The irreverent comic strip series The Far Side has gotten a lot of mileage out of unusual imagery and scenarios. Gary Larson’s iconic strip has featured people, barnyard animals, and even aliens all in bizarre situations to elicit a laugh. But of all the strange and inspired choices Larson made in his strip, none were better than the cartoonist’s use of dinosaurs.
The Far Side features a lot of dinosaurs in strips set in the Jurassic era, modern times, and anywhere in between. Larson’s work was well known for its offbeat nature, but the following ten cartoons are The Far Side’s most surreal comics that feature dinosaurs.
The Far Side Complete Collection
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.
10 The ‘Nerd’
The Far Side always found a lot of humor in the ‘nerd’ imagery, with Larson using his artistic talents to showcase comedic caricatures of bespectacled dorks. But he takes it to a new level with a strip that features a rather nerdy dinosaur. Larson flips the idea of a collectible-obsessed youth on its head by having a stegosaurus collecting various personality types of humans to fit his expansive collection. The Far Side loved giving human qualities to different aspects of nature, and having a dinosaur collect people rather than eat them is a genius way of doing that.
9 The Days Before Soap
Cavemen were a Far Side mainstay, with Larson often giving Neanderthal’s modern sensibilities. But here he presents a more traditional scenario of cavemen being hunted by a dinosaur. Though they all find themselves becoming lunch for the mighty predator, he spits them out as the caption informs the reader this was the days before the invention of soap. The Far Side generally utilized a one-panel structure to deliver its jokes. But here, Larson strings the reader along just enough for the punchline to stick. The idea that a dinosaur would reject a meal over its prey’s lack of hygiene is odd but definitely funny.
8 The Shuelers
The Far Side didn’t always show dinosaurs getting on in the prehistoric era. Sometimes Larson had them living in the modern day, delightfully juxtaposing the rough nature of the beasts with the conventions of today. This strip features a couple of dinosaurs who just had a stegosaurus couple over, swearing to never have them over again after their backplates destroyed the seats. It’s a wonderfully ludicrous scenario that hits all the points that made The Far Side so iconic: The clash of new and old, the misplaced annoyance, all of it blends together to make a hilarious strip.
7 Quadraceratops
Gary Larson wasn’t afraid to comment on all facets of human nature in The Far Side. For this strip, Larson takes a stab at the dating scene by featuring dinosaurs hanging out at a bar, with two triceratopses scoping out prospective mates. But the vibe changes when a quadraceratops enters, sparking a desire in the two triceratopses. It’s absurd that dinosaurs would even be in a bar looking for a hookup. But a quadraceratops gaining favor from the other dinosaurs is a funny commentary on the surface-level attractions people tend to fall for.
6 The Awkward Age
Everything about life was on the table in The Far Side. The highs and lows of puberty get a comical skewering in this strip that shows a facetious era of time known as the ‘Awkward Age’. True to its name, those that lived during the era are gangling doofuses who are still growing into their bodies. The caption comically points out that the time only lasted ‘2 million years’. It’s a hilarious anthropological joke that shows the pitfalls of growing up by turning it into an actual period of time in the history of the world.
5 Professor Schnabel’s Time Machine
Comedic mishaps are another staple of The Far Side. And for Professor Schnabel’s poor cleaning woman, she found herself lost in the era of dinosaurs on what was supposed to be a day of doing laundry. While the dinosaurs are more the setting rather than the focus of the strip, they play an important role in establishing the absurdity of the strip. It’s not enough that the professor designed his time machine to look like a dryer. The fact that it took her to the prehistoric era highlights the random and chaotic nature people loved about The Far Side.
4 What Really Killed the Dinosaurs
Misdirection and wordplay are something Gary Larson loved. So when the cartoonist decided to talk about what really killed the dinosaurs, he took it as an opportunity to give it the most ridiculous answer possible. Instead of a comet, The Far Side suggests it was smoking that did the leviathans in. This is hilarious given how it tied into the anti-smoking sentiments back in the day. But the woefully unimpressive answer of smoking killing the most powerful dinosaurs makes for a contrast that would leave anyone chuckling.
3 When Cows Ruled the Earth
If there’s one thing Gary Larson was known for, it was his use of cows in The Far Side. In a strip that’s bizarre even by Larson’s standards, it shows a collection of various dinosaurs such as stegosauruses and brachiosauruses with bovine-like features. It’s indeed odd imagery, but it’s possible that Larson was trying to soften the traditional image of dinosaurs. People like to think of them as terrifying creatures, but Larson, ever the student of nature, sees them for what they really were: Gentle creatures just trying to live their lives in peace.
2 Jurassic ‘Park’ing
The iconic wordplay comes back in another strip that hilariously blends modern-day life with ancient history. Simply captioned ‘Jurassic parking’, Larson whips up a traffic nightmare straight out of The Flintstones, turning a sea of cars into the stomping grounds for a collection of dinosaurs. Maybe The Far Side was just trying to get a laugh out of a simple pun. Or maybe the blended imagery of automobiles and dinos shows that that world isn’t any less chaotic than it was millions of years ago.
1 Dinosaur Press Conference
Possibly the most surreal, and dark, strip featuring dinosaurs Gary Larson ever did shows a stegosaurus leading a press conference that informs his colleagues about the dire state of the world. It’s definitely weird seeing a dinosaur speak with such eloquence and self-awareness. But it’s also a sobering reminder of how issues like climate change are putting humanity in a very similar position to the dinosaurs featured here. Larson always liked making people laugh with The Far Side. But here he also does his best to make people think about the state of the world as well.
There are likely hundreds of similar strips Larson that Larson did, but these ten are some of the funniest and most bizarre Far Side comics that feature dinosaurs.
The Far Side Complete Collection
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.
