Gary Larson’s iconic comic strip The Far Side was never meant to have recurring characters. While Larson’s editors originally tried to talk him into creating the next Garfield or Peanuts, Larson wanted to debase and abuse his characters at will without inviting readers’ sympathy. However, Larson’s use of repeated character archetypes did end up creating recurring figures who appear in comic after comic.

One of the best is the detective – a Noir-ish lawman wearing a trench coat, fedora, and often smoking a gigantic stogie. Larson uses the detective as a recurring archetype whenever a bizarre crime occurs in the world of The Far Side, and with everyone from elephants to clowns capable of being arrested for nonsense misdeeds, the detective is always in work.

Screen Rant has collected the 16 best comics starring the detective – be sure to vote for your favorite in the end-of-article poll, and see which strip other readers voted as #1.

16

Professor LaVonne

We Think We Have This Far Side Murder Solved

This strip showcases the detective’s role in Far Side stories – someone who just arrived at the crime scene and can encounter its weird and wild details alongside the reader. In this case, an entomologist has been pinned to a board like the insects he studied. While The Far Side was never meant to be a cohesive world, we think we know who carried out this particular crime – the villainous Professor DeArmond, Far Side‘s epitome of evil (amongst butterfly collectors.)

Larson’s love of bugs appears throughout The Far Side, and even inspired multiple scientist fans to name bugs in his honor, including the butterfly species serratoterga larsoni. However, if entomologists thought this tribute was going to earn them preferential treatment in Larson’s strips, they were out of luck.

15

Curiosity Killed the Cat…s

Far Side’s Detective Actually Gets to Solve a Case

Larson loves nothing more than taking a weird idiom or phrase literally, and in this case, the Far Side detective discovers a group of cats killed by concentrated curiosity. Cats tend to suffer grim fates in Larson’s comics, especially when they encounter dogs. Larson’s love of nature inspired a detached attitude to how his cartoon animals fare against their natural ‘enemies,’ sometimes to the point that readers responded negatively.

The above ‘Tethercat’ comic was Larson’s most controversial, receiving hate mail when it was published and even causing the strip to be pulled from some newspapers. Larson has reflected on the response to what he saw as a comic that “didn’t cross any line,” especially because characters like Tom and Jerry have done so much worse to each other. In The Prehistory of the Far Side, Larson concludes:

What I think I’ve figured out is, in animation, a cat might be flattened by a steamroller or get blown up by dynamite, but a few seconds later we see him back in business – chasing something or being chased until he’s “killed” again. There’s never a suggestion that the cat’s suffering is anything but transitory. In a single-panel cartoon, however, no resolution is possible. The dogs play “tethercat” forever. You put the cartoon down, come back to it a few hours later, and, yep – those dogs are still playing ‘tethercat.’

14

Shave and a Haircut

Far Side’s Criminals Fail to Carry Out a Bank Heist

In a thankless non-speaking role, Far Side‘s detective busts a group of mobsters who are planning what appears to be the most simplistic bank robbery of all time. It turns out the cops were able to get the drop on the bad guys because they’d chosen the popular musical riff ‘shave and a haircut’ as their secret signal. While the tune has been used in vaudeville, it’s also common for people to playfully recreate it when knocking on a door, suggesting the cops cracked the code totally by accident.

13

The Work of a Copycat

Far Side’s Serial Killers Are About What You’d Expect

In this comic, the detective (recolored with a different coat, but still bringing beat cop Norm along for the ride) discovers the incredibly specific telltale signs of a serial killer. Namely, a victim dressed in a diving suit with a frog shoved in their mouth, a full fishbowl over their head, and adorned with fairy lights. Hilariously for such a specific situation, the police still aren’t 100% positive this is their killer, but the detective is still more competent than 99% of Far Side‘s human characters.

12

Kangaroos and Wallabies

Does the Kangaroo Count as the Detective’s Nemesis?

In this Far Side strip that just turned 40, the detective and Norm guide a witness through identifying the marsupial he presumably saw commit a crime. Sadly, the witness is no help, and the criminal macropod will likely go free. That’s unfortunate, because The Far Side has a few different strips where kangaroos are involved in crime, suggesting the animal in question may well be the Moriarty to the detective’s Sherlock Holmes.

11

Hundreds of Bright Copper Kettles

Far Side Parodies The Sound of Music

In this strip, the detective gets to do some actual investigating (while Norm sticks to taking copious notes), deducing that the killer in this particular crime was trying to steal the objects named in The Sound of Music‘s ‘My Favorite Things’ song. Larson often referenced iconic pop culture in his strips, and had a great eye for what movies would stand the test of time.

10

Time of Death

Larson Dials an Iconic Murder Mystery Cliché Up to 11

In this comic from May 1980 – only the fifth month of Far Side‘s publication – the detective is decidedly off-model, as Larson hadn’t quite settled into his definitive style. Despite these growing pains, the gag of the strip is absolutely solid – it’s a classic trope in whodunnit murder mysteries that a clock or watch is damaged during a crime, offering up evidence of exactly when it happened. In this case, the detective has more than enough evidence to go on, but sadly at this point in his career, he’s not quite as adept as he’ll become in later cases.

9

The Brains of This Outfit

Not the Far Side Detective’s Proudest Day

Larson loves any gag where he can warp the human body, and in this case the giant-brained character is the obvious leader of an illegal gambling ring. It’s another embarrassing fumble that the detective needs to ask, though at least this time he’s looking a little more on-model.

8

The Plot Thickens

Three Far Side Comics Combine into a Crime Story

In another early comic (also from May 1980), the detective stumbles across a truly surreal murder, only to discover a wardrobe packed with ducks. While Larson often depicts evil ducks in his strips, on this occasion they don’t seem to be the perpetrators, but rather just a weird detail at the crime scene. However, for fans who want some closure, a couple of Larson’s other comics complete the narrative.

In the first strip (also starring the detective and Norm), the lawmen watch a duck deal going down, while in the second, readers get a satisfying answer for why ducks are so prized in the groan-worthy pun of “snorting quack.”

7

Wasp Detective

Larson’s Nerdy Kid Is Another Recurring Archetype

The fun thing about archetypes is that they’re malleable, and in this strip Larson’s detective isn’t even human, though he does retain the trench coat and fedora, and a little wasp Norm in a patrolman’s hat. The ‘criminal’ in this strip is another example of Larson using recurring character archetypes, as the crime was committed by the ‘nerdy little kid’ that appears in some of Larson’s best comics.

In the second comic above, Larson calls out his use of character archetypes, ‘revealing’ that his repeating character designs were because different characters are played by the same ‘actors.’ Sadly, the detective and Norm aren’t mentioned, so we don’t know their ‘real’ names.

6

Chicken Detective

One of Far Side’s Best Quotes

The detective gets another animal adventure in this strip, where at least the characteristic fedora makes the transition. Larson’s ability to sell deadpan reactions to ludicrous situations is on show, and there’s rarely been a more purely ‘Far Side’ moment than a chicken detective admitting, “Of course, we all leave tracks like this.”

5

A Heavy, Blunt Object

Far Side Mastered Dramatic Irony

Dramatic irony is a technique where the meaning of a scene is changed because the reader or viewer knows something the characters don’t. In this case, our ‘wider’ view of the crime scene reveals that there’s a very simple answer for the murder weapon in this case. For fans who are losing respect for the detective based on his lack of clarity here, it’s worth noting there are two detectives present, and the speaker is wearing glasses, making it possible that the regular detective isn’t the one making the mistake. Either way, Norm remains as stalwart as ever.

4

A Hand Reaching from Behind

Far Side’s Cops are Just One Step Up from Keystone’s

Anyone who has ever had the instinct to crack an ill-judged joke in a tense moment can relate to this strip, where a cop has to be stopped from recreating the crime under discussion. It’s easy to see Larson’s depiction of humans as being foolish, self-involved and a little cruel. However, a kinder read is that they’re all essentially big kids who probably shouldn’t be given any level of responsibility.

3

Handkerchief

Godzilla Has a Lot to Answer For

Again, Far Side uses dramatic irony, although the ‘hidden’ info is so glaring that it only works because the detective is a world-class goof. Not only is this comic funny, but it’s an awesome demonstration of Larson’s talent. In The Prehistory of The Far Side, he reveals a rough sketch of this comic from a different perspective – two Godzilla-like monsters are walking away from a destroyed city and one realizes they left their handkerchief behind. Rethinking the strip led to a far more streamlined joke, while also switching the criminal kaiju to King Kong.

2

Butlers of the World

We Finally Learn Norm’s Last Name!

‘The butler did it’ is an iconic whodunnit phrase associated with the 1930 mystery novel The Door by Mary Roberts Rinehart. In the world of The Far Side, this confirmation of the murderer’s profession doesn’t actually make the detective’s life any easier, given the killing takes place at the annual banquet for butlers from all across the world. Thankfully, while the detective is irritated, he’s not giving up hope, and seems more annoyed to catch a difficult case on a Monday than by the fact there are 21 suspects in this panel alone.

1

The Murderer Is…

Far Side’s Detective Gets It Wrong

Taking on the same trope as the previous strip, we’re naming this Gary Larson’s funniest detective strip because of how it brings his greatest talents into a hilarious whole. Larson’s best comics tell an entire story, finding the funniest moment to drop readers into the narrative.

At the same time, Larson’s use of dramatic irony makes it very clear who the real killer is, while his taste for the surreal won’t settle on just an obvious murderer – they have to literally be an elephant wearing a terrible human disguise. Finally, Larson’s love of language shines through, as the murder victim isn’t just gored, but trampled “to smithereens” – musical phrasing that makes it even more obvious that the butler is innocent.

The Far Side‘s detective is such a great recurring character because he appears at so many bizarre crime scenes, working to draw logical conclusions about a world which makes no sense whatsoever. Every great comedian needs a straight man, and the detective acts as Far Side‘s on-call scene partner for every possible weirdo, from killer elephants to an army of butlers – don’t forget to vote below for your favorite strip!