6 Far Side Comics Set In the City That Are 10/10 Perfect

The Far Side got its start in the big city, before it became a nationwide American pop culture phenomenon, and a global sensation. And over the years to follow, Gary Larson frequently delivered classic Far Side cartoons in metropolitan settings, some of the best of which this list celebrates.

The Far Side panels curated here are a specific type of city cartoon. (Check the end of the list for more on methodology, if you're interested in that sort of thing.) In these Far Sides, the city isn't just background. The city is essential to all of these jokes.

And it is prominent, with Gary Larson going into detail on the cityscape and evoking the skylines of America's most famous cities.

6 The Far Side's Vision Of The Future

First Published: December 31, 1991

Gary Larson's sci-fi jokes tended to focus on aliens and space exploration, Far Side style. And when Larson time traveled for the sake of the bit, he usually went way back to prehistory, in comics starring cave-dwellers and dinosaurs. All that is to say, this is the exceptionally rare futurist Far Side cartoon.

And it is all in service to a joke about comedian George Burns still being alive in the far future. (Burns was 95, going on 96, in '91 when this Far Side cartoon was published. He died in 1996 at age 100. Yes, George Burns outlived The Far Side, which ended in 1995.) But the punchline is buried, and the main takeaway from this comic is Larson's rendering of a futuristic city.

For which he draws on various existing tropes in the pop culture consciousness: public transportation in tubes connecting high-rise buildings, hover cars, and even flying saucers. It is The Far Side's ultimate "the more things change, the more they stay the same gag," and the iconography of the future helps sell that.

5 "Which Monster Did This..."

First Published: October 17, 1984

More than once, The Far Side's cities came under attack by Kaiju, giant monsters. Which in The Far Side could include giant mail carriers and oversized penguins, in addition to more familiar faces like Godzilla, and Gargantua, and who else? Which one has the initials K.K.?

That's the obvious clue eluding this particularly obtuse Far Side sleuth. The city is in ruins around him, and while you'd think there would be plenty of eyewitness accounts to attest to the culprit, readers have to go with the idea that a huge handkerchief is the only evidence they authorities have to go on.

Which is the secondary absurdist punchline at work in this Far Side cartoon, underneath the surface-level joke of the detective's ignorance. The idea that a rampaging monster would drop its monogrammed handkerchief in the midst of wrecking a major city is peak Far Side silliness, in the most cartoonishly brilliant sense of the word.

First Published: April 12, 1984

"How social animals work together." That's the caption of this Far Side cartoon, one of a specific subgenre of Far Side cartoon which Gary Larson framed as bizarro National Geographic entries.

Larson is often described as having an "alien perspective," or "outsider POV," but looking at this cartoon, perhaps it is better to say The Far Side's characters were the aliens, and Larson was the anthropologist giving us a glimpse of their world and their weird behaviors.

Here, a group of humans spontaneously adopt insect-like behavior, working together to carry an inexplicably massive turkey leg down the street of a metropolitan area. It's an absurd image, and that is really the extent of the punchline, but the contrasting tone of this Far Side's caption manages to make it even more mystifying.

3 "YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAA!"

First Published: September 16, 1982

This is an important cartoon in Gary Larson's career. (Check out that Far Side behind-the-scenes story in detail here.) It's also one of his most memorable uses of the city setting. In terms of its composition, it is also a unique application of the setting.

In the panel, a pair of aliens in a flying saucer chase a herd of terrified humans down a city street. Larson depicts the scene from head on, with the buildings lining either side of the frame and the action coming at the reader. That means the speeding saucer, and also the chaotic mass of humanity fleeing beneath it.

It's a classic Far Side joke. And the urban setting is crucial, because for the joke to work it requires a critical mass of humanity, like in the most densely populated cities.

2 "You Ever Get That Urge, Frank?"

First Published: December 6, 1994

"It begins with looking down from 50 stories up, thinking about the meaninglessness of life, listening to the dark voices deep inside you..." Whoa, this Far Side comic got too real too quick. The Far Side featured dark comedy and gallows humor (sometimes literally) from the very beginning, but the final year of Gary Larson's career featured some especially grim gags.

This one, from The Far Side's final month, is the perfect example. Two construction workers are sitting eating lunch on a steel beam as they work on a new skyscraper; they're above the tops of the tallest buildings in the city, as the background of the cartoon makes clear, and now this guy turns to "Frank" and starts talking about "that urge." What urge? To "push someone off."

Hilariously disturbing. 10/10. Readers have to step into Frank's shoes, or at least his hard hat, and imagine just how freaky this would be. And the extended existentialist monologue the speaker gives is crucial to building up the tension of the scene, which correspondingly ratchets up its unnerving humor.

1 The Far Side's Version Of The Domino Theory

First Published: November 16, 1986

This is a perfect Far Side comic, no question. It is also, hands down, Gary Larson's funniest use of the city as both a setting and a punchline. A key part of that is the fact that it is an extra-sized Sunday Far Side, which gave Larson more than twice the amount of width to capture the scope of a city skyline.

Which, as it turns out, is actually mostly a row of dominoes. It's the kind of surreality that Far Side fans came to expect, but what makes this cartoon different is that it features a character who recognizes something weird is going on. "Hey Fletcher, c'mere," a man says, leaning his head out a high-rise window and clocking the dominoes. "You ever notice this before?" he asks.

It is a brilliant joke about how something can be right under our noses and still go unnoticed for a long time, even if it is big and obvious. It's also a niche observation that stacked dominoes share a resemblance to city buildings. Gary Larson fused those things together and the result was a remarkable, unforgettable Far Side cartoon.

Honorable Mentions:

This list restricts itself specifically to cartoons that feature a cityscape setting. That is, as you can tell from looking through the cartoons above, they show some scope of the city. The size and density of buildings. The skyline. The city setting is explicit, is another way to put it.

But there are also an array of Far Side comics where the city was implicit. Panels where the action is set on city street corners, busy city sidewalks, in dark alleyways, and in cars on city streets.

These cartoons are their own distinct type of Far Side, but they at least deserve some recognition here in connection to Gary Larson's other city jokes. So, shoutout to the one where the busker gets an earful from his "old music teacher," and the one where the alien encounters some street toughs. And, of course, the one where the cops set up a sting for a man buying a duck.

And don't forget Gary Larson's jokes about driving zombies, and driving skeletons, and driving flies. All of these Far Side cartoons and more are set in the city, but deserve dedicated lists of their own.