Beginning in 1980, Gary Larson’s The Far Side now boasts over 4000 comics and an army of devoted fans all around the world. The cows, clowns, insects, robots, aliens, dogs and goldfish of The Far Side have entertained fans for decades, and the fun isn’t over, as Larson is still sporadically publishing comics on The Far Side‘s official website. But with so many jokes over so many years, do The Far Side‘s very first comics still hold up?

Here are Gary Larson’s first 10 Far Side comics, introducing many of the strip’s key obsessions and funniest themes. We’ve ranked them according to how funny they are, however if you disagree then stick around to the end of the article and vote in our reader poll to pick the funniest of Gary Larson’s first 10 Far Side comics for yourself.

10

Noah – Far Side’s Fourth Ever Comic

Published 01/05/80

One of the defining qualities of The Far Side is its love of language, and Larson has never encountered a pun or malapropism he couldn’t turn into a great joke. In this classic ‘mishearing’ gag, Noah unfortunately misunderstood God’s instructions and built an ‘arch,’ though not until he’d already gathered two of every animal. Above all the other entries on this list, this comic captures Larson’s iconic art style the best, as the minimalist Noah still manages to look unpleasantly surprised at this new development.

9

Matador – Far Side’s Sixth Comic

Published 01/10/80

The Far Side tends to avoid any kind of political statements, contributing to its ability to remain timeless. However, one theme that Larson returns to again and again is a pro-nature, conservationist perspective that treats animals and the natural world as things to protect. In The Pre-History of The Far Side, Larson writes:

In the vast majority of my cartoons where the theme is human vs animal, it’s the animal that usually triumphs – betraying what is probably my basic cynicism toward my own kind (especially my neighbor three doors down) and a fondness for wildlife.

As well as having multiple species of insect named after him by scientist fans, Larson has fundraised for Conservation International and the Jane Goodall Institute. Indeed, Larson visited one of Goodall’s research facilities after a fracas in which the executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute objected to a comic making fun of Goodall. When Goodall herself read the comic, she contacted Larson and thanked him for helping her achieve “Real fame at last!”, kicking off an unlikely friendship.

8

Polly – Far Side’s Seventh Comic

This 01/11/80 Comic Is Far Side’s First Ever Death

Another Far Side human falls afoul of animal life in this strip, which also features the franchise’s first ever named character (depending on whether you count Noah.) While Larson is clearly trying to create an unlikely situation here, it’s actually not unheard of for parrots to provide ‘evidence’ of a crime. Indeed, a 2015 murder case involved an African Grey parrot named Bud who reportedly repeated the words “Don’t shoot!” while mimicking the victim’s voice (though per the BBC, this ‘statement’ wasn’t actually used in the resulting court case.)

7

Crabs – Far Side’s First Ever Comic

This 01/01/80 Comic Began Far Side’s Obsession with Nature

The Far Side‘s very first comic is basically a mission statement for the franchise, as humans are presented as just another type of animal. Larson’s gags dance back and forth across the line between ‘human’ and ‘animal,’ with elephants, dogs and beetles all behaving like everyday people, while Larson’s humans have all the odd rituals and bizarre instincts of the animal kingdom. If a newcomer asked for a succinct explanation of Larson’s perspective, the very first Far Side strip would be a near-perfect answer. It’s also worth noting the dead fish in this comic – while Larson often includes extra details to support a strip’s given punchline, it’s incredibly rare that he includes anything this extraneous.

6

Snake – Far Side’s Eighth Comic

Published 01/12/80

It’s rare that a Far Side strip has anything approaching a ‘moral,’ but here the message is clear – beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the grotesque characters should think twice before heaping scorn on one of nature’s wonders. The use of the exclamation “Egad!” is worth noting here – it’s a phrase that pops up in several comics from The Far Side‘s earliest days, going halfway to becoming a recurring catchphrase for the series (look out for it in our #1 entry.) Ultimately, it’s for the best that Larson didn’t stick with “Egad!” (given how creative The Far Side is with language, it would have been a shame for any jokes to have forced in the word just for a recurring bit), but it’s interesting to keep an eye out for it in these early strips.

5

Whale – Far Side’s Third Ever Comic

This 01/03/80 Comic Is the First Without a Caption

Some of The Far Side‘s best strips don’t include any words at all, as Larson manages to tell a complete ‘story’ in a single panel. Here, it’s clear the unlucky whaler badly underestimated the size of the whale he was pursuing, leading to another human vs animal standoff (and, again, one the animal is essentially guaranteed to win.) Even with a character who takes up about 2% of the comic, Larson nails the expressiveness of someone who knows they just made a huge mistake.

4

Dragons – Far Side’s Second Ever Comic

Published 01/02/80

While The Far Side has many recurring character archetypes (but no recurring individual characters, as Larson wanted the strip to be a new, surprising scenario every day), the very first were the knight-eating dragons. Yet again, humans are depicted without any kind of special status in the animal kingdom – dragons don’t think of them as worthy adversaries, but just another snack along the same lines of pistachios. Larson revisited the same theme four years later in 1984, with another gag about dragons (perhaps the same couple, for fans looking for a cohesive universe) seeing humans as snack food.

3

Island – Far Side’s Tenth Comic

This 01/15/80 Comic Introduced Far Side’s Obsession with Desert Islands

Far Side‘s desert island comics are one of its most famous themes, with countless Gary Larson gags where two survivors marooned on a tiny desert island (with one coconut tree) get up to hijinks. The image is so closely tied to Far Side that cartoonists refer to the image as a ‘Far Side island.’

It’s therefore pretty shocking to learn that Far Side‘s first ever desert was nothing of the kind, but rather a cunningly disguised predator waiting to devour its new inhabitants. Indeed, the iconic ‘single coconut tree’ started out life as an eye stalk, raising the impressively dark possibility that all of Larson’s desert islands are the same species, just waiting for lunch.

2

Aliens – Far Side’s Ninth Comic

This 01/14/80 Comic Introduced Aliens to The Far Side

Over its tenure, The Far Side has included a lot of alien comics, but this first one is still among the best. The idea of aliens fishing for humans is a fun gag, but it’s the bait getting tangled in the strings that’s typically Larson-esque.

Far Side‘s aliens really show the strength of Larson’s decision not to use recurring characters or even a cohesive world. Larson says in The Complete Far Side that he wanted total freedom – while a recurring cast keeps readers coming back, he wanted to be able to do anything (including creating characters who could be “crunched, speared, shot, beheaded, eaten, stuffed, poisoned, and run over” without getting readers up in arms.) Larson’s aliens are big or small, friendly or aggressive, blob monsters or hand-headed bipeds – whatever a strip’s specific joke requires.

1

Boomerang – Far Side’s Fifth Ever Comic

This 01/08/80 Comic Introduced Far Side’s Obsession with Scientists

If there’s one theme that defines The Far Side more than any other, it’s scientists getting up to mischief. In an interview with 20/20, Larson noted that “it’s the theme that occurs to me most frequently” while also making it clear that mocking scientists is done out of love and familiarity, not any sense of disrespect (an assurance it’s clear his many scientist fans received loud and clear.)

Given Larson’s love of mocking scientists, it makes sense that it only took until Far Side‘s fifth comic to get around to making fun of people in lab coats, as these apparent geniuses keep trying and failing to hurl a boomerang away. In fact, it’s easy to read this as an early draft of one of The Far Side‘s most famous comics, similarly depicted a ‘gifted’ person acting in a decidedly dunderheaded way.

Those are the first 10 Far Side comics Gary Larson ever published, including the introduction of silly scientists, desert islands and all kinds of aliens. Have your say on our ranking by voting below for your favorite of Gary Larson’s first 10 Far Side comics.

Source: BBC, 20/20 (January 8 episode)