The Far Side was full of recurring elements, including settings and scenarios that creator Gary Larson returned to time and again – including regular instances of cartoons in which characters wandered the desert, hopelessly lost. The strip’s forlorn desert-stranded characters are, in retrospect, produced some its funniest installments, even if most of them were doomed.

While The Far Side’s use of the desert island trope is perhaps better known, its “lost in the desert” panels offer a related, yet distinct style of punchline, in which Gary Larson’s different creative impulses often converged.

Some of The Far Side’s most lighthearted jokes came in desert panels, even though the idea of trekking without respite through an endless landscape of sand is one of its most fraught scenarios. In other words, Larson used the “lost in the desert” as effectively as he did any of The Far Side’s most famous gags.

10

The Desert Was The Perfect Landscape For The Far Side

First Published: October 10, 1980

Throughout The Far Side, Gary Larson relied on a few strategic moves in order to maximize the impact of his cartoons on readers. One of these was the use of familiar visual signifiers – including the regular utilization the desert landscape. The “lost in the desert” trope provides immediate context for the audience, within which Larson’s humor can unfurl.

Another common technique the artist employed to great effect was inserting something out-of-place into that familiar context. In this case, two men wandering through the desert find themselves at a water fountain, which inexplicably pops up in the middle of nowhere. This is amusing, but the true joke here once again hinges on familiarity – with the two beleaguered men immediately falling into an inane conflict, despite their desperate circumstances, as one admonishes the other not to put his mouth on the fountain.

9

The Vast Expanse Of The Desert Gave Gary Larson Room To Play

First Published: May 17, 1982

The familiarity of the “lost in the desert” frame was important, because Gary Larson’s humor often relied on a delicate balance of fulfilling readers’ expectations and subverting them. Like the water fountain in the previous panel, the key to the punchline here is the ludicrous placement of an open sewer hole and a “caution” barrier in the middle of a wide open stretch of desert.

What makes this joke particularly amusing though – elevating it beyond just a simple “What-the?” response – is Larson’s characteristic absurdist streak. Why and how the sewer opening is there becomes a less urgent question than that of why the man did not divert from his path even slightly to avoid the hole. While readers could project some plausible explanation onto the image, it is best not to, as Gary Larson’s humor here is predicated in the mystifying uncertainty of the joke.

8

The Far Side’s Desert Comics Were The Perfect Blend Of Serious & Silly

First Published: June 13, 1983

The Far Side was known for going to dark, at times controversial places in order to get a reaction out of its audience; at the same time, more than just the absurdist streak it is known for, there was a rich vein of silliness in the comic. Among Gary Larson’s best work are many great examples of cartoons in which these two modes collided – something that he achieved regularly with his “lost in the desert” installments.

Here, a man wandering the desert comes across another person: an ice cream vendor. However, rather than salvation, the lost man approaches as a customer – only to be disappointed when the vendor is seemingly “out of everything.” Often, Far Side‘s desert panels relied on the isolation of its forlorn wanderers, and this panel is no different, except in this case, Larson renders the interruption of their solitude.

7

Footprints Were Always A Punchline In The Far Side

First Published: August 6, 1983

This Far Side time travel comic is hilarious for a few reasons, but most notably, it serves as a prominent example of something all the entries on this list feature – the long, winding trail of footprints behind the character, marking how long they have been trekking across the hot sands of the desert.

What makes the footsteps in this Far Side panel stick out is how quickly they trace back to their starting point. Unlike most “lost in the desert” panels, the time traveler’s journey to find fuel for his time machine – the joke being that he has landed long, long before the dinosaurs died and became fossil fuels – has only just begun. The footsteps in question occupy the center of the composition, as if to emphasize this, in perfect contrast to how Gary Larson most frequently deployed them.

6

Gary Larson Made Being Lost In The Desert Fun

First Published: October 6, 1984

Once again, Gary Larson’s silly style of humor is evident here, purposefully contrasted to the bleak circumstances of wandering the desert with seemingly no hope of survival. In this cartoon, six sand dunes are depicted with the cartoonist’s patented trail of footprints, stretching all the way into the distance of the panel. And yet, one of three hopelessly lost characters doesn’t let their predicament stop him from having a good time.

“Hey! I’m gonna roll now!” one of the three men calls out, lying prone at the top of a dune that his compatriots have just trekked across.”You guys gonna watch or what?” Though their faces aren’t drawn in articulate detail, their frustration at the man’s antics is still evident. As with many Far Side panels where characters don’t seem to fully grasp the gravity of the circumstances they’re in, there is an inescapable charm to this “lost in the desert” comic.

5

A Startling Moment Of Self Awareness From A Far Side Character

First Published: December 14, 1984

This Far Side desert panel stands out as one of the more laugh-out-loud funny ones, given that it features something that wasn’t always prominent in Gary Larson’s work – a character recognizing the absurdity of the situation they are in. Many Far Side characters were oblivious to their imminent doom, or were fully steeped in the surrealism of Larson’s humor. In this case, a man lost in the desert belatedly realizes that he chose the wrong snack for the journey.

“Uh oh…,” the man holding the potato chip bag says. “I’ve got a feeling I shouldn’t have been munching on these things for the last mile and a half.” The way Larson draws his eyes widening in realization is particularly amusing, but it is the character’s sudden burst of self-awareness that makes the joke land – crucially, because it has come so belatedly.

4

These Far Side Characters Need To Get Their Priorities Straight

First Published: July 5, 1985

Unlike the previous installment, the joke here exhibits the more characteristic Far Side quality of featuring two characters whose attention is not on what readers would expect it to be on. Here, two haggard-looking wanderers sit against the side of a large rock, hoping to rest for a moment in what shade they can find, after a long, arduous, barefoot walk across the sand. Hilariously, rather than a moment of peace, they instead bicker about who has gotten more tan while they have been lost.

Again, the joke here contrasts the trivial conflict between the two characters and the greater urgency of the context they are placed in. Part of Gary Larson’s success came from his creative ability to recognize how the dissonance between elements of a cartoon was critical to getting a reaction from his audience.

3

The Far Side’s Reflection Of The Real World Never Lacked Bite

First Published: September 27, 1986

Gary Larson regularly stressed that his cartoons were not “about” anything, nor were they crafted with some overt agenda. Still, the artist’s obsessions and opinions were evident to anyone who regularly read The Far Side. His jokes often contained some relevant social critique, however subtle, whether inadvertent or not.

That is the case here, as Larson reimagines the stereotypical conception of a drug dealer as a “venom pusher,” a snake trying to tempt a weary wanderer into drinking poison. “C’mon…aren’t you thirsty?” the snake hisses. Without a doubt there is a potent metaphor that can be extracted from this joke, even if the artist would rather readers didn’t. The Far Side was not intended to convey a message, but rather simply to get a reaction out of readers – but sometimes, whether by design or not, that reaction involved finding greater meaning in the cartoon.

2

These Far Side Wanderers Display A Stunning Lack Of Awareness Of Their Surroundings

First Published: October 9, 1986

By a mile, the most dangerous creatures in The Far Side’s deserts were its vultures, who often ultimately benefited from the comic’s many “lost in the desert” human characters. In this panel, the familiar lack of awareness displayed by many of Gary Larson’s creations is on full display, as a man chucks a can of “buzzard begone” over his shoulder – seemingly oblivious to the flock of carrion-eating birds looming in the distance.

The joke here is once again silly, tying together Gary Larson’s love of fictional products with his penchant for grim irony. “And now that’s the last of that!” the man says as he chucks the “buzzard begone,” almost as though he’s satisfied to be rid of it. Though The Far Side almost never featured recurring characters, readers can readily imagine this same man as a meal for Larson’s birds of prey in another panel.

1

The Far Side Was A Dangerous Place To Grow Up

First Published: October 20, 1986

More than one Far Side panel endangered children, to the dismay of more than a handful of readers during the strip’s run in syndication. In this instance, Gary Larson relies on the absurdity of the scenario to undercut potential adverse reactions to the use of babies in this cartoon. There is no hint of realism to this panel, as the babies operate exactly as any of Larson’s adult desert wanderers do.

Seemingly not phased by their predicament, the babies are drawn with looks of delight on their faces, as they crawl toward a pond in the foreground of the frame, with the comic captioned: “Wawa!“ This is what makes it particularly funny, as it emphasizes that taking Far Side panels overly seriously means Larson evoked a response, which was always his primary goal with the strip.