Greatness is subjective, but these ten Far Side cartoons make a persuasive case.
Daily newspaper comics have only a few panels, and sometimes just one, to establish an idea and deliver a joke. That compact format is often dismissed as disposable entertainment, even though comic strips have created enduring cultural figures and, at their best, explored thoughtful ideas about the world.
Different strips demand different measures of success. Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes could move beyond comedy into reflection. Garfield succeeds through sharp, relatable gags, while Prince Valiant is celebrated for its elaborate, picturesque artwork.
For Gary Larson’s The Far Side, the most useful standard is simpler: how effectively does the cartoon make its joke? Larson rarely pursued profound life lessons or conventional beauty. His characters could be grotesque, and his strips generally avoided recurring characters because the central attraction was the individual gag.
That approach produced jokes ranging from broad slapstick to visual puzzles that reward careful inspection. The list below ranks ten examples for their ingenuity and comic timing, rather than their cultural impact. One dinosaur cartoon may have influenced scientific language, but Larson was chasing laughs, not a place in science textbooks.
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10. Find Peter
Larson often trusted readers to investigate a scene rather than serving up the punchline immediately. This cartoon works like a visual scavenger hunt: the humour arrives when you identify which cubicle contains Peter.
9. A deconstructionist masterpiece
Occasionally, The Far Side turned its attention towards the mechanics of cartooning. Here, the characters are deliberately “sketchy”, making the drawing style itself part of the joke. The idea is clever, but it rewards readers who study the panel closely.
8. The complete opposite
Subtlety was never essential to a successful Larson gag. In this scene, the victim was plainly killed with a bowling pin, yet the investigators remain baffled while surrounded by hundreds of them. The sheer excess is the punchline.
7. A clever twist
Larson was particularly good at placing a familiar premise in an unexpected situation. Pinocchio wants to become a real boy, so the joke asks what circumstance could make him suddenly wish for the opposite. It is a fresh angle on an old story.
6. More deconstruction
Newspapers also carried activity features such as hidden-object puzzles and spot-the-difference games. Larson parodies that format with household appliances supposedly concealed in a forest. The claim that there are 127 appliances, despite the obvious shortage, completes the joke.
5. Find the punchline
This cartoon asks the reader to follow several visual clues. First comes the giant fly woman, then the woman being painted, and finally the detail reflected in the artist’s glasses. The gag unfolds in stages instead of announcing itself at once.
4. Reconstruct the punchline
The joke here takes even longer to assemble. At first, the scene appears to show a woman opening a window. The delayed realisation is that a window washer was present before the window moved.
3. Snakes
Larson did not usually tackle the meaning of existence directly, but he could make the universe feel wonderfully silly. The cartoon imagines God forming snakes like a child moulding Play-Doh, reducing a grand creation story to an absurdly ordinary act.
2. Love triangle
As with the bowling-pin cartoon, the humour depends on characters failing to recognise what is plainly in front of them. Their lack of insight creates the entire comic situation.
1. Smoking dinosaurs
This famous strip gathers together several of Larson’s favourite ideas: dinosaurs, morbid humour and an intentionally lowbrow visual premise. The dinosaurs are shown smoking cigarettes, with the clever suggestion that smoking caused their extinction. It is silly on the surface, dark underneath and packed into one exceptionally efficient rectangle.
These cartoons show why The Far Side remains so effective. Some jokes reward close observation, some rely on ridiculous overstatement and others twist a familiar idea into something new. Their common thread is precision: every detail exists to strengthen the laugh.
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