Gary Larson’sThe Far Sideran from 1980 to 1994, and yet in its final year it was still pumping out absolute classics.Here are the 10 funniest comics from July 1994, which just turned 30 years old in 2024.
Larson’s strips for July 1994 include some of his biggest obsessions, with bugs, vikings andhis iconic desert islandall making a showing. However, the month also includesone of his best pop culture references- aWizard of Ozparody that revisits one of Larson’s favorite films to make fun of.
10A Hairy Thorax
Far Side Comic from August 10, 2025
Larson loves inappropriate workplace pranks, and in this strip the zoo staff of a Tropical House share lunch, only for one member of the team to encounter a disturbing sandwich filling.It’s implied that Marv did something to offend his co-worker enough to get this disturbing snack, but we’ll never know what.The Far Sideoften uses bugs for humor, with Larson using his knowledge of the natural world to create gags specific to each type of insect.
Larson’s knowledgeable use of insects endeared him to many real-life entomologists, leading to multiple insect species being named in his honor…
Indeed, Larson’s knowledgeable use of insects endeared him to many real-life entomologists, leading to multiple insect species being named in his honor.This includes the louse strigiphilus garylarsoni and the butterfly serratoterga larsoni, though inThe Complete Far Side, Larson shares a letter from the discoverer of the former admitting that naming it for Larson is something of a"dubious honor."
9International House of Gruel
Far Side Comic from July 20, 2025
BecauseThe Far Sidetends to tell single-panel jokes, Larson’s humor often gravitates to archetypes like cowboys, pirates and especially vikings.The expectations these characters provide as part of their cultural baggage gives Larson a lot of pre-existing details to play around with.
In this case, Larson imagines vikings returning from a long day of pillaging to dine at their version of the International House of Pancakes. Sadly, the vikings in question don’t have access to fluffy pancakes, andinstead have to make do with a variety of disgusting gruel.
8Herd Mentality
Far Side Comic from June 03, 2025
Like Hanna-Barbera cartoons past,The Far Sidefundamentally loves the image of something being squashed until it’s totally flat. This actually goes back to one of Larson’s very first inspirations - Morrell Gipson’schildren’s bookMr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat.In a 1986 interview with Dateline 20/20, Larson cited the book as a major inspiration onThe Far Side’s sense of humor, saying:
There was something so mesmerizing about the image of this big bear going through the forest and squashing the homes of these little animals. I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
Whilebears tend to focus more on maulingin the world ofThe Far Side, Larson’s elephants more than make up for the shortfall, as his comics get a lot of humor out of the idea of humans and elephants co-existing when one of those groups can crush the latter without a second thought.
Crushing isn’t the only way in whichThe Far Sideuses elephants -Larson also has a great running gags about ‘hidden’ or disguised elephants, playing on how impossible it would be for the giant pachyderms to pass unnoticed.
7Senior Librarian
Far Side Comic from June 19, 2025
As much asThe Far Sidehas a reputation for surreal and dark humor, strips like this suggest thatGary Larson finds nothing funnier than someone missing the obvious. In the comic, a cleaner strikes up a conversation with a librarian by asking if she’s read anything good lately, heedless to the fact that they’re surrounded by an ocean of books, and there’s no way the librarian’s answer can be anything but yes.
The humor comes from the fact that Ned has been waitingyearsto make his move,but still hasn’t been able to come up with a better introductory line.
6Small Defenseless Village
Far Side’s vikings return in this comic, where it turns out a small village nevertheless has strict rules about when it’s ‘open’ to be plundered. From vikings to cavepeople,Larson’s best historical joke is that the people in prior eras were essentially playing scripted parts, with vikings keenly aware what’s expected of them.
Gary Larson had two rules for depicting God in The Far Side, crediting them with preventing a backlash from religious fans.
Apparently, that ‘performance’ logic even extends to the vikings' victims,who are willing to stand by helpless as their village is pillaged, but only within reasonable working hours.
5Jerks
Far Side Comic from July 13, 2025
In this strip, God finishes off his creation by adding a sprinkling of jerks, with their purpose apparently being to make things a little more interesting. Larson hasquite a few comics starring God, often finding low-tech ways for the Almighty to create and run reality- from baking the planet in an oven to causing each individual moment of misfortune with the push of a button.
While Larson liked to invoke God in his comics, he was conscious that the subject might be controversial for some readers, and even that he might be"bucking for a lightning bolt"with the strip where a young God tries and fails to create the chicken. InThe Prehistory of The Far Side,Larson notes that in his strip where God plays in a televised trivia contest, he was careful to follow two rules to avoid reader outrage:
First, I made God look the way I think most of us are pretty sure he looks. Secondly, I made sure he was really winning hands down. Even if Norman had only ten points it would have meant that he beat God to the buzzer at least once, and someone would have gotten mad.
4Executioner Understudies
Far Side Comic from July 02, 2025
Some ofThe Far Side’s best gags are goofy,if not even a little sweet. In this strip, it turns out that executioners have actor-style understudies who get to take their place if they mess up their duties. Hilariously, the executioner in this strip has somehow managed to break his axe clean in two while doing no damage whatsoever to his intended victim, letting out an understated,“Dang!”
Larson enhances the joke with the funny visual of a stage curtain,behind which the understudy is waiting for their big break.
3Scarecrow
Far Side Comic from July 18, 2025
In this gruesome strip,Wizard of Oz’s scarecrow returns home with a new brain, only for his ‘loyal’ dog to eat it straight out of the box (in this version of the story, the Wizard was apparently beingextremelyliteral about handing out organs.)
Larson often parodiedThe Wizard of OzinThe Far Side- in fact,thelast everFar Sidecomicshows Larson waking up from a dream into a black and white world, where it’s revealed his various relatives inspired all his comics (a parody of Dorothy’s awakening in the iconic movie.)
2Threatening Clouds
Far Side Comic from July 29, 2025
IfThe Far Sideproves one thing, it’s thatGary Larson is a huge fan of wordplay. ManyFar Sidestrips are built on the premise of taking a popular idiom totally literally, and that’s the case here,as the idea of"threatening clouds"(dark clouds that make it clear bad weather is coming) is turned into literal aggression written across the sky. Larson amusingly makes it so the character of the strip can’t read the message, adding an extra level of jeopardy to the situation. Strangely, this is far from the onlyFar Sidecomic to combine fishing and the threat of death.
The Far Sideoften adopts the perspective of its sentient animals, turning any human who takes advantage of the natural world into the bad guy.From this perspective, it’s easy to see why Larson so oftenequates fishing with the threat of death- after all, that’s how the fish see it.
1Where Will You Go?
Far Side Comic from June 04, 2025
The Far Sideis famous forits desert island gags, where one or two people are trapped on a tiny circle of sand with only a single palm tree for comfort. In this version, a couple marooned on the island finally break up, and Larson delivers another gag where the answer is so obvious,it becomes funny that anyone asked the question. WhileFar Sideloves its desert islands, it’s also surprisingly fond of mining broken relationships for humor.
Those are the 10 bestFar Sidecomic from July 1994, starring many of Gary Larson’s biggest obsessions in the comic strip’s final year of publication.
Key Background
The Far Side
The Far Side is a humorous comic series developed by Gary Larson. The series has been in production since 1979 and features a wide array of comic collections, calendars, art, and other miscellaneous items.
