45 Years Later, The Far Side's Most Confusing Comic Isn't the One You Think

Published Aug 26, 2026, 2:14 PM EDT Ambrose Tardive is an editor on ScreenRant's Comics team. Over the past two years, he has developed into the internet's foremost authority on The Far Side. Outside of his work for ScreenRant, Ambrose works as an Adjunct English Instructor. Quick, off the top of your head, what is the most confusing Far Side comic? The most common answer is "Cow Tools," but Far Side fanatics know that cartoon's infamy itself has become a meme, at this point. That, in fact, Gary Larson created way more difficult to decipher cartoons before and after "Cow Tools" unexpectedly went viral. Like "Cow Tools," the heavyweight contenders for the Far Side's "Most Confusing Comic" title leave readers going "What the?", testing their capacity for sitting with uncertainty. Unlike "Cow Tools," though, these other comics didn't become media sensations, so instead of instant recognizability, they mostly languish in obscurity, waiting to be rediscovered and reappraised by individual Far Side fans. That's definitely the case for the cartoon below, which is absolutely a candidate for The Far Side's most confusing. It's worth exploring why, and then considering why in relation to the success and legacy of "Cow Tools" as the single most iconic cartoon Larson ever produced, for better or worse. Published sixteen months before "Cow Tools," almost to the day, "Viva La Difference" is a classic example of Gary Larson taking something too far with The Far Side. Except in this case, what he ironically overdelivered on was subtlety. "Viva La Difference" First Published: June 25, 1981 "Viva la difference." One male frog leans in and says this to another, grinning, as they oogle an adjacent female amphibian. Yet to the outside observer, i.e. The Far Side's reader, the frogs are virtually identical. Not 100%, though. The "difference" is in the eyes; Gary Larson draws the eyes of the female frog with seductively-coded heavy lids, and eyelashes where the males lack them. It is a small concession to anthropomorphism, one that barely registers for most readers at first glance. It is only under further scrutiny that this part of the punchline jumps out at readers. And while the "viva la difference" caption might connect with some, for many readers it increases the confusion quotient of this Far Side cartoon. It is a French phrase celebrating individual distinctions and cultural diversity. Even someone unfamiliar with French should be able to use the cognate word "difference" as a context clue to start figuring out the joke here, but that's where things actually get tricky. Because blink and miss the eyelashes on the frog in the foreground, and readers might think the gag here is that there is no difference between the three frogs. When really, the joke is that there are differences recognizable to other frogs, but not to humans. Which, paradoxically, Gary Larson renders by giving the feminine frog a hint of human features. Any way it is sliced, this Far Side comic needs to be dissected to be fully understood, which puts it in the "highly confusing" category. "Cow Tools" has one thing "Viva La Difference" lacks. It isn't just confusing, it is confounding. In retrospect, its joke might be just as obvious when put into a single sentence: "Cows make bad tools." But it was a struggle for people to get there when the cartoon was published in 1982, which is why it garnered media attention for The Far Side that helped skyrocket Gary Larson and his work to popularity in the mid-1980s. That said, "Cow Tools" is an all-or-nothing experience. People either get it or they don't. They either find it amusing or they don't. "Viva La Difference" is more confusing, in a technical sense, because it is the more inadvertently misleading of the two. The subtlety of "Cow Tools" is bewildering, but the subtlety of "Viva La Difference" is an open invitation to misinterpretation. It might seem like splitting hairs, but there is a difference between the two. And it is obvious in their reception. "Cow Tools" is a cultural phenomenon people still talk about today. "Viva La Difference" is a Far Side deep cut. The confounding aspect of the former made it captivating, while the confusing nature of the latter meant it didn't hold up as one of Larson's most unforgettable cartoons. What do you think, readers? What is your pick for the most confusing Far Side comic? Writer Gary Larson Colorist Gary Larson