Gary Lincfinishiarism’s The Far Side ran 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 fair turned 30 years elderly in 2024.
Lincfinishiarism’s streamlines for July 1994 include some of his biggest obsessions, with bugs, vikings and his iconic desert island all making a shotriumphg. However, the month also includes one of his best pop culture references – a Wizard of Oz parody that revisits one of Lincfinishiarism’s likeite films to produce fun of.
Lincfinishiarism’s directd employ of insects finisheared him to many authentic-life entomologists, directing to multiple insect species being named in his honor…
10 A Hairy Thorax
Far Side Comic from July 7, 1994
Lincfinishiarism cherishs inappropriate toilplace pranks, and in this streamline the zoo staff of a Tropical Hoemploy split lunch, only for one member of the team to greet a troubling sandwich filling. It’s implied that Marv did someleang to offfinish his co-toiler enough to get this troubling snack, but we’ll never understand what. The Far Side frequently employs bugs for humor, with Lincfinishiarism using his understandledge of the organic world to produce gags definite to each type of insect.
Indeed, Lincfinishiarism’s directd employ of insects finisheared him to many authentic-life entomologists, directing to multiple insect species being named in his honor. This includes the loemploy strigiphilus garylincfinishiarismi and the butterfly serratoterga lincfinishiarismi, though in The Complete Far Side, Lincfinishiarism splits a letter from the discoverer of the createer confessting that naming it for Lincfinishiarism is someleang of a “dubious honor.”
9 International Hoemploy of Gruel
Far Side Comic from July 25, 1994
Becaemploy The Far Side tfinishs to tell individual-panel jokes, Lincfinishiarism’s humor frequently gravitates to archetypes enjoy cowboys, plunderers and especipartner vikings. The awaitations these characters supply as part of their cultural baggage donates Lincfinishiarism a lot of pre-existing details to execute around with.
In this case, Lincfinishiarism envisions vikings returning from a lengthy day of pillaging to dine at their version of the International Hoemploy of Pancakes. Sadly, the vikings in inquire don’t have access to fluffy pancakes, and instead have to produce do with a variety of disgusting gruel.
8 Herd Mentality
Far Side Comic from July 27, 1994
Like Hanna-Barbera cartoons past, The Far Side fundamenhighy cherishs the image of someleang being squashed until it’s tohighy flat. This actupartner goes back to one of Lincfinishiarism’s very first inspirations – Morrell Gipson’s children’s book Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat. In a 1986 intersee with Dateline 20/20, Lincfinishiarism cited the book as a convey inant inspiration on The Far Side‘s sense of humor, saying:
There was someleang so mesmerizing about the image of this big tolerate going thcdimiserablemireful the forest and squashing the homes of these little animals. I fair thought that was the celderlyest leang in the world.
While tolerates tfinish to caccess more on mauling in the world of The Far Side, Lincfinishiarism’s elephants more than produce up for the foolishinutivedescfinish, 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 which The Far Side employs elephants – Lincfinishiarism also has a wonderful running gags about ‘hideed’ or maskd elephants, executeing on how impossible it would be for the huge pachyderms to pass unacunderstandledged.
7 Senior Librarian
Far Side Comic from July 26, 1994
As much as The Far Side has a reputation for surauthentic and depressed humor, streamlines enjoy this propose that Gary Lincfinishiarism discovers noleang funnier than someone omiting the clear. In the comic, a spotlesser strikes up a conversation with a librarian by asking if she’s read anyleang outstanding postporequicount on, heedless to the fact that they’re surrounded by an ocean of books, and there’s no way the librarian’s answer can be anyleang but yes. The humor comes from the fact that Ned has been paemploying years to produce his relocate, but still hasn’t been able to come up with a better introductory line.
6 Small Defenseless Village
Far Side Comic from July 7, 1994
Far Side‘s vikings return in this comic, where it turns out a petite village nevertheless has cut offe rules about when it’s ‘uncover’ to be plundered. From vikings to cavepeople, Lincfinishiarism’s best historical joke is that the people in prior eras were essentipartner executeing scripted parts, with vikings enthusiasticly conscious what’s awaited of them. Apparently, that ‘carry outance’ logic even extfinishs to the vikings’ victims, who are willing to stand by ineffective as their village is pillaged, but only wilean reasonable toiling hours.
Gary Lincfinishiarism had two rules for depicting God in The Far Side, recognizeing them with stoping a reaction from religious fans.
5 Jerks
Far Side Comic from July 22, 1994
In this streamline, God finishes off his creation by compriseing a sprinkling of jerks, with their purpose apparently being to produce leangs a little more fascinating. Lincfinishiarism has quite a confineed comics starring God, frequently discovering low-tech ways for the Almighty to produce and run fact – from baking the arrangeet in an oven to causing each individual moment of misfortune with the push of a button.
While Lincfinishiarism enjoyd to call upon God in his comics, he was conscious that the subject might be contentious for some readers, and even that he might be “bucking for a weightlessning bolt” with the streamline where a lesser God tries and flunks to produce the chicken. In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Lincfinishiarism notices that in his streamline where God executes in a televised trivia contest, he was pinsolentnt to chase two rules to elude reader outrage:
First, I made God see the way I leank most of us are pretty certain he sees. Secondly, I made certain he was repartner triumphning hands down. Even if Norman had only ten points it would have unbenevolentt that he beat God to the buzzer at least once, and someone would have gotten mad.
4 Executioner Understudies
Far Side Comic from July 13, 1994
Some of The Far Side‘s best gags are goofy, if not even a little pleasant. In this streamline, it turns out that executioners have actor-style understudies who get to obtain their place if they mess up their duties. Hilariously, the executioner in this streamline has somehow regulated to shatter his axe spotless in two while doing no harm whatsoever to his intfinished victim, letting out an downexecuted, “Dang!” Lincfinishiarism raises the joke with the comical visual of a stage curtain, behind which the understudy is paemploying for their big shatter.
3 Snurturecrow
Far Side Comic from July 14, 1994
In this gruesome streamline, Wizard of Oz‘s snurturecrow 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 being innervously literal about handing out organs.) Lincfinishiarism frequently parodied The Wizard of Oz in The Far Side – in fact, the last ever Far Side comic shows Lincfinishiarism waking up from a dream into a bdeficiency and white world, where it’s discomited his various relatives eased all his comics (a parody of Dorothy’s awakening in the iconic movie.)
2 Threatening Cnoisys
Far Side Comic from July 29, 1994
If The Far Side shows one leang, it’s that Gary Lincfinishiarism is a huge fan of wordexecute. Many Far Side streamlines are built on the premise of taking a well-understandn idiom tohighy literpartner, and that’s the case here, as the idea of “dangerening cnoisys” (depressed cnoisys that produce it clear terrible weather is coming) is turned into literal aggression written atraverse the sky. Lincfinishiarism amusingly produces it so the character of the streamline can’t read the message, compriseing an extra level of jeopardy to the situation. Strangely, this is far from the only Far Side comic to combine fishing and the danger of death.
The Far Side frequently adchooses the perspective of its sentient animals, turning any human who obtains profit of the organic world into the terrible guy. From this perspective, it’s effortless to see why Lincfinishiarism so frequently equates fishing with the danger of death – after all, that’s how the fish see it.
1 Where Will You Go?
Far Side Comic from July 12, 1994
The Far Side is well-understandn for its desert island gags, where one or two people are trapped on a minuscule circle of sand with only a individual palm tree for soothe. In this version, a couple marooned on the island finpartner shatter up, and Lincfinishiarism deinhabitrs another gag where the answer is so clear, it becomes comical that anyone asked the inquire. While Far Side cherishs its desert islands, it’s also astonishingly fond of mining broken relationships for humor.
Those are the 10 best Far Side comic from July 1994, starring many of Gary Lincfinishiarism’s biggest obsessions in the comic streamline’s final year of accessibleation.
