Far Side’s Funniest Fourth Wall-Breaking Comic Perfectly Explains Its Recurring Characters

Summary

• The Far Side by Gary Larson broke norms by avoiding recurring characters, leading to unexpected and hilarious jokes.
• Larson’s meta comic in 1988 revealed the ‘actors’ behind the common characters, including tragic ends for some iconic beings.
• The Far Side’s tradition of breaking the fourth wall adds a unique meta humor, with characters aware of being in a comic strip.

Unlike the majority of its contemporaries, Gary Larson’s The Far Side never went in for recurring characters. While comics like Nancy, Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, and Garfield were built around beloved main characters and iconic ensemble casts, every Far Side was something new, meaning readers never knew what to expect. Monday might see King Kong attacking New York, while Tuesday zooms in on the mishaps of protozoic lifeforms. However, one Far Side comic revealed that the strip actually has a secret recurring cast.

In this comic from October 1988, Larson hilariously reveals the ‘actors’ who play Far Side‘s most common characters. The nerdy kid, beehive-haired woman, and balding scientist that fans know were all apparently roles played by comic actors, with roles in other strips listed and a special thanks offered to the (fictional) designer of the strip’s black border. What’s most fun about this cast list is that readers who take the time to look through Larson’s work will actually see these ‘actors’ hard at work as various characters.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Far Side without a morbid twist, and several of the characters featured are described as meeting with tragic ends – indeed, the actors behind the strip’s various monsters and aliens apparently died while depicting Larson’s recurring giant squid.

Across The Far Side’s 15-year run, Larson deliberately avoided any identifiable recurring characters…

Far Side’s Cast Comic Reveals a Whole World Behind the Scenes

Larson’s Meta Comic Identifies the ‘Actors’ Who Made Far Side Great

While The Far Side doesn’t have any official recurring characters, it does have stock characters that appear again and again. The nerdy kid is among the most famous, with the beehive-haired woman likely appearing the most out of Larson’s ‘cast.’ Of course, The Far Side is known for its cow comics, with the animal becoming the franchise’s unofficial mascot. Asked by The New York Times why cows became so integral to The Far Side‘s aesthetic, Larson replied that:

I’ve always thought the word cow was funny, and cows are sort of tragic figures. Cows blur the line between tragedy and humor.

However, cow ‘actress’ Jessica Van Horn also starred in a comic that Larson claimed would haunt him for the rest of his life: the infamous ‘Cow Tools’ strip, which confused so many readers that it became the subject of actual news reporting, as well as many fans writing in to their local newspapers to have the gag explained – only to find that the editors didn’t get it either. In The Pre-History of The Far Side, Larson confirms the gag was simply an “exercise in silliness” with no deeper meaning, but one that became iconic because so many people wanted to know the ‘answer’ to the joke.

However, as much as some characters (and animals) appeared again and again across The Far Side‘s 15-year run, Larson deliberately avoided any identifiable recurring characters. His ‘Far Side Cast’ comic is a fun gag that rewards longtime fans, but also a reminder that while many of his characters might look alike, they’re not the same people.

Not having recurring characters was a bold move in 1980 when the strip started, hurting both reader loyalty and merchandising potential.

Gary Larson Never Wanted Far Side to Have Recurring Characters

Larson Avoided What All His Newspaper Comic Peers Were Doing

Not having recurring characters was a bold move in 1980 when the strip started. Not only did publishers believe that familiar characters kept readers coming back, but recognizable icons like Garfield created huge opportunities for merchandising. Indeed, in The Complete Far Side, Larson notes that he initially faced pressure to make The Far Side a multi-panel comic with recurring characters. He notes:

Single-panel cartoons are like strangers that suddenly appear on your doorstep. No one flings open their door for strangers. However, if you look out and see good ol’ Charlie Brown, it’s like, why sure – open the door! C’mon in, Charlie! … Hey, wait! Quick! … Shut the door! There’s a damn cow out there!

Despite the up-sides of creating The Far Side in this style, Larson understood that his skills didn’t lie in long-form storytelling, but in single-image gags that could come from (and go) anywhere. Larson wanted the freedom that was only possible if the strip could do anything, including treating its characters pretty badly. He explains:

Once you’ve got your character established in the hearts and minds of readers, it’s not a good idea to run him over with a truck a few weeks later. … I was hit and run. My ever-changing characters got crunched, speared, shot, beheaded, eaten, stuffed, poisoned, and run over about twice a week. (Tastefully, of course.)

Thankfully, Larson won out, and fans got the morbid Far Side experience that they know and love today. Of course, Larson’s decision didn’t hurt his comic’s success story – not only did The Far Side take off with readers, but merchandising single-panel gags turned out to be easy, with mugs, T-shirts, and calendars almost designing themselves. However, like many comedy greats before him, Larson did find use for a healthy stable of stock characters he could drop into situations, with these unfortunate beings becoming the Far Side ‘cast’ retroactively.

The Far Side often breaks the fourth wall, with its characters not only knowing they’re in a comic but sometimes taking aim at the competition.

Far Side Loves Breaking the Fourth Wall

Larson’s Meta Comics Are Some of His Best

Far from being an isolated gag, Larson’s cast list sticks to a long Far Side tradition of breaking the fourth wall, which the comic tended to do in two main ways. First, Larson loved to hint at a ‘backstage’ world where his characters worked to create the comic. Various Larson comics see The Far Side‘s assorted ‘cast’ living in a single apartment together, operating a hi-tech base where they spy on rival comics such as Cathy and Opus the Penguin, and even direct digs at the competition, like Far Side‘s boa constrictor eating Garfield and a pilot shooting down Snoopy.

Larson’s other favorite way of shattering the fourth wall was to have characters know they’re in a comic strip – two adventurers realize they’re being thwarted by a cruel cartoonist, a teenager complains they never asked to be drawn, and a boss fires his employee because he can see the less than flattering sentiments floating in their thought balloon. In many ways, The Far Side was ahead of the curve, predicting the modern appetite for meta humor, where even big-budget movies often feel the need to acknowledge their own artificiality.

Surprisingly, given The Far Side‘s love of breaking the barrier between reader and artist, there are only a few comics where Larson himself appears (though some others were inspired by real life events.) The best of these is The Far Side‘s final comic, which parodies The Wizard of Oz. Surprisingly, this comic also goes out of its way to explain The Far Side‘s stock characters, but this time by revealing that the entire strip has taken place inside Larson’s head, with its various characters inspired by his own family.

Whether in 1980 or 2024, The Far Side was always ambitious and experimental, and Larson rejected the idea of recurring characters to chase those goals. While it was far from a sure bet at the time, the result was a body of work that’s still adored today, with Larson’s genius even turning The Far Side‘s weird relationship with its stock characters into a great strip.

Sources: Natalie Angier, The New York Times

• The Far Side

  Summary:

  Written and drawn by Gary Larson, The Far Side is a comic strip series that ran from December 1979 to January 1995. A worldwide hit, The Far Side explores life’s surreal side and uses a mix of humans and anthropomorphic animals. As of 2020, Gary Larson decided to pick his pencil back up again and has started The Far Side up, circulating the comics on his official website.

  Writer:

  Gary Larson

  Colorist:

  Gary Larson