closer look at the fine details of the illustration for fans to recognize thatthe last student diver in line to board the plane is hopelessly tangled in his parachute cord, suggesting he’ll be the one to plummet into the waiting jaws of a croc. Some fans will argue that thisFar Sidecomic might benefit from a stronger caption, while others will maintain that thejoy of the joke is doing a double-take, and realizing that Larson has given the reader everything they need for a laugh-out-loud, if macabre, pay-off.
First Published: August 05, 2025
“Without a doubt, I’m looking at an authentic, full-fledged wishing star,” a gleeful astrologer says in thisFar Sidescientist cartoon, peering through a massive telescope. How has he come to this conclusion? His hypothesis stems from theempty lab coats and orphaned clipboards strewn at his feet, which belonged to “that cretin Foster” and “that jerk Cummings,” two colleagues he evidently didn’t like who have “instantly evaporated.”
This is a sterling example of Gary Larson’s ability to conceive of a hilarious premise and then execute it with near-perfect precision. Not everyFar Sidecartoon achieved this level, but cartoons like this are a testament to the upper level of Larson’s ability as a cartoonist working in the comic medium.
5This Far Side Panel Highlights The Importance Of Eyes To Gary Larson’s Visual Comedy
First Published: June 24, 2025
One ofThe Far Side’sperennial subjects was American history, and this is an underrated example of Gary Larson’s ability to take a real moment from the past and extrapolate a joke from it. Here, Larson puts his spin on the famous “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” command attributed to William Prescott during the Battle of Bunker Hill, bydepicting a line of advancing red coats with indiscernible eyes, except for one, “Charles ‘Bugeyed’ Bingham.”
This is also perhaps the apex example of a pivotalFar Sideartistic technique:Gary Larson’s use of eyes. Larson frequently drew the majority of his characters with either glasses, or lacking discernible eyeballs, save for select figures in each panel, in order to draw attention to their eyes. ThisFar Sidepanel almost feels as if he is acknowledging that trope and playing into it in the funniest possible way.
4Elmer Fudd Is About To Be Exiled To The Far Side Of The Unemployment Line
First Published: July 27, 2025
In this absurdFar Sidepop culture reference, Elmer Fudd is called into the “Personel” office at the screwdriver factory where he is employed;or “skwoo dwivuh” as he pronounces it, which is a problem, because according to HR, is that Fudd has “been having a subliminal effect on everyone in the factory,“causing them to adopt his particular speech pattern.
The Far Sidewas often at its best when Gary Larson took a simple premise and elaborated on it, but by contrast, what this comic off-the-rails in the best possible way is its more elaborate premise, which is all in service of a simple punchline. It is a smart reversal ofThe Far Side’susual “formula,“one that reminds readers Gary Larson had tricks up his sleeve right up until the very end of the comic’s run.
3This Far Side Comic Makes Perfect Sense If You Get The Classic Jazz Reference
First Published: July 24, 2025
This is one of thoseFar Sidecartoons that is a brilliant reference, but it is also one that will fly over the heads of many readers who don’t immediately recognize it as a reference, because they are not familiar with thesource material Gary Larson is riffing on here. That is, “Bye Bye Blackbird,” a nearly-century-old jazz standard, first written in 1926.
The song contains the line “pack up your cares and woes,” which Larson hysterically renders here asboxes labeled “cares & woes,” which a black bird calls “this depressing garbage of yours,” as his human roommate is in the process of moving outof their apartment. The joke is awesome in the context of the callback, while standing on its own, it comes across as absurd, boarding on bizarre, but still manages to evoke a laugh by way of sheer strangeness.
2The Far Side Proves Being The Smartest Person In The Room Isn’t Always A Good Thing
First Published: June 28, 2025
In this cartoon, one scientist bullies his colleague with an excessively large cranium,explaining that “having the biggest brain among us means it is mere child’s play to subdue you with an ordinary headlock!“It is the kind of simpleFar Sidejoke which derives from Gary Larson highlighting the absurd potential of a certain trope.
Larson acknowledges this in the caption here, with the aggressive scientist saying “but on the other hand,” suggesting that he proceeded his physical attack with a compliment to the intelligence of big-brained “Feldman,” even if just to lull him into a false sense of security. The result is aclassic late-stage Far Side cartoon, one that made it clear Gary Larson’s sense of humor remained undiminished, even as his will to keep producing panels waned.
1This Might Be The Last Great Dark Far Side Joke
First Published: June 30, 2025
Coming in the final month ofThe Far Side’srun in syndication, this is without question one ofGary Larson’s most outrageous panelsever. In the cartoon, two construction workers are perched precariously on the crossbeam of an under-construction skyscraper, when one turns to the other and starts to rant about “that urge.”
What urge? “It begins with looking down from 50 stories up, thinking about the meaninglessness of life,” the caption features the man saying, asthisFar Sidecomic treads into uniquely dark, existential territory, “listening to dark voices deep inside you, and you think…Should I push someone off?“Of course, readers will empathize with “Frank” here, trapped with no where else to go alongside one ofThe Far Side’sdarkest characters, on the brink of doing something horrifying.
