The Far Side’s 15 Craziest Comics About Aliens

The Far Side’s humor often came from making the familiar seem alien – and many times throughout the strip’s run, it used actual aliens to achieve this effect. Frequently, extraterrestrials were depicted in Far Side panels as being engaged in the same hapless behaviors as everyday humans. Other times, they represented the vast, terrifying forces of the unknown universe, looming over the people of Earth.

Usually appearing in the familiar flying saucer, embedded in humanity’s collective consciousness, The Far Side’s aliens were prone to the same foibles as any of the strip’s readers, as writer/artist Gary Larson used visitors from space the same way he used animals: to spoof, and to deconstruct, the blatant absurdity of contemporary human life. Aliens regularly populated The Far Side, making them an everyday part of newspaper readers’ lives in a way no sci-fi property – with the exception of Star Trek, and perhaps Twilight Zone – had before. This makes Larson’s alien Far Side panels particularly worth taking a more in-depth look at.

15
At Least Wait Until The Ten O’Clock News Comes On

First Published: June 26, 1980

In one of the most visually striking Far Side alien panels, the extraterrestrials are not played for laughs here, but rather presented as an imminent threat. The invasion, it seems, has arrived – the humor comes from the woman in the house below the fleet of saucers, complaining over the phone to a friend that the TV signal has gone out “in the middle of Lavern and Shirley.” As was often the case with Gary Larson’s characters, doom appears to be approaching for this woman, but in this moment, she has no idea what’s in store for her.

14
Gary Larson Tweaks The Familiar To Induce The Strange

First Published: September 25, 1980

In this panel, Gary Larson turns his attention to the simplest of human exchanges: the high five. Larson reinterprets this as the “high six,” as his amorphous aliens in this Far Side installment engage in a similar greeting at an alien party. The joke here is simple, but it hits the way Far Side punchlines always did – that is, even when the joke was corny, the accompanying image justified it, working not only to make the reader laugh, even in spite of themselves, but to make the joke uniquely Gary Larson’s own.

13
It’s Obvious They’re Not From Around Here

First Published: November 15, 1980

Gary Larson loved to portray alien visitors to Earth as assuming the familiar trappings of human tourists. In this case, a pair of aliens have landed on a farm, and one of them eagerly drapes a scarecrow over his shoulder, while the other takes a picture. Though this is an example of a Far Side panel using no words, the funniest interpretation of the joke is that the extraterrestrials are excited to go to Earth and experience the culture, as any traveler would be when going to a foreign land.

12
It’s Not A Killing Jar, Gorok

First Published: October 26, 1981

Though not the darkest Far Side featuring aliens, this panel comes close, as a pair of giant aliens are shown to have captured a pair of human boys, innocently riding their bikes along the road, in a jar. Ominously, one alien admonishes the other: “Now, don’t forget, Gorok!…This time punch some holes in the lid.” Evidently, Gorok has inadvertently caused the deaths of several captive humans before. This panel also leaves readers with the uncertainty of what Gorok intends to do with his new humans, or whether they will ever be returned to their families.

11
The Greatest Defense Against Alien Invasion Isn’t Germ Warfare – It’s Bee Warfare

First Published: August 11, 1981

Gary Larson frequently depicted UFO crashes in The Far Side, almost always as a result of mundane, Earth-bound reasons. In this instance, the perennial fear held by most drivers – of a bee getting into their car and causing them to crash – takes down an alien spacecraft, leaving its two occupants shaken and stranded on an unfamiliar planet. As was often the case with Larson’s Far Side alien panels, a group of humans appear on a hill in the distance, drawn to the crash site, and certainly about to be expected by what they find.

10
Gary Larson Reminds Humanity They Brought This Upon Themselves

First Published: November 25, 1981

This is another example of a straightforward, but nevertheless effective, Far Side alien joke. Here, a U.S. space probe, the Explorer II – launched in 1958 – has found life out in the galaxy, and directed its ire back toward Earth. “Find them!” an alien cries out, pointing a fleet of flying saucers in the direction the probe came from. In this panel, Larson blends a unique, if not ostentatious, design for the alien being with his regular use of the classic saucer ship design, which he excelled at drawing.

9
The Grub Is Greasy, But It’s Good

First Published: February 27, 1982

The Far Side was usually at its best when its jokes were kept deliberately simple, as is the case in this panel, which features aliens driving by Earth in their spaceship, when they notice the giant sign reading “EAT” sticking up from the planet. “Say…I could go for something,” the alien passenger says to the driver. The illustration itself is amusing, but what makes this panel particularly funny is the small detail of the alien’s jagged teeth – slyly suggesting that their take out menu might include human beings.

8
Gary Larson Excelled At Making The Ordinary Feel Out Of This World

First Published: July 16, 1982

Gary Larson loved to subvert expectations for humanity’s first encounter with aliens in his Far Side installments featuring beings from another world. He often also used aliens in the way he used all of his characters – to twist common human experiences into something just unfamiliar enough that the tension between trope and innovation contributed to the reader’s reaction. This is the perfect example, as a pair of aliens land their flying saucer on Earth, and lock their keys inside it. A woeful occurrence that any car owner can attest to, Larson uses aliens to remind readers how inherently ridiculous such a circumstance is.

7
A Visit To The Far Side Of The Galaxy

First Published: August 4, 1982

This panel is almost wholesome – in a topsy-turvy, characteristically Far Side type of way. Presumably set on some distant planet, a giant alien farmer gleefully throws handfuls of food from a bag labeled “human feed” to a pack of hungry, excited humans, as though they were chickens. The caption is pure nonsense, as the alien banters “yakity yak!” at his flock of homo-sapiens. Gary Larson tended to use The Far Side to illustrate the absurdity of humanity in the face of an unrelenting universe, and few panels zero in on that theme quiete as aptly as this one.

6
Gary Larson’s Aliens Were Some Of His Best Artistic Work

First Published: September 16, 1982

This is one of the most gloriously rendered alien illustrations from The Far Side, elevating what is a very simple joke at its core. Two carefree aliens “buzz” a city street full of terrified humans, taking a joyride in their flying saucer through an Earth metropolis, turning an otherwise ordinary, cloudy-looking day into the day the earth stood still. The caption for this panel simply reads, “yeeeehaaaaaa,” evoking cattle rustlers, as well, with the hapless human beings on the street beneath the UFO as the terrified, stampeding herd.

5
To The Rest Of The Galaxy, Earth Is A Disaster Waiting To Happen

First Published: October 5, 1982

Readers of The Far Side were no stranger to Gary Larson’s depictions of the end of the world, though this may be one of the darkest, as it removes humanity from the equation entirely. Instead, the destruction of Earth – in a spectacular explosion, which can be inferred to be the result of a nuclear exchange – is shown to be a passing novelty to a group of aliens, who “ooooooooooooooo” at the spectacle as though it was a fireworks display. This, ultimately, is Larson’s point – that with nuclear weapons, humanity threatens to render itself a passing oddity in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

4
Always Brush Up On Local Vernacular Before Landing On An Unfamiliar Planet

First Published: November 4, 1982

There is a lot going on in this Far Side panel. An alien has landed its spaceship in the alley of a city, and immediately encounters trouble from some street toughs. Unfamiliar with human idioms, the alien – wearing an ill-fitting human disguise – responds to a threat by saying that it would, in fact, like a “knuckle sandwich“. Clearly struggling to formulate human words, what makes this panel so funny is that the alien has evidently researched what a sandwich is, but is not familiar enough with the English language to recognize what a “knuckle sandwich” actually is.

3
Oh Say Can You See It Now, Zoron?

First Published: December 13. 1982

In one of the most striking Far Side images of all time, a flying saucer is depicted as having crash-landed directly on the Statue of Liberty’s outstretched torch. The illustration itself is incredibly memorable, but the caption truly sells it, as it becomes evident that the aliens were, in fact, zooming in to get a look at the monument. “Well, Zoron…is this a close enough look for you?” the annoyed alien passenger asks the UFO’s driver, as they sit and wonder how they’re going to get out of this jam.

2
Another Potentially Tragic Case Of Intergalactic Miscommunication

First Published: June 11, 1983

“Take me to your stove,” one of the two aliens in this Far Side panel exclaims in exasperation, at the big moment of their galaxy-changing first encounter with humanity. The other alien is holding a book in its hands, evidently a guide to translating their language into English. “You idiot, give me that book!” the irate alien exclaims, as a crowd of human onlookers gather. Many sci-fi stories have hinged on miscommunication between human and alien life, something Gary Larson skillfully spoofs here.

1
One Small Click Of The Shutter For Mankind

First Published: July 25, 1983

Forget to put the film in the camera once, and never hear the end of it. Gary Larson delightfully pokes fun at this common social phenomenon by making the photo opportunity in question truly the one of a lifetime. A human man stands next to a large, purple alien, in front of a flying saucer – anxiously asking his wife again and again if she’s sure there is film in the camera, until she finally snaps at him, “yes, yes, already Warren!“ Digital cameras have made the problem depicted here outdated, though this Far Side remains one of the funniest strips featuring an alien.