40 years ago, Gary Larson’s career was at its peak, and The Far Side was firing on all cylinders. Because The Far Side was published almost every day, there is always the anniversary of a classic panel to celebrate. This curated selection of Far Side cartoons focuses on some comics that are often overlooked from late 1986 and early 1987. Each of them is approaching the 40-year milestone, and deserves to be celebrated when the time comes.

There is plenty to love about each of the Far Sides below, which are all turning 40 in the next few weeks or months. (If you’re reading this now, and you have a 40th birthday coming up around the same time as these comics, here’s to hoping you’ve aged as gracefully, or at least as hilariously, as these perfect Far Side panels.

8

“Human Decoys”

First Published: October 19, 1986

Using a decoy duck and imitating their mating call are standard tactics for duck hunters, but with this Far Side cartoon, Gary Larson didn’t hesitate to say, “Hey, that’s kind of a dirty trick, don’t you think?” Except he poses this question wordlessly, just by flipping the script and having the ducks use human decoys.

This Far Side joke says: turnabout is fair play. Whether the man with the rifle under his arm, in the bottom right corner of this extra-sized Far Side panel, is going to be fooled by the heads of pretty women floating on sticks in the pond, or horrified that the ducks are on to him, Larson leaves that up to readers’ speculation.

7

“The Operation Was A Success”

First Published: October 23, 1986

The Far Side has a reputation for minimalism, and rightly so, but that’s not the case here. This is one of Gary Larson’s densest Far Side cartoons. It features three characters, two with dialogue. There is some key background detail work that adds to the humor. And that’s just in the frame. This Far Side also has a long caption. Plus, there’s a lot of “plot,” by Larson’s standards.

To summarize: a scientist, presumably mad, has swapped the brains of a human and a duck. “The operation was a success,” and Larson chronicles both the immediate aftermath of the procedure, with the illustration, and its long-term results, in the caption. “Where am I? Professor Sutton! What’s going on?” the duck asks, while the man strapped to the table next to him quacks contentedly.

As the caption reveals, the duck “went on to become the leader of a great flock,” while the man with the bird brain, “Irwin,” wound up being “ostracized by his family,” in a low-key classic Far Side play on words, “and eventually just ambled south.”

6

“Classroom Afflictions”

First Published: November 3, 1986

This is one of those categorical Far Side cartoons, where Gary Larson liked to categorize different types of an object, person, or situation. In this case, “classroom afflictions.” The observations in panels like this one invariably start out grounded enough, and subsequently escalate, or lapse (depending on readers’ tastes) into absurdity.

Here, we start out with “math anxieties.” Relatable enough. But then there’s “Latin convulsions,” “chemistry conniptions,” “physics floundering,” “wood shop apathy” and then, in a cheeky final twist, “basic stupidity.” Some classic Far Side comics are little more than classroom doodles, and this is a great example of why that’s not a weakness, but actually a strength of Larson’s creative style.

5

“The Grass Is Greener On The Other Side”

First Published: November 13, 1986

The Far Side wasn’t afraid to answer seemingly unanswerable questions. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” “If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, does it make a sound?” In this cartoon, it is a question every person, and every sheep, has debated both sides of at some point in their lives: “is the grass really greener on the other side of the fence?”

With this Far Side cartoon, Gary Larson goes ahead and cuts through the back-and-forth to confirm: yup. It is. He does this by having a sheep chilling in its living room, kicked back in its recliner, bottle of beer clutched in its hoof, when a news report comes on TV. The breaking story? “The grass is greener” just over there.

4

“Primitive Demolition Derbies”

First Published: December 14, 1986

Gary Larson was obsessed with prehistory, which he envisioned, through countless Far Side comics, as a chaotic free-for-all of invention and innovation. That is on display brilliantly here, in another super-sized Sunday panel, depicting “primitive demolition derbies.”

These cavemen haven’t invented the car yet, let alone the monster truck, but the wheel is enough for them to come up with the demolition derby concept. Larson draws them rolling their wheels at one another, at high speed, and by and large they seem to be having a blast. At least, until their wheel gets demolished, or they get completely flattened, inevitabilities that are both depicted on the right side of the frame.

3

“Maybe It’s The Rest Of The Herd…”

First Published: January 27, 1987​​​​​​​

This comic is a forgotten gem among The Far Side’s many “therapy session” jokes. It is also, arguably, one of the most relatable Far Sides ever. Just about everyone has felt this way. It is Gary Larson’s version of Zoolander’s “is everybody taking crazy pills?” In this case, it is one of Larson’s go-to animal surrogates, a cow, who says the quiet part loud.

“Maybe it’s the rest of the herd that has gone insane.” Larson wasn’t much for following the herd himself, and he must have felt like this all the time. The truth is, The Far Side’s surreality was always a mirror held up to the mad, mad, mad, mad world as Larson saw it, and this panel is a peak moment for the author putting his feelings directly on the page with less comedic camouflage than usual.

2

“In A Past Life”

First Published: February 10, 1987​​​​​​​

‘There it is again…” one giant lizard says to another, as they sunbathe on rocks in the midst of the desert. The lizard has “a feeling.” What feeling? “A feeling that in a past life, I was someone named Shirley MacLaine.” It’s a Far Side reference that might be a little dated heading into 2027, but in ’87 MacLaine’s name still range out as a Hollywood icon to a much wider audience.

The really funny, and really strange, thing about this Far Side joke? Shirley MacLaine was still alive when this cartoon was first published. She was actually only 43 years old at the time. And you know what? MacLaine is still alive, having celebrated her 92nd birthday in 2026. Which opens up a wormhole of questions for fans to ask about what Gary Larson really intended the punchline of this Far Side comic to be.

Is this Far Side set in the far future? Is Larson suggesting the laws of reincarnation don’t abide by temporal rules? Is the lizard just wrong? How does the lizard even know who Shirley MacLaine is? These cosmic mysteries persist almost 40 years later.

1

​​​​​​​”A Little Too Quiet And Normal”

First Published: February 21, 1987

In this meta Far Side moment, the guy from “Bud’s Cartoon Repair” is called in when a Far Side family starts to worry that “everything just seems a little too quiet and normal today.” The baseline for Gary Larson’s characters tended to be calamity, something he hysterically acknowledges here by having it make these characters uneasy.

It isn’t clear what Bud is going to do to stir things up in the house, but there’s a good chance it will involve turning their living room into a death trap, like so many Far Side comics before and after this one.

Writer

Gary Larson

Colorist

Gary Larson