THE FAR SIDE: 12 Comics From 1983 Designed To Make Readers Go "WHAT-THE?"

Summary

• With
  The Far Side
  , author Gary Larson aimed to provoke more than just laughter from readers; just as often, he wanted to elicit a “What-the?” testing their reactions beyond just laughter.
• Gary Larson’s greatest artistic fear was a lack of response, leading to his commitment to creating impactful, absurd cartoons through any means necessary – even if it meant targeting more than just laughter as a reaction.
• The Far Side’s
  humor often left readers baffled; sometimes the punchline of a comic might be unclear, while in other instances, the pure absurdity of a joke’s premise might result in a reader asking “What-the?”

As Gary Larson once explained, his legendary newspaper comic The Far Side was meant to do more than just make his audience laugh – it was also a test of readers’ “What-the?” reflex. While laughter was certainly a priority for Larson, his more abstract goal was to provoke any response from his readers, including confusion, uncertainty, and even outright outrage at the content of his cartoons.

Larson explained that his biggest fear as an artist was a lack of response; as a result, he committed to using absolutely anything in his arsenal of tricks, recurring bits, and absurdist observations to get a rise out of the audience, whatever their response ultimately was.

For readers, this meant encountering Far Side installments that were just as frequently hilarious as they were inscrutably strange. For what it was worth, many of Gary Larson’s jokes left him as mystified as fans, but if it struck him as worth drawing, he was reasonably sure it would have an impact on readers.

12 Gary Larson’s Improvisational Creative Process Resulted In The Far Side’s Best Jokes – And Its Strangest

First Published: January 10, 1983

Though he carved out a successful niche for himself as a comic artist, and carved out an enduring legacy with The Far Side, Gary Larson’s true creative ambitions always lay in an altogether different medium, as he dreamed of being a jazz guitarist – something that informed his improvisational approach to drawing comics. As a result, panels in which he depicted musicians are always especially notable, as is this strange and memorable Far Side.

In the cartoon, a concert pianist tickles the ivories, yet the notes he’s playing don’t get far – as they are captured by a strip of fly paper inexplicably hanging above the instrument. The joke here is certainly amusing, but it is so conceptually out-there that it ia just as likely to elicit a befuddled “What-the?” from its readers as it is to prompt an out-and-out “ha!”

11 The Far Side Was Often A Catalog Of Unexpected Misfortunes

First Published: February 4, 1991

It is worth noting that The Far Side used different means to achieve Gary Larson’s end of making readers ask “What-the?” – just as the comic used many different methods to evoke laughter. While The Far Side often threw its readers for a loop by being, in Larson’s own words, “confusing, obtuse, esoteric, and strange,” just as often, it got readers asking “What-the?” through sheer silliness.

In this case, a man walks obliviously toward disaster, as he’s about to be trampled by a giant duck. As this Far Side caption makes clear, this was something he was told to look out for by a fortune-teller – except he made the mistake of interpreting “giant duck” as mystical language, rather than an actual prediction.

10 The Best Far Side Comics Asked More Questions Than They Answered

First Published: March 19, 1983

This Far Side panel, depicting “the Cyclops family at breakfast,” is an example of one that is more likely to leave readers with their brows furrowed in bemused skepticism than it is to result in full-on chuckles. Depicting the Cyclops child inadvertently hitting both his parents in their single eyes, this panel does more than just prompt readers to ask “What-the?” – it leads to a full on “Why?”

According to Gary Larson, some of his Far Side strips had detailed backstories, indicating that perhaps there is more to the Cyclops family than this cartoon has to offer. In any case, the humor of this strip is largely overpowered by its strangeness, but it is unlikely to register a complete non-reaction from readers, placing it firmly in the “What-the?” category.

9 The Far Side Brought Families Together In Highly Unexpected Ways

First Published: April 6, 1983

Another Far Side featuring a family, this one is an example of a more standard “What-the?” type of panel – in the sense that its punchline does not jump out and hit the reader immediately, but rather invites them to invest more time in understanding the illustration. In this way, this Far Side plays a classic trick on the audience – leading them to believe there is something more to the cartoon, when there is not.

Featuring a family gathered at their window to watch slugs crawl around their backyard, this Far Side installment is a perfect example of how Gary Larson wrote for his audiences’ immediate reaction. There is no deeper meaning to the return of the slugs, or the family’s enthusiasm; instead, the jarring weirdness of the scene is the entire point.

8 The Far Side Took Universal Experiences And Made Them Ridiculously Specific

First Published: May 4, 1983

Many people are familiar with the misfortune of getting a huge, unsightly pimple just before going on a date – an experience that is so common as to be nearly universal, yet one that Gary Larson effortlessly extrapolated in his singular comedic vision. Here, rather than acne, a man looks in the mirror and grumbles, “and always just before a big date!” as a tree sprouts from the top of his head.

While the recognizability of the basis for the joke is essential to this Far Side comic, the humor comes from the truly idiosyncratic spin Gary Larson puts on it – with readers’ invariable “What-the?” reaction actually being a product of the disconnect between the two.

7 Sometimes The Far Side Could Be Too Subtle For Its Own Good

First Published: June 10, 1983

The joke in this Far Side strip is evident, but not overt – meaning that while it might extract a belated laugh from readers, many will have the initial reaction of narrowing their eyes at the comic, not immediately certain of its punchline.

The comic depicts two baby birds in a nest on top of a “Danger: Low Flying Aircraft” sign, opening their mouths to be fed each time an aircraft soars overhead. Though The Far Side was best known for its single-panel illustrations, the use of three panels here, and the repetition of the joke, makes it clear that Gary Larson recognized the humor of the panel was not entirely obvious. Certainly, the subtleties of The Far Side are among its great joys, but the trade-off was that some of Larson’s more low-key humor was bound to be misunderstood.

6 Gary Larson Was Quick To Duck The Question Of Far Side’s Meaning

First Published: July 1, 1983

The Far Side regularly cast ducks and humans in an adversarial relationship, a trend this comic continues, as a hunter uses a phone booth to make “obscene duck calls,” to a mallard sitting at home minding its own business. Again, while the joke here is plain enough to readers upon first glance, what is more likely to get a reaction out of them is the abstract weirdness of the joke itself.

In particular, the humor here comes from the wide-eyed expression on the duck’s face, as it holds the phone receiver to its ear; the “What-the?” reaction likely to precede any laughter is a result of the set up, as the human hunter’s invasion of the duck’s privacy, like so many unforgettable Far Side comics, begs more questions than it readily is prepared to answer.

5 The Far Side Found The Inherent Absurdity In The Familiar

First Published: August 9, 1983

Of the many Far Side comics that use the Old West as a setting, a number qualify as “What-the?” installments, with this entry as perhaps the shining example. Once more, the joke here is straightforward enough: a horse left unattended in the “bad part” of a Western town has its legs stolen and replaced by cinder blocks – as might happen to a car parked in a rough neighborhood.

An incredulous response from readers might result from this Far Side not because its humor is unclear, but in fact the opposite. The simplicity of the joke, and its execution, is another example of Gary Larson’s habit of producing work that led readers to search for deeper meaning – whether a theme, or social critique – that the artist plainly said was not there.

4 There Was No Precise Science To The Humor Of The Far Side

First Published: September 13, 1983

Gary Larson notoriously loved to make jokes about science, and scientists, in The Far Side. His fascination with the field was reflected in the rich spirit of experimentation that he exhibited in his creative process – yet that being said, there was far from a cut-and-dry, strict scientific method to the creation of The Far Side.

Instead, every Far Side comic was a creative trial, and even Larson himself admitted that not every one was a success. In this cartoon, a janitor at a scientific laboratory goofs around with a powerful microscope, putting the apple from his lunch in its sights and taking a look. The humor seems to come from his casual improper use of vital scientific equipment – but that may be a niche enough concern among researchers that the average reader is less likely to be fazed by the punchline.

3 Some Of The Far Side’s More Obscure Jokes Didn’t Fly With Audiences

First Published: October 15, 1983

The Far Side didn’t always need a caption to get its point across – but in those cases, the illustration necessarily pulled more weight in terms of how it extracted a reaction from readers. Certainly, there is a higher average of perplexing Far Side panels among those lacking captions for context, such as this one, in which a pilot stands in the cockpit of a plane holding his arms outstretched as though he is pretending to be a plane.

While the premise of the punchline is understandable enough, the added need to extrapolate and interpret the humor, resulting from the lack of caption, is more likely to leave readers questioning the purpose of the cartoon than to be slapping their knees in delight at the joke.

First Published: November 10, 1983

The Far Side regularly featured scenes straight out of pre-history like this one, in which a cave-dwelling individual tries to fix a toaster. Gary Larson’s humor often relied on a unique convergence of elements – in this case, primitive tools and a modern appliance. However, especially for readers familiar with Larson’s use of humanity’s ancestors, different “caveman” cartoons hit differently, entirely by design.

As with many Far Side comic, the expectation with this one was not that the image would result in peels of laughter, but instead that it would give readers occasion to ponder the pure irreverent silliness of imagining the mundanities of life in the present and the past in juxtaposition with one another. It is as if Gary Larson is very coyly making a statement on the idea that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

1 Gary Larson Strikes The Perfect Balance Between Laughter And Incredulity

First Published: December 9, 1983

This Far Side comic offers a sterling example of the balance that Gary Larson was able to achieve between delivering a solidly funny punchline, and stimulating the readers’ “What-the?” reflex at the same time. “Oh my gosh, Andrew, don’t eat those!” an explorer shouts at his companion, as they’re deep in the jungle. “Those are poison arrows.”

Here, Larson puts his proprietary spin on the idea of accidentally eating poison berries while on a hike. The sheer absurdity of the joke is likely to hit readers before the actual comedy of it, but both are here in equal regard. As with any installment of The Far Side, what makes this cartoon stand out is more than just its humor, but the way that it reflects the world around it in a unique and irreplicable way.