10 Greatest Far Side Comics Featuring Animals, Ranked

Published Oct 18, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT Emedo Ashibeze is a tenured journalist and critic specializing in the entertainment industry. Before joining ScreenRant in 2025. he wrote for several major publications, including GameRant. Gary Larson’s The Far Side comic strip made the animal kingdom a natural source of absurdity, often placing familiar creatures in situations that expose humanity’s stranger habits. Cows gossip, dogs misunderstand their owners, and wildlife behave with the same pettiness, pride, and confusion found among regular people on a consistent basis. Even comics that feature animals who don’t possess human attributes still boast great levels of invention that are sure to invoke laughter. Several such comics have appeared throughout the strip’s history, and they have built a strong reputation over time. This piece highlights the best of the best, with each one sure to leave audiences significantly amused. 10 Bummer of a Birthmark, Hal Two deer stand upright in a forest clearing in this strip, chatting as if it were perfectly normal. One has a bull’s-eye pattern on its chest, resembling the target a hunter might line up before taking a shot. Its companion notices the mark and comments on his misfortune in the cartoon’s caption. The punchline lies in the companion’s casual response to an unbelievable phenomenon. Humans pose an enormous threat to deer, especially through the use of weapons like guns. A naturally occurring bull’s-eye could therefore serve as a death sentence to the average deer, meaning the main focus of this comic is set up for a turbulent life. 9 The Boneless Chicken Ranch This comic shows a ranch entrance marked by a wooden sign, with chickens scattered across the yard and draped over fences. Their bodies flop against the ground and railings, while their heads, wings, and legs remain visible. The scene paints a highly surreal picture as it looks far removed from that of an ordinary farm. This is clearly by design, however, as it turns the familiar phrase “boneless chicken” into a literal description of living animals. Instead of meat prepared with bones removed, these chickens have no skeletons at all, leaving them unable to stand or move normally. The cartoon therefore imagines a ridiculous farm that breeds boneless chickens before they even reach a kitchen. 8 Just a Little Huffing and Puffing This cartoon centers on the pigs, with one in a green armchair reading a book while another stands nearby, listening to a call on an old-fashioned telephone. The caller is the Big Bad Wolf, but the pig on the phone sounds disgusted rather than frightened, describing the noise as little more than heavy huffing and puffing. The joke reworks the familiar story of the Three Little Pigs, in which the wolf tries to blow their houses down. Instead of treating his signature threat as frightening, the pig dismisses it like an irritating or unpleasant phone call. It serves as a clever twist on a classic tale, and the mundane reaction makes for an amusing scene. 7 Did Anyone Here Not Eat Their Homework? In this comic, a dog stands at the front of a classroom filled with canine students seated at individual desks. The classroom includes a clock and bone-shaped signs, reinforcing that this is meant to be a school tailored to canine students. The teacher proceeds to address the class, frustrated about a recurring issue that audiences will find vaguely familiar. He asks whether anyone in the room didn’t eat their homework on the way to school, a common excuse from children who claim a pet destroyed their assignment. With every student being a dog, however, the teacher is not hearing a far-fetched story from one pupil, but dealing with a real concern that applies to everyone in the class. 6 The Cow Who Mastered Ding-Dong Ditch This comic unfolds across several panels, following a cow as it rises onto its hind legs to press a house’s doorbell. After ringing, it drops back onto all fours and returns to grazing before the homeowner can catch whoever interrupted him. The repeated sequence makes clear that the animal is deliberately pulling one of the oldest tricks in the book. The joke comes from giving a cow the same petty sense of mischief associated with children playing ding-dong ditch, a game in which someone rings a doorbell and runs away. Instead of grazing mindlessly, the animal plans its timing and escapes unnoticed, successfully constituting a nuisance for the unsuspecting resident. 5 And Now Edgar’s Gone This comic illustrates several penguins gathered on an ice floe beside a polar bear that has disguised itself with a penguin’s beak. As the birds notice that one of their companions, Edgar, is missing, one begins to suspect that something is wrong. The large predator among them, though, goes unchallenged, despite being an obvious candidate. The cartoon gets its humor from the penguins who fail to recognize the danger around them. The bear seems responsible for their missing companions, yet the birds treat each disappearance as a mystery instead of noticing the obvious suspect. The bear’s disguise makes their failure to notice it even more ridiculous, as it falls ridiculously short of resembling a penguin. 4 The Flock Full of Wolves This panel shows a crowded flock of white sheep gathered on a grassy pasture beneath a blue sky. Several animals, however, have unmistakably wolf-like faces sticking out from their woolly disguises. One disguised wolf stands upright and looks around the group, questioning whether any genuine sheep are left among them. The joke plays on the expression “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” which describes a dangerous figure hiding behind a harmless appearance. Here, the deception has spread so thoroughly that even one wolf suspects the flock contains no sheep at all. The predators’ disguises may fool a passerby, but there are barely any sheep left for them to prey on. 3 The World’s First Microscope This strip depicts a giant, primitive microscope made from a curved tube, with a caveman perched near the top and a woolly mammoth standing below. The man peers into the device, then announces, “It’s a mammoth.” Another caveman stands nearby, while the mammoth’s enormous body is already plainly visible beside the equipment. The gag pokes fun at the gap between scientific ambition and useful results. The caveman clearly invented this complicated tool before asking whether the subject needs magnification at all. His confident identification contributes little new information, and so the earliest microscope seems more like an elaborate way to confirm what everyone could already see. 2 Dog Hell This comic covers a fiery underworld overseen by a red, horned devil carrying a pitchfork. Several dogs march through a cavernous passage, some carrying bags marked “U.S. MAIL” while others hold shovels. Their destination appears to be a blazing entrance deeper inside Hell, where the animals face an unusual form of eternal punishment. Dogs are often portrayed as natural enemies of mail carriers, barking and chasing them whenever they approach a home. Larson draws on that familiar behavior and instead sentences the animals to perform the very job they typically oppose. Their punishment also includes cleaning up after themselves, presenting a laughably fitting version of the afterlife for canine torment. 1 He Bit the Godfather This scene features men in fedoras and long coats standing on a bridge above a river, having just thrown a dog into the water. The animal’s paws are encased in cement, representing the familiar “cement shoes” punishment associated with organized crime. Beneath the scene, the caption explains the offense that supposedly earned the dog this fate: “He bit the Godfather.” The dark humor rests on treating a dog’s bite as a serious breach of mafia etiquette. Rather than simply scolding or restraining the animal, the gangsters respond with an execution usually associated with human enemies of the mob. The caption’s matter-of-fact wording and the comic's overall attention to detail make for an extremely inventive panel.