10 Funniest Far Side Comics Featuring Gary Larson's Goofy Version Of Tarzan

Beloved 20th century pop culture character Tarzan made a number of appearances on The Far Side, where Gary Larson routinely portrayed a thoroughly goofy version of the man of the jungle. Just as with his comics starring Superman, Larson’s Tarzan offers a greater insight into the artist’s idiosyncratic perspective on pop culture.

For a comic that regularly envisioned anthropomorphized animals in familiar human scenarios, Tarzan – a human raised in the wild by animals – offered Gary Larson a unique alternative vantage point from which to find the humor in the “man vs. nature” divide.

At times, The Far Side’s Tarzan found himself on the wrong side of this perennial conflict, but even more frequently, the humor of these panels was derived from the character bringing familiar human foibles into the jungle with him.

10 The First Far Side Tarzan Panel: “My Folks Are A Little Different”

First Published: October 7, 1980

The inaugural appearance of The Far Side’s Tarzan doesn’t exhibit the full goofiness of the character, as would later iterations, but it does establish the tone that Gary Larson would elaborate on in the future. Here, he uses the character to deliver a straightforward joke that has a high likelihood of evoking a chuckle from anyone familiar with the Tarzan origin story; the man of the jungle stands outside his parents’ house with a woman, dressed in contemporary clothes, warning her to ignore his parents “if they start looking through [her] hair for fleas and things.”

Of course, from the readers perspective, one of Tarzan’s adoptive ape parents can be glimpsed waiting patiently within, putting the perfect final touch on this Far Side comic, which brilliantly blends modern dating tropes with the man of the jungle’s classic lore.

9 You’re Not The Bachelor Of The Jungle Anymore, Tarzan

First Published: March 17, 1981

While not all of Gary Larson’s Tarzan comics explicitly name the character, the archetype being riffed on by The Far Side’s artist is unmistakable. This panel builds on the comic’s humorous representation of the character; part of the Tarzan mythos most people will recognize is the man of the jungle’s love story with a woman raised in modern human society.

Here, Larson playfully imagines the woman’s attempt to comprise with Tarzan – civilizing him while still living in the jungle – gone awry, as a get-together he hosted for his ape friends leaves their furniture overturned, and their living room littered with spent banana peels. In this way, another recognizable relationship experience is filtered through the warped perspective of The Far Side.

8 Gary Larson Hilariously Undermines A Basic Tenet Of Tarzan’s Character

First Published: October 27, 1982

As an action-adventure character, Tarzan is most iconic for his ability to swing from vine-to-vine through the jungle with swiftness and ease. Gary Larson flips that completely in this Far Side cartoon, to great comedic effect, as a terrified Tarzan clutches a vine and cries “Stop the swing! I’m getting sick! Stop the swing!” as his gorilla friend looks on unconcerned.

Fundamentally, Gary Larson’s humor was subversive; not necessarily in the sense that it was shocking, or controversial – though it certainly could be – but in the literal sense that it relied on subverting the audience’s expectations and perceptions in order to get a reaction. In this case, Larson identifies a fundamental aspect of the Tarzan character, and then undermines it, resulting in a solidly funny Far Side comic.

The Far Side Complete Collection

$71 $125 Save $54

Fans of the far side can’t pass up this master collection of Gary Larson’s finest work. Originally published in hardcover in 2003, this paperback set comes complete with a newly designed slipcase that will look great on any shelf. The Complete Far Side contains every Far Side cartoon ever published, which amounts to over 4,000, plus more than 1,100 that have never before appeared in a book and even some made after Larson retired. 

7 Once Again, The Far Side’s Tarzan Flubs His Iconic Maneuver

First Published: January 13, 1983

In a variation on the joke from the previous entry, Tarzan’s vine-swinging is once again at the heart of the punchline here. This Far Side panel depicts the man of the jungle as he makes the jump from one vine to the next – except the next is actually a dangling snake, which promptly clamps down on Tarzan’s head, swallowing it whole.

Conceptually, this is a solid escalation of Gary Larson’s Tarzan jokes, bordering on slapstick, or screwball comedy. What makes it particularly memorable though, is the illustration, as Larson deftly captures the flailing movement of Tarzan as he finds himself snake-bitten, while the snake itself has an expression of disbelief on its face at its good forture, having been in the right place at the right time to score a huge meal.

6 A Rookie Mistake Costs The Far Side’s Tarzan His Wallet & Keys

First Published: May 11, 1983

This Far Side panel depicts yet another of Tarzan’s vine-swinging foibles, as he gets carried away and swings feet first upward into the sky – dumping the contents of his pockets, which he watches fall to the jungle floor with weary resignation.

Without a doubt, this is one of Gary Larson’s most effectively silly Tarzan panels, one that perfectly illustrates that the artist was just as comfortable producing benign humor as he was with the dark and macabre. In this case, the absurd incongruities of the scenario – where is the pocket located on Tarzan’s loin cloth, for example – hilariously contrast with the character’s simple response of “dang,” as recorded in the panel’s caption.

5 Gary Larson Revisits Tarzan’s Love Life – And Finds Him In Trouble

First Published: October 8, 1983

Once more, Gary Larson finds the humor in Tarzan’s struggle to adapt to being in a human relationship – in this case, as he fails to be monogamous. Arriving home, his wife greets him at the door, hands-on-hips, confronting him by saying, “I think I smell perfume! You haven’t been over at the Leopard Woman’s, have you?” Hilariously, the reader can see that his back is covered in scratch marks, meaning that even if he can bluff about the perfume, it is unlikely his infidelity will go undiscovered.

This is an example of Gary Larson’s ability to layer the humor of The Far Side; here, Tarzan is obscuring something from his wife, but is unable to hide it from the audience, and the dissonance between who knows what in this moment is what makes the punchline not only effective, but particularly amusing.

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4 Public Transportation In The Jungle, Far Side Style

First Published: February 24, 1984

This Far Side panel presents another hapless version of Tarzan. Once more, his wife is depicted with her hands on her hips, this time expressing annoyance that her husband “overslept and missed [his] vine again” – as three gorillas ride by a clinging to a vine right out front of their house.

As much as it is a hilarious re-imagining of public transportation, this panel also further’s Gary Larson’s steady imagining of an increasingly domesticated Tarzan. Rather than a free and proud man of the jungle, this version now has the slumped shoulders of a beleaguered husband, More critically, he now apparently works for a living, swinging to his day job rather than for fun as a carefree creature of nature.

3 Never Leave Your Elephant Unattended In This Part Of The Jungle, Tarzan

First Published: September 3, 1984

“Dang!” this version of Tarzan shouts, apparently a common refrain for The Far Side’s incarnation of the character. His outburst is prompted this time when he discovers that, “the radio has been ripped off again,” from his ride – which, absurdly is an elephant with a rectangular missing from its forehead.

This punchline is a product of Gary Larson’s familiar trick of transposing a contemporary human experience onto an unexpected time or place, though it is certainly one of his more absurd reimaginings. While the image is funny, it is actually even stranger to imagine the world of this Far Side cartoon before the radio was stolen, as Tarzan rode around the jungle blasting tunes from a stereo embedded in an elephant’s skull.

2 The Far Side’s Tarzan Struggles To Put His Thoughts Into Words

First Published: September 4, 1985

This Far Side panel finds Tarzan in a pensive moment. Depicted idly chewing on the tip of his pen, the caption informs readers that “Tarzan contemplates another entry” in his diary, several ruffled pages of which can be glimpsed, all containing the same nonsense word: “Oongowa.”

As was often the case with The Far Side, the detail work Gary Larson did elevated even a straightforward joke to another level of funny. Here, that comes once more from the clash between Tarzan’s animalistic qualities, and his simultaneous deeply human behavior. Though he may struggle with human language, the way he is depicted sprawled under the covers of his bed at night, trying to figure out what to write, is incredibly relatable.

1 The Far Side’s Tarzan Tries His Hand At Diplomacy

First Published: December 26, 1985

This is an example of one of The Far Side’s strain of curious, even mystifying panels. Captioned “Tarzan meets the Parakeet people,” it features the man of the jungle greeting other tribal people, who wear garments designed to look like parakeets. This might be straightforward enough – but what pushes the panel into weird territory, and is most likely to elicit a laugh from readers, is the fact that the “Parakeet people” are shown to have emerged from steel cages, of the kind that regular-sized pet parakeets would be kept in.

In this way, Gary Larson delivers one of his patented head-scratchers, leaving readers to wonder – largely in vain –what the purpose of this Far Side cartoon was. Of all Larsons’ Tarzan Far Side panels from over the years, this qualifies as one of the strangest, but also as one of the most memorable.

The Far Side Complete Collection

$71 $125 Save $54

Fans of the far side can’t pass up this master collection of Gary Larson’s finest work. Originally published in hardcover in 2003, this paperback set comes complete with a newly designed slipcase that will look great on any shelf. The Complete Far Side contains every Far Side cartoon ever published, which amounts to over 4,000, plus more than 1,100 that have never before appeared in a book and even some made after Larson retired.