Gary Larson’s The Far Side has a lot of recurring themes, from cowboys to clowns, but pirates are some of the most underrated. Larson’s comics spend a lot of time out on the water, following luxury yachts, sinking lifeboats and ravenous sharks, however the best gags come from buccaneers and freebooters. From wooden legs to “yo ho ho,” Larson mines pirate lore for both visual jokes and his characteristic surrealism.

We’ve gathered the ten best Far Side comics starring pirates, from peg-legged privateers to Captain Hook himself. Be sure to vote in our end-of-article list for the comic that you think is funniest, and find out how other readers rated Larson’s corsair comics.

10

“Well, Somebody ‘Yo Ho Hoed!'”

Peg Legs Were Always Going to Feature Big in Larson’s Pirate Comics

In this strip from 1985, a pirate captain remonstrates with his crew over who caused him to get his peg leg stuck in a bucket. In pirate parlance, ‘yo ho ho’ is used to attract attention, suggesting that the call went out just as the captain was in a vulnerable position, dividing his attention (or a mischievous pirate summoned him just so this practical joke could take place.)

With only one panel to tell his gags, Larson often uses existing narratives and characters to quickly establish context. That allows him to mess with reader expectations without having to spend any time setting them up. It’s therefore typical that a Gary Larson pirate captain would have an eyepatch, hook hand, peg leg and tricorn hat, leaving no doubt as to this character’s occupation.

9

Pirate School

The Far Side Loves to Visit Its Bizarre Characters in School

In this strip, a group of would-be sea wolves learn to ply their trade, with a grammar lesson guiding them through the basics of piratical phraseology. The gag itself is a fun collision of everyday situation and bizarre characters, while the added detail of “I will keel-haul him” broken down on the board is an example of Larson going the extra mile. The idea of unusual characters in a classroom is one Larson has come back to again and again, with everything from horses to ‘fools’ brushing up on the basics.

Again, schools offer a scenario where the context is already clear, creating space for Larson to introduce weird lessons a given type of creature might be learning without losing readers along the way.

8

Captain Monet

Far Side Continues Its Long Tradition of Snakes as People

Another pirate with a peg leg, tricorn hat and eyepatch, Captain Monet differs from Larson’s other marauders by virtue of being a snake. The clear situation and character allow Larson to throw a snake into the mix, playing on the idea of snakes possessing a single ‘limb’ to justify the idea of a pirate snake replacing its entire body with a wooden leg. Both of these themes recur throughout The Far Side – snakes are put in a variety of human situations, sometimes incurring ‘whole body’ injuries like one snake whose skiing accident leaves it in a whole-body cast.

Larson likes putting snakes in human-like situations and depicting how they struggle with everyday things like marching in line, opening doors, and keeping their kids under control. Robin Williams decribed The Far Side as “watching a National Geographic special on Prozac,” and the comics above make it absolutely clear what he was talking about.

7

Captain Hook at the Dog Pound

Far Side’s Captain Hook Trilogy Begins

One of fiction’s most famous pirates, Larson got multiple gags out of Peter Pan‘s antagonist Captain Hook. This strip showcases Larson’s skill at telling an entire story via implication, as readers figure out how Hook’s dog Bruno yanked off his hook hand and escaped. Larson often uses moments just before or after the most consequential moment in his ‘story’ to set up a gag where the reader has to put in just a little work to earn the punchline, making it hit as hard as possible.

Captain Hook’s punchline isn’t just because Larson enjoyed creating pirate comics – in fact, the Far Side creator often took shots at Disney properties. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Dumbo and especially Pinocchio fired up Gary Larson’s imagination, always with a bleak twist on their cheery movie personas (for example Dumbo taking revenge on humanity by downing aircrafts once he reaches his full size.)

Larson had a great eye for what celebrities and media would stand the test of time, rarely missing when he set out to tell a joke that would be just as funny decades later. This is another reason that archetypes like cavemen, cowboys and pirates appear so often in The Far Side – they’re all ideas that have a more-or-less permanent place in the public imagination.

6

You Ain’t a Mutineer

Far Side Loves Wordplay as Much as Visual Gags

In another strip where readers have to do a little work for the punchline, a mouseketeer finds himself aboard a pirate ship, mistaken for a mutineer. It’s a fun piece of wordplay and a classic appearance from the comic’s secret recurring character, known as the Nerdy Little Kid. The Mickey Mouse Club isn’t as big in the public consciousness as it was in the ’80s, however famous Mouseketees like Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears are still very much part of pop culture.

Larson revisited the ‘mutineer’ pun with another strip titled ‘Mutants on the Bounty,’ parodying the real-world event known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. Larson’s mutants don’t seem the type to set 19 crew members adrift, suggesting a happier ending in this version of the story. However, the characters don’t exactly push the limits of how Larson depicts humans, and a tentacle or horn apiece might have sold the idea of ‘mutants’ as separate to his usual gallery of grotesques.

5

Doreen’s Job Counseling

An Unexpected Peter Pan Prequel

Captain Hook returns in this strip, which flashes back to his early life, back when he was just “Mr. Hook.” In a hilarious twist, it turns out the character was torn between piracy and massage therapy, with the comic showing Doreen moments before she presumably points out Hook’s bladed hand might make the latter inadvisable. In a fun extra gag, Larson’s comic establishes that Hook’s pointed mustache, high socks, and hooked appendage were all part of his look long before he ever stepped on a pirate ship.

4

Pirate Manicures

A Classic Far Side Visual Gag

In perhaps the definitive gag showing Gary Larson’s sense of humor, a stereotypical pirate cleans up with a manicure, getting his hook-hand polished and his peg-leg carved down. Larson again uses small details like the mirror lights, hat stand and wood shavings on the floor to emphasize the gag, and the pirates looking at the reader gives the impression that they’ve just been interrupted in the execution of their duties. The Far Side often indulged in this kind of meta comic, with Larson’s archetypal examples of different characters often understanding their own fictional nature and – in the case of this pirate – putting in the work to meet expectations.

3

“Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock”

The Captain Hook Trilogy Gets a Bleak Ending

In Peter Pan, Captain Hook may be a fearsome villain, but he’s still terrified of the crocodile that ate his hand. Having also eaten a ticking clock, the crocodile’s approach can always be heard, filling Hook with dread. Indeed, in 1991’s Hook (starring Far Side fan Robin Williams as Peter Pan), Dustin Hoffman’s Captain Hook remains terrified of the sound, despite the crocodile already being dead. Larson imagines a world where the crocodile isn’t just trying to eat the rest of Captain Hook, but has an inexplicable desire to mentally destroy him, calling up its water-rat nemesis to taunt him with its infernal ticking.

This is a rare Far Side strip told in two panels, with one showing Hook and the other depicting the distant croc making its call. Larson didn’t use this device often, and when he did, he usually camouflaged it. Gags where the reader can see out of a window, above and below water level, or over two floors of a building let Larson segment the strip without technically breaking his single-panel approach. However, in this case, there’s no real way to get the whole joke in a single image, and Larson rightly puts the quality of the joke over his single-image tradition.

2

The Hardy Boys

The Detective Teens Stumbled into a Real-World Mystery

A political scandal from the mid-80s, the Iran-Contra affair exposed senior US officials secretly selling arms to Iran, with proceeds going to fund the rebel Contras in Nicaragua. Both the sale of weapons to Iran (which was under embargo) and funding the Contras (which was prohibited by Congress, at least in this form) were separately illegal, creating a major scandal when the truth came to light. Of course, in the world of Far Side, this country-shaking scandal was cracked by the teen-fiction amateur detectives known as the Hardy Boys.

Larson has cited growing up in the Cold War as a major ingredient in his humor, mentioning in a 1987 interview with 20/20 that growing up during the Cuban Missile Crisis was a surreal, morbid experience that made it clear the world could effectively end at any moment. Being a kid during that era shows how Larson could dream up the Hardy Boys taking a hand in international affairs.

1

Dive

The Far Side Couldn’t Do Pirates Without Someone Walking the Plank

In a simple, early gag from 1980 (The Far Side‘s first year of publication), three pirates offer up judges’ scores for the ‘dive’ of a fellow crewmate sentenced to walk the plank. The classic juxtaposition of silly and serious is classic Larson, as this dark maritime fate becomes a competitive show of skill. Like many of The Far Side‘s best jokes, the simplicitly is the point, inviting an instinctual belly laugh that doesn’t depend on wordplay or the reader having to figure out a larger story.

Those were Gary Larson’s 10 funniest Far Side comics depicting pirates – be sure to vote below for your #1 and to learn which stip other readers nominated for the gold medal.