8 '80s Far Side Comics Only Hardcore Fans Will Recognize

Published Nov 3, 2026, 12:23 PM EST Ambrose Tardive is an editor on ScreenRant's Comics team. Over the past two years, he has developed into the internet's foremost authority on The Far Side. Outside of his work for ScreenRant, Ambrose works as an Adjunct English Instructor. The Far Side was like punk rock. It started out as a niche regional thing, and exploded to become a phenomenon everywhere. (In fact, The Far Side and the California punk scene grew up side-by-side together, starting in San Francisco in the late '70s and into the early '80s.) A key part of The Far Side's proliferation in the 1980s were yearly bestselling collections, which republished Gary Larson's best work. It is from those collections that many Far Side lovers' core memories of the cartoon were formed. That, along with reprints in the later '80s, is also why some of Larson's cartoons have a greater reputation than others. This list curates some comics that don't have the same iconic legacy, but which stand up there toe-to-toe with Larson's best. There are thousands of Far Sides, and the average person realistically only has enough room in their memory banks for a few dozen, at most. Then there are the above-average fans, The Far Side's most hardcore devotees. They will recognize these cartoons, but for the rest of you out there, these should be deep cuts that you missed up until now. 8 "Those Blasted Crickets Have Finally Stopped!" Picture this. You're on a romantic getaway out in nature. You and your significant other are roasting hot dogs on sticks over an open fire. It is a beautiful night. Except "those blasted crickets" chirping are really driving you nuts. Then, as if your prayers are being answered, they go silent. The night is peaceful and still. Only what you don't realize is the crickets have all bolted in terror, because a massive predatory monster has shown up and is currently looming over your campsite, obscured by the dark and the tree line. This is a primitive version of a punchline Gary Larson repeated in many subsequent Far Side comic, leaving this one to recede to more deep-cut status. 7 "Wump Wump Wump" Far Side visual humor at its finest. Whether you call this a "wordless" Far Side comic depends on if you consider onomatopoeia words or sound effects, but there's no debating that this panel is perfect. In a single static frame, Gary Larson still manages to convey action, and movement. Specifically, a character tumbling down the spiral staircase of a lighthouse. "Wump! Wump! Wump!" encircles the tall, angular building, conveying the downward trajectory of the man who falls out the front door onto the shore out front at the bottom of the frame. The way the "wumps" wrap around the lighthouse also signifies the sound getting louder and quieter, from the reader's perspective, a brilliant touch Larson adds to immerse the audience in the moment. 6 "The Next Time You Buzz His House..." In this peculiar Far Side cartoon, a man with a pair of wings strapped to his back walks in the front door of his house, just in time for his wife to pass on a message to him from "Mr. Wimberly," who called to say that "the next time [Arnold] buzz[es] his house, he'll have his twelve-gauge ready." Okay, let's take a beat and try to unpack this. Arnold isn't just wearing wings, he's also got flippers on his feet, and feathers on his head. He's evidently LARPing as some kind of bird, and it is clearly an ongoing thing. To the point where one of his neighbors is threatening to blow himself out of the sky. It is a Far Side that will have readers going "What the?", testing their capacity for weird humor, or maybe just testing their patience. 5 "We're Losing The Visual!" The Far Side's minimalist style works to comics' advantage in the moment, but it can work against them in the long run, because they give readers less distinct visuals to hold onto in their minds. The same goes for a subtle punchline. This cartoon is an example of both. In the panel, a cleaning woman's vacuum disrupts the signal in the control room during a rocket launch. That gag becomes clear once you look at the image on the screens in the background, which glitch as the cleaner passes by with her vacuum. Not realizing the correlation, one of the guys monitoring the launch starts to panic. "What's going on here?" he asks. "We're losing the visual!" It is a solid "wrong place, wrong time" Far Side joke, once readers sit with it for a moment. 4 "Another Miracle Of Nature" Some Far Side jokes are truly harder to get a handle on than the rest. And even when the punchline is decipherable enough, you're still left wondering, "what in the world was Gary Larson thinking with this one?" Case in point, this panel where a baby bird, born wearing a hard hat, chainsaws its way out of its egg. "Another miracle of nature had emerged," the caption explains, as if Larson is saying this is not much weirder, when you think about it, then how it actually happens. Still, though, the logic behind this cartoon may just be inexplicable on purpose, because the absurdity of the imagery is the thing that is supposed to crack readers up. 3 "Just A Few Feet In And We Can Stand" Have you ever been coaxed into doing something you didn't want to do, only for your reluctance to be completely validated? That's the relatable experience Gary Larson captures in this Far Side cartoon. A man crouches down on all fours and shines a flashlight into a narrow cave tunnel, telling his companion, "Arlene," that it opens up "in just a few feet" and after that, they'll be able to stand upright. What he doesn't know, though, is what is going to hurt them: a bunch of bats are sleeping on the ceiling of the cave. Which will be bad for him, but even worse for Arlene, because Larson draws her with large red 'fro, meaning her hair is going to be the thing that disturbs the bats. 2 "Gong Birds" What's that racket? Oh, no. A flock of "gong birds" has taken up residence in the tree out in the yard. What the heck are gong birds? Obviously, they are birds that each play a small individual gong. Way more intrusive and annoying than cawing, chirping, tweedle-deeing, or any other conventional bird sounds. In this Far Side panel, a woman and a young boy stand under the tree full of gong birds. He puts his hands over his ears to cover the sound. She puts her hands on her hips. The birds go about banging their gongs wildly. It is peak Far Side silliness, a joke rooted in thinking "wouldn't this be crazy?" and running with it. 1 "Our Favorite Beach" "We've come all this way to our favorite beach and someone's strung chicken wire around it." Imagine if this happened to you. A public beach you'd come to love is suddenly cordoned off and made private, in order to keep you out specifically. Pretty frustrating, right? This Far Side comic makes that point with a dash of absurdist irony, because the characters who find themselves on the outside of the chicken wire looking in are actual chickens. One is holding a volleyball, while the other carries a six-pack of coke. Instead of having a fun time at the beach, they're forced to watch humans frolic and play. It is a great Far Side gag, ridiculous on the surface, but not without something deeper to dig into for fans who want to look for greater significance. Writer Gary Larson Colorist Gary Larson