Warning: contains discuss of sensitive subject material, including suicide.
The Far Sideis infamous for its dark, edgy brand of humor, but these comics in particular tread into taboo territory, making macabre jokes that would have been jarring for many readers to encounter in newspapers during the 1980-1995 run of Gary Larson’s legendary cartoon. Though the absurdism of Larson’s punchlines tended to undercut their bleakness, in some instances, critics questioned whether certain jokes should have been made at all.
The Far Sidewas a lightning rod for controversy, especially once the comic achieved national popularity in the mid-1980s, because of Gary Larson’s willingness to “go there,” to make jokes about death and cruelty, pain and suffering, mayhem and murder.
That said, there were certain lines Larson’s humor only rarely crossed, such as suicide, and cannibalism – butwhenThe Far Sidedid touch on these topics, the results were some of its most outrageous cartoons, which remain contentious to this day.Of course, even this comics have something valuable they can tell fans about what madeThe Far Sideso iconic.
10This Early Far Side Comic Showed How Far Gary Larson Was Willing To Go
First Published: July 06, 2025
The first year ofThe Far Sidewas all about setting precedents. Early and often, Gary Larson introduced readers to his warped comedic perspective, while making it clear he was willing to push boundaries. That is very much the case with this comic,in which two police detectives console a grieving woman after her houseplant has hung itself.“I can’t believe it,” the woman sobs, “I was just talking to him yesterday!”
The humor of the panel relies on the dissonance between the tragic scenario and the inanity of its twist on that premise, in which a potted plant is depicted taking its own life – yet there is a disturbing sense of realism to the cartoon, which, while heightening the comedic effect for some, will certainly be off-putting, if not outright disturbing, to others.
9The Far Side Relied On Nonhuman Characters To Make Light Of Distinctly Human Tragedies
First Published: August 08, 2025
Larson once again uses suicide as part of a punchline in this unforgettableFar Sidesnake comic– yet whether this cartoon is memorable for good or bad reasons remains open to debate. In the panel, a snake walks through its front door,its serpentine jaw unhinged in absolute horror as it cries out, “Oh no, Elliott! Why?…Why?” at the sight of another snake that has hung itself.
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The joke here is entirely focused on the visual of the dead snake, which has improbably tied itself into its own noose; yet the feeling that this panel will evoke in readers who have experience with similar tragedies arguably overwhelms this punchline, opening up thisFar Sidecomic to the accusation of being distasteful. While manyFar Sidecomics are mislabeled as such, the jury is still out on this one.
8The Far Side Makes Cannibalism Funny – With Help From A Dummy
First Published: August 14, 2025
At the core of this all-time greatFar Sidedesert island comicis one of the most disturbing topics in the world: people who eat people. Here, Gary Larson presents arguably one of his most complex scenes, featuring a man wading ashore on to a tiny island,occupied by a sunburned and obviously deranged ventriloquist and his dummy – who tries to warn the newcomer that “Ernie” is “mad” and will eat the man if he has the chance.
Despite the extremity of the taboo being joked about here, readers will concede that Larson is playing with a pre-existing trope of shipwreck stories. Further, the absurdity of thisFar Sidecomic – one might even say its zaniness – successfully obscures the dark reality undergirding it, and the elaborate nature of the joke shows that the idea of cannibalism was just a starting point, rather than a punchline.
First Published: June 20, 2025
Again, Gary Larson returned to the idea of a snake that has hung itself with thisFar Sidecartoon;captioned “snake horror stories,” it features an older snake in an armchair regaling a group of snakelings with the tale of discovering a dead body hanging in a closet.
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It is a simpleFar Sidegag, but where simplicity was often a virtue of Gary Larson’s best jokes, here it is worth questioning the effectiveness of the artist’s mix of fanciful and dark subject matter. To be fair, it is less a problem of the illustration veering into “bad taste” territory, and more the fact that the caption doesn’t elevate the potentially controversial image to another level of comedic success the way that other, ultimately betterFar Sidecartoons manage to.
6A Top Five Iconic Far Side Panel Once Again Makes Light Of A Major Taboo
First Published: July 18, 2025
“You’re sick, Jesse!…Sick, sick, sick!” a cow shouts as it points at a fellow bovine who is caught grilling hamburgers out in the pasture, in what remains to this day one ofThe Far Side’smost often shared, and most highly-regarded panels. Once again, Gary Larson tackles the topic of cannibalism – except here, theuse ofThe Far Side’subiquitous cowsin place of human characters allows readers full dispensation to laugh at it.
In this sense,The Far Side’soccasional cannibalism comics succeed where its suicide punchlines struggle; here, the taboo subject is refracted through the absurd premise of anthropomorphic cows, which is then taken to the rational, if extreme, conclusion that if cows acted like humans, some of them would eat hamburgers. Though it is warped and idiosyncratic, there is a kind of logic to the joke which makes it more digestible for readers.
5The Far Side Was Overstuffed With Dark Humor, Its Darkest Jokes Can Be Easy To Miss
First Published: June 30, 2025
From the time of its publication, to now – thirty years on from Gary Larson’s retirement – the discourse surroundingThe Far Sidehas often involved the question of which comics “cross the line.” Fans of Larson’s work are constantly trying to identify the darkestFar Sidecomics, or theFar Sidecomics that took things too far. Any attempt to do this, however, invariably results in at least one truly bleak panel being overlooked.
Why The Far Side’s “Dog With Gun” Comic (And Its “Sequel”) Illustrate Gary Larson’s Favorite “Animals Turning the Tables On Humans” Trope Better Than Any Other
“Dog With Gun” is one of the most recognizable Far Side cartoons, and in a way, it represents the pinnacle of a classic Gary Larson recurring joke.
Case in point: thisFar Sidesuicide joke, in whichtwo bears come home to find that a third has “stuffed himself,” with a note reading “goodbye world” tacked to his taxidermied chest. It is a riff on a premise Larson has played with before, and while it can rightfully be called more amusing this time, it is also even darker, if for no other reason than anthropomorphic bears are one step closer to seeming human than anthropomorphic snakes.
4The Far Side Takes On The Dark Side Of Sibling Rivalries
First Published: January, 1988
ThisFar Sidecomic once again uses suicide as part of its punchline, but this time, at least, the danger is not to a living, breathing creature, but rather an inanimate object – as an older brotherpositions one of his sister’s dolls on the ledge of a second-story window, and then shouts down to her as she’s playing in the yard, urgently calling out, “Oh my gosh, Linda! Linda! I think your Barbie’s contemplating suicide!”
Plenty of readers with siblings will flinch at the verisimilitude of this premise alone, and what makes this one of Gary Larson’s most low-key heartbreakingFar Sidecartoons is the way that it raises the idea that older children are often at least partly responsible for their younger siblings' loss of childhood innocence.
3One Of The Far Side’s Most Grim Jokes Is About Workplace Violence
First Published: July 07, 2025
It can’t be denied that this cartoon features one ofThe Far Side’smany memorable bits of wordplay, but the trade-off is that it is also one of Gary Larson’s most brutal jokes, at least when it comes to the use of violence in a punchline. The panel featuresa man in “Ace Marble Inc.” gear perched in the rafters of the company’s warehouse, wielding a high-powered rifle and grinning wildly as he guns down his coworkers, with his boss “Mr. Wagner” about to suffer the same fate, after hearing people scream “Simmons has lost his marbles!”
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It is an effective bit of dark humor, but given the increasing prevalence of workplace violence in the years since thisFar Sidecartoon was published, many readers' appraisal of the joke has certainly shifted in a more critical direction.
2The Far Side Takes Another Crack At An Active Shooter Joke
First Published: June 14, 2025
TheFar Sidefeatured plenty of panels about violence, and more than its fair share of murders – but while some are clearly farcical, others hit closer to home, especially in these instances in which Gary Larson depicted seemingly random, senseless mass shooting scenes.
That is the case here – though the punchline is appropriately ridiculous, which arguably takes the edge off of the grim imagery of the panel – in which four victims are depicted lying dead around a tree, astwo armed police officers take cover and try to get a line of sight on the shooter, with one lamenting, “first come the squirrels, and then come the squirrel guns.“While plenty of readers will “get” the humor, many will understandably question whether it was worth it.
1The Far Side’s Taboo Topics Come Together In This Deliriously Funny Panel
First Published: July 08, 2025
ThisFar Sidepanelis rightly considered a laugh-out-loud success, as it is equally dark and silly in just the right proportions. While some readers certainly objected to the depiction of human-animal love affairs in manyFar Sidejokes, this was so ingrained in the surrealism of Gary Larson’s humor that the taboo of the subject was rarely overt in people’s minds.
That said, this cartoon merits inclusion, because in this case,a woman’s relationship with a bear leads her to gun her human husband down.It is an outrageousFar Sidepunchline in all the best ways, making another comic that, because of its taboo elements – rather than in spite of them – ranks among the comic’s greatest cartoons.
