Over the course of its fifteen years in syndication, Gary Larson’s newspaper comic The Far Side featured its fair share of shady characters, who often appeared dressed in trench coats. The trench coat was a signature visual gag, one that Far Side readers quickly came to recognize as one of the strip’s best recurring elements.

Most often, Gary Larson used the trench coat as a signifier that the character wearing it was morally questionable – or at the very least, was hiding something, as some of the funniest Far Side trench coat comics depict. As a daily cartoon, Larson’s opus relied on familiar cues and repeat gags to get the best possible reaction out of its readers in a single panel.

The Far Side’s tone varied wildly from day to day, meaning that the moment a reader saw a trench coat, they knew they were in for a certain type of Gary Larson joke.

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The Key To The Far Side’s Humor Was Often Its Simplicity

First Published: August 12, 1982

The most familiar trench coat wearing figure in The Far Side is Gary Larson’s representation of a suspicious looking man, frequently identified as a member of an organized crime syndicate. In this panel, Larson places two of them in the bottom left of the frame, pictured hiding behind a rock, looking around suspiciously – all in the service of a glorious pun, as the caption labels the pair: “Loch Ness mobsters.”

While Larson at times flexed his artistic muscles with The Far Side, the strip became more identified with its straight-forward pencil-sketch style. Here, the artist combines that with a simple, yet effective bit of wordplay, highlighting that as weird and esoteric as Far Side jokes could be at times, Gary Larson also regularly relied on simplicity to effectively get its humor across to readers.

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Nobody Wants What This Shady Far Side Character Is Selling

First Published: October 4, 1982

The use of the familiar “man in a trench coat” here is important, because the joke here may come across as inscrutable to even long-time Far Side fans. In the panel, a shady looking entrepreneur sits behind a table on a city street, selling jars labeled: “the jitters,” “heebie jeebies,” “the creeps,” and “the willies.“

Upon a bit of closer scrutiny, the joke extends from the idea that a trench coat-wearing man looming on a street corner might make passersby uneasy. This man has somehow managed to commodify this, bottling those feelings and seeking to sell them, rather than give them away for free. The cartoon’s humor is further obscured by the lack of caption; Gary Larson’s Far Side didn’t always need a caption to get its joke across, but this is an instance where it may have made the punchline hit harder.

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Readers Have To Wonder What This Alien Is Doing On Earth

First Published: November 4, 1982

One of the funniest Far Side comics about aliens, this panel is also one of Gary Larson’s best comics featuring a character in a trench coat. Instead of a human, this time the shady character is an alien, who has just parked his flying saucer in an alleyway, and now is attempting to pass undetected as human by wearing a disguise.

A lack of familiarity with English idioms immediately lands the extraterrestrial visitor in trouble with some street toughs – but it is possible the thugs might have just saved the planet, as Larson provides no explanation for what the alien is doing on Earth, wearing a human costume. This Far Side panel captures both Gary Larson’s playful approach to language, and his merging of the unusual and the ordinary, both crucial aspects of Far Side’s humor.

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The Far Side Often Featured A Clash Between The Familiar & Unfamiliar

First Published: December 11, 1982

Similar to the first entry, this Far Side panel features Gary Larson taking the familiar element of the “man in a trench coat” and transposing him into an unusual setting. In this case, the man becomes a “jungle-wise character,” as opposed to being “street-wise.“ Rather than leaning up against a brick wall in an alleyway, the man in this cartoon leans against a tree.

Though he is depicted leering out the corners of his eyes, his unease doesn’t stem from fear that a gorilla might show up and question what the man is doing on its turf; rather, this is the nature of Larson’s familiar trench coat man, who is always on the look out for trouble – likely because he’s already knee-deep in it. This is crucial to Gary Larson’s joke here, though that does make its punchline easier to miss than the author might have hoped.

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Style Was Important Gary Larson’s Trench Coat Men

First Published: October 21, 1983

Here, a group of The Far Side’s trench coat men sit around a table, planning a caper – only for the one laying out the scheme to stop, in order to admonish the man across the table, shouting: “Louie! You jerk! Your hat brim is up!“ What makes this comic particularly funny is the way Gary Larson subtly pokes fun at his own use of the recurring trench coat man character.

While it was important to the success of The Far Side that readers develop a sense of recognition with its recurring elements, Larson also liked to use this as an opportunity to throw the occasional curveball, subverting the very expectation that he had cultivated. That is the case here, as the slightly-off detail of an upturned hat brim because the crux of the panel’s humor.

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This Encounter Could Send The Lion Back To Square One

First Published: November 11, 1983

This Far Side panel features the collusion of two recurring motifs that fans of Gary Larson’s work will immediately recognize. It puts one of Larson’s patented trench coat men in a tense situation with the characters from an iconic film, The Wizard of Oz. The trench coat man in this cartoon has his hand stuck in his pocket, presumably clutching a gun, and is mugging the famous characters from the movie.

“The heart! Hand over the heart!” the mugger barks, before adding: “And you with the brains! Let’s have ’em!” Strangely, he doesn’t ask for the gold medallion around the Lion’s neck – and just as notable is the fact that the Lion, supposedly no longer cowardly after the end of the film, has his paws in the air just like his cohorts, instead of taking brave action to thwart the robbery.

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This Far Side Scene Is About To Get Ugly Fast

First Published: February 13, 1984

This panel is another example of Gary Larson bringing together two of his most familiar recurring elements. Ducks appeared regularly in The Far Side, and their relationship with humans was often more contentious than readers might expect. That’s certainly the case here, as a trio of mean-looking mallards – including one puffing on a cigarette – confront a man in an alleyway.

Described as “street ducks,” the birds obviously have malicious intent. “Phil wasn’t exactly sure what to do,” the caption reads, “and then he remembered his 12-gauge.” Gary Larson’s comic was effective at finding the joke in a moment right before something dramatic happens. Here, an already tense moment is on the precipice of taking an even darker turn, and it is the anticipation of what comes next that makes the joke land even harder.

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At Least These Far Side Mobsters Tried To Be Intimidating

First Published: October 1, 1984

While unquestionably qualifying as shady, Far Side‘s mafiosos often came across as more goofy than dangerous. That is the case here, but at least in this instance, there is a somewhat coherent effort to intimidate and extort – it just happens to be carried out in quixotic fashion.

In the panel, a group of trench coat men are depicted moving furniture around a living room, and rearranging art on the walls, as one of them sticks a finger in the homeowner’s face and threatens: “The boss wants his money, see? Or next time, it won’t be your living room we rearrange.” Rather than legbreakers, the “boss” seems to have sent a crew more suited to being interior decorators – though if they’re willing to carry through on their threat, it may still be an effective one.

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Come At The Elephant & You Best Not Miss, Mr. Schneider

First Published: November 11, 1984

In what can only be described as a thoroughly hilarious Far Side panel, Gary Larson once again brings together some of the funniest recurring gags from the strip, while also reinforcing the running pro-nature, anti-hunter themes evident in The Far Side. Here, the trench coat is worn by an elephant, who emerges from the shadows to confront the man who shot him decades earlier.

“If you’re going to shoot an elephant, Mr. Schneider,” the vengeful animal intones, “you better be prepared to finish the job.” Once again, Gary Larson situates his reader in the moment a situation goes from bad, to worse – at least for Mr. Schneider, as the the elephant is subtly shown reaching into his pocket, likely about to do to Schneider what the man couldn’t do to him all those years ago.

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Another Classic Far Side Mobster Gag

First Published: December 17, 1984

Once again, the success of this Far Side joke relies on the audiences’ familiar with its subject matter, along with Gary Larson’s knack for tweaking the recognizable ever-so-slightly, so as to put the reader off-kilter for just a split second – and hopefully, evoke laughter.

In this case, the idea of a “hit man,” is softened into a “slap man,” who doesn’t kill his target, but instead gives him a severe-looking smack across the face. In the panel, Larson includes all the characteristic details of a Mafia hit: the getaway car right out front, the screaming bystanders, and of course, the man in the trench coat. With the added “swoosh” of the “slap man” swinging his hand, this panel winds up being a perfect convergence of hilarious elements, making it one of Far Side’s best “trench coat man” jokes.