The Far Side is more concerned with single-panel gags than returning characters, but there are some recurring figures who always promise a good time – cows, cavemen, dinosaurs, and of course ducks. Indeed, The Far Side has no more varied character than the humble duck – the comic frequently swaps them for everyday items, depicts them going to extreme lengths to escape maniacal hunters, and exposes them as villainous masterminds.
Here, then, are The Far Side‘s thirteen best comics featuring the waddling waterfowl – from meta commentary on the strip itself to perhaps the most famous image of the entire franchise.
13 Driving South
This comic finds one duck about to have a tough conversation, as a couple agree that – unlike the year before – this time they won’t be driving him south for winter. The Far Side is known for its surrealism, and here fans are left to wonder about what relationship the duck could possibly have with these people, and there’s an added level of weirdness that the duck is coming home from a prior engagement. Despite all this, there is a thin strand of relatability for any parent who has needed to break the news that their kids will need to fend for themselves this time.
12 Quack?
A rare case of The Far Side breaking its single-panel style, this comic is funny. but it isn’t among the strip’s best, although that’s apparently a matter of taste. Gary Larson’s original art from this strip – published in 1983 – sold for over $30,000 at auction, suggesting that someone somewhere would put this comic at #1.
11 The Plot Thickens
A Columbo-style detective checks the closet at a murder scene, only to discover a huge pile of wide-eyed ducks. It’s not clear if the ducks are the perpetrators or the illicit contraband for which the victim was slaughtered, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they’re somehow caught up in the grisly crime. Not only is this not the only Far Side comic where it’s suggested ducks might have committed a crime, but it’s also not the only strip where they can be read as standing in for drugs…
10 Move In!
The Far Side rarely explains itself, but fans looking for an answer to the previous strip will be satisfied to learn that in the world of The Far Side, ducks are apparently an illicit substance, exchanged in dark alleys and subject to police raids. This inexplicable status may explain why – in The Far Side‘s very best duck comics – the water fowl seem to have such a grudge against humans.
9 Apartment 3-G
This meta comic sees characters outside Larson’s artistic style show up at the shared house where all Far Side‘s recurring characters apparently live together. Apartment 3-G and Mary Worth were both soap opera-style comics, rather than gag comics like The Far Side. Larson’s style is so immediately identifiable that it’s genuinely novel to see such incongruous characters, and the suggestion that there’s a domestic life behind the scenes of The Far Side is a joke that’s strangely sweet, given some of the things these characters have been through. It’s also surprisingly satisfying to imagine that the newspaper funny pages – with strips stacked on top of each other – all take part in the same apartment building.
8 Margaret
The Far Side‘s best duck joke is including them where they make no sense at all, and here two ducks work together to try and kill Margaret, despite the reader having no idea what they could possibly gain by doing so. Of course, The Far Side so frequently accepts that ducks have some inherent evil within them, that it may be that they don’t need a reason – though the portrait and pearls suggest the reader may have just walked in during the grisly outcome of an inheritance scam.
7 Syrup off a Duck’s Back
The Far Side has always been both visually and linguistically inventive, and here it reverses the origin of the idiom ‘like water off a duck’s back.’ Rather than noticing how duck down repels water, the linguists in this comic have decided they must have a simile involving a duck and a common fluid, and are dedicated to going through from milk to syrup until they find something they can use. While this strip at least implies a happy ending, since readers know success isn’t far away, it does also include the grim detail that these researchers apparently started with acid, suggesting this isn’t their first duck.
6 Say…
One of the reasons The Far Side focuses on animals so much – apart from Larson’s own personal interest in nature – is that it can play with animal facts that readers can be assumed to know. In the case of ducks, that means multiple strips about flying south for winter, and here a flock of ducks realize that they might not have to walk all that way. Anthropomorphizing animals is The Far Side‘s bread and butter, and the idea of a group of ducks nailing the ‘V’ formation but not realizing they can fly is a fun gag. The real charm of the strip is the lead duck’s thoughtful reaction as the cogs begin to turn.
5 Professor Liebowitz
In The Pre-History of The Far Side, Gary Larson states that this strip is a play on the common stress dream of being “blatantly unprepared for some important, purposeful gathering,” but with the added surreality that it would be impossible to source a duck at short notice. Despite being colorized in some cases, this comic is at its best when presented in black and white, as Professor Liebowitz’s wide, white eyes immediately draw the reader’s attention at the exact moment he realizes he’s in trouble.
4 Street Ducks
The Far Side‘s malevolent ducks return as Phil finds himself confronted by three water fowl down a dark alley. Potentially a play on the term “street toughs,” the comic is also a joke on hunters – a frequent target of the comic’s humor. The idea that a human would need a 12-gauge to deal with three ducks – no matter how intimidating – makes this one of many strips that see overly prepared hunters over-exerting themselves to deal with harmless animals.
3 Professor Jenkins
As a ship sinks in the distance, a scientist and a duck find themselves on a tiny desert island, apparently renewing a contentious prior relationship. Not only is this comic funny, but it perfectly exemplifies The Far Side‘s style – a story told in a single image, drawing its humor from a bizarre situation rather than a pun or punchline. In The Pre-History of the Far Side, Larson says, “I enjoy cartoons of this type because they lack the obvious ‘cymbal crash’ at the end of the punch line.” The collection also reveals an earlier version of the strip, in which there were many ducks on the island, explaining why the duck believes they have the advantage.
2 Hall of Mirrors
Decades before Key & Peele‘s ‘Serial Killer in a Hall of Mirrors’ sketch, The Far Side did it first… and with a duck! This is one of many Far Side strips where a hunter is outsmarted by their surprisingly capable prey, and amusingly suggests that the duck is just as invested in this battle of wills. Famous for telling its stories in a single image, this Far Side strip takes place after Mr. Frischberg’s opening shot, putting him on the back foot against his dastardly opponent.
1 Anatidaephobia
Perhaps the most famous The Far Side comic – and deservedly – Gary Larson surprisingly wishes he’d gone with a different caption. In The Pre-History of the Far Side, Larson reveals various iterations of the strip, beginning with the duck being pointed out by the man’s secretary. It’s the second version’s caption – “Raymond could feel it… First, a tingling at the base of his neck and then a cold sweat would quickly engulf his body – yes, the duck was staring at him again” – that Larson wishes he’d used.
Larson also reveals that he considered other options for the phobia, including “quackaphobia” and “duckalookaphobia,” but settled on the Latin name for ducks, creating a punchline that “twelve ornithologists understood.” Despite the changes he’d make, Larson’s duck strip is pinned up in countless offices around the world, and it’s reassuring to know that while the wording could have been different, the image of a distant duck staring at a businessman was there from the start.
The Far Side‘s obsession with ducks created some of its funniest (and certainly its weirdest) comics, as the blameless birds somehow take on a near-supernatural malevolence in Gary Larson’s bizarre imagination.
