13 Far Side New Year’s Day Comics To Start 2025 Off With A Laugh

Celebrate the start of 2025 by checking out ever Far Side comic published on New Year’s Day during the strip’s time in publication. Gary Larson’s unforgettable strip ran through the entirety of the 1980s, up until the mid-1990s, and for the majority of those years, countless American newspaper readers inaugurated January by checking out a brand-new Far Side cartoon.

The Far Side’s New Year’s Day panels illustrate the full scope of Gary Larson’s strange, iconoclastic sense of humor; from crustaceans marveling at the weirdness of human biology, to a heartfelt goodbye by way of Wizard of Oz homage, studying Larson’s New Year’s comics as a set is a perfect way to take a deeper dive into his ouvre.

As of January 1, 2025, it has officially been thirty years since the final Far Side comic of the strip’s original run graced newspaper pages, and in that time, Gary Larson’s work has continued to accrue a even more committed fanbase.

13

The Very First Far Side Comic Set A Precedent For The Strip’s Perspective

First Published: January 1, 1980

Beginnings and endings are, of course, always a subject of focus when studying art, whether it is the opening and closing frames of a film, the first and last sentence of a book, or the inaugural and final Far Side panels, both of which this list covers. The Far Side’s debut panel, featuring two crabs observing, from a distance, a pair of human children playing on a beach, is notable for the way it establishes the outsider perspective that guided all of Gary Larson’s work.

“Yes,” one crustacean muses in the caption, “they’re quite strange during the larval phase.” With this joke, Larson established that a core tenant of his humor was looking at humanity in entirely unexpected ways, something he did successfully time and again over the years.

12

Far Side Characters Caught Unaware Of Their Surroundings Often Paid For It

First Published: January 1, 1981

“My stomach?” a irate skier says to his spouse as they ride the lift up the mountain, denying that it is his tummy growling, and instead putting the blame back on his significant other by declaring, “your stomach’s rumbling!” – while, in the background, what neither of them seem to realize is that an avalanche is sweeping down the mountain, hurtling trees and the entire ski lodge at them.

The Far Side frequently found humor in doomed characters – routinely highlighting the moment just before, or just after, some hilariously deadly mishap – and as with these unfortunate skiers, time and again this strain of Gary Larson’s jokes relied on characters not realizing the terrible fate that was just moments from befalling them.

11

Another Darkly Funny Far Side Fatality Comes From Being Unprepared

First Published: January 1, 1982

This macabre cartoon features one of a handful of Far Side characters over the years who plummeted to their deaths because they seemingly neglected to ensure their parachute was properly packed before jumping out of an airplane. This cartoon doesn’t have a caption, and it doesn’t need one – the image of the springloaded jack-in-the-box clown popping out of the diver’s backpack as he helplessly flails at another jumper conveys the punchline without need for works.

This will strike some readers as laugh-out-loud funny, while others will exclaim “My God!“ as they viscerally empathize with the doomed skydiver, proving once more that Gary Larson was able to exploit different pathways to an immediate reaction to Far Side cartoons, which is what makes so many of them so memorable.

10

Gary Larson Gets Tangled Up In A Far Side Reinvention Of A Classic

First Published: January 1, 1983

“Rapunzel…Rapunzel…Let down your hair!” comes the call through the legendary princess’s tower window, except Gary Larson’s version of Rapunzel has just combed her hair into a massive afro, making this a less-than-ideal moment to enact an escape. Admittedly, this is the kind of Far Side joke that qualifies as “amusing,” based on its visual gag, but doesn’t necessarily reach the heights of hilarity that Larson frequently proved capable of.

If there is a concrete reason for that, it is perhaps because the comic’s caption is devoted to clarifying – for any reader that might have been unsure – that this is a Rapunzel gag, rather than adding another layer or dimension to the punchline; it is not unfair to say that perhaps Gary Larson could have elevated this Far Side fairy tale more than he ultimately did.

9

An Ode To The Far Side’s Skewed Perspective On…Everything

First Published: January 1, 1985

“Well, here’s your problem, Mr. Schueler,” a television repairman says, pointing at a TV set turned on its side – as the Schueler family stand around, each of them, including the family dog, with their necks bent, heads craned to the side at an awkward angle.

For reasons unknown, there was no new Far Side comic on January 1, 1984, making it one of only three years the cartoon skipped New Year’s Day.

It is a strange, deceptively simple joke, one that might leave even the most astute Far Side fans asking “What the?“, yet upon closer inspection, it is actually another example of Gary Larson subtly coding the warped worldview of his humor into the punchline itself. That is, The Far Side always looked at the world – from TV and popular culture, to politics, to humanity’s treatment of nature – from an unexpected angle, just as the Schueler’s do here, in their own specific way.

8

The Far Side Broke Down Barriers – And Occasionally, Walls

First Published: January 1, 1986

This is, without question, among the most memorable Far Side fourth-wall breaks. “Ed,” a woman whispers to her husband as they sit on the couch, “the Later is back” – referring to the caption that has appeared in the upper left corner of the panel. It is a pitch perfect moment of self awareness, one that will certainly get a big laugh out of most readers.

What makes this joke particularly funny is the way it also comments on The Far Side’s format itself; in the majority of Gary Larson’s comics, he depicted a single moment in time, and here he does exactly that, but with an implied – though unseen – “before” that readers have to supply themselves.

7

The Far Side Explores The Spiritual Side Of The Animal Kingdom

First Published: January 1, 1987

This is another example of a Far Side car etoon likely to have readers asking “What the?“ and “Why?“, all of which stems from Gary Larson asking a “What if?” question: that is, “what if animals could astral project?” The strangeness of the comic doesn’t come from the fact that it is difficult to understand, but rather that its humor is hard to comprehend.

This was often the case with Larson’s work, something this panel effectively highlights. If the idea of a water buffalo astral projecting itself floating over a bustling city street strikes a reader as funny, it will get a quick, automatic laugh out of them. However, it also stands a strong chance of having more readers scratching their heads, looking for something deeper to this punchline that – despite the spiritual subject matter – simply isn’t there.

6

The Far Side Gets A Little Risque, In Typical Idiosyncratic Far Side Fashion

First Published: January 1, 1988

This Far Side joke is about as bawdy as the comic got, which shows how tame Gary Larson’s humor actually was most of the time – despite its reputation for controversial content. “Hey, baby! Do those legs go all the way up?” a male daddy long legs shouts at a passing female, in a twisted imitation of uncouth human men cat-calling women – with the joke, obviously, being centered around the visual gag of the spiders’ extra-long appendages.

Gary Larson took a fourteen-month hiatus from drawing new Far Side comics, starting at the end of 1988 and encompassing all of 1989. This meant that there was no brand-new New Year’s Day comic in ’89, as with preceding years, and that the January 1, ’90 cartoon was the first one back as Larson returned for the final years of the cartoon.

While not laugh-out-loud funny, this is one of many Far Side comics that captures Larson’s observational skills at work, as he takes a human behavior he has noticed in the world and adapts it to an insect species, in order to highlight the innate absurdity of shouting at women as they walk by.

5

The Far Side’s Macabre Humor Was A Reflection Of Readers’ Interests

First Published: January 1, 1990

In the ubiquitous days of print newspapers, everyone knew that one person who opened the local paper right up to the obituaries, to find out if anyone they knew had died – something Gary Larson lampoons with this Far Side comic, as a skunk immediately turns “The Small Mammal Mirror” to the “Roadkill” section, as his wife calls him out, saying “you’re so morbid.”

Much is made of The Far Side’s impact on American audiences’ increasing appetite for dark and surreal humor, but it is always important to note that Larson’s work would never have become commercially successful, or been able to have such an effect, if it had not played to pre-existing tastes in humor that were not being catered to by any syndicated newspaper comics.

4

The Far Side Wasn’t Always Laugh-Out-Loud Funny, But It Was Never Flat

First Published: January 1, 1991

This ambitious Far Side comic evokes the single most important quality of Gary Larson’s work, one that is often overlooked because of its simplicity. That is, while The Far Side wasn’t always hilarious, it was very, very rarely uninteresting. The comic, even in its less successful installments, almost always had something to offer readers, so even if it didn’t yield a strong reaction one day, fans could be reliably expected to come back the next.

Here, Larson depicts the aftermath of a riot at the “Acme Pan Co.,” as flat-faced employees are led out to a waiting police van, having “turned on one another” and cartoonishly bashed in each others’ faces with the company’s merchandise. It is a strange, memorable Far Side joke, one that invites readers to dwell on it, searching for deeper humor in its details.

3

Gary Larson Knew Better Than Anyone Sometimes An Instrument Turns On Its Player

First Published: January 1, 1992

Gary Larson’s Far Side jokes about musicians always struck a chord, because Larson himself was a musician. In general, this strain of Far Side joke often encapsulated Larson’s more general feelings about art and artistry. That is, sometimes the instrument – or the comic strip – bites the hand that plays, or draws it.

Here, that is amusingly illustrated in a panel featuring a man, as seen through his apartment window, noting to his wife that the aspiring jazz musician in the room above them is “playing a mean sax” – as readers catch a glimpse of the saxophone actually biting the kid on his head. Underneath this simple Larsonian play on words is a joke creative artists working in any medium can relate to.

2

A Glimpse Of The Divine, Far Side Style

First Published: January 1, 1993

In this iconic multi-panel Far Side cartoon, a character named Ernie – a name that appeared in multiple Far Side jokes during its run – is called upon by God, only for the deity to quickly hang up because He dialed the wrong number, though the brief encounter with the divine leaves a lasting impression mortal Ernie, as the caption makes clear.

This cartoon is a perfect example of Gary Larson’s lighthearted iconoclasm; Larson’s willingness, and ability, to make relatively innocuous jokes about the Almighty shows how he was able to be subversive while also appealing to a wide audience, a delicate but vital tightrope to walk. Though some readers certainly found jokes like this distasteful, many more found them to be highly amusing.

1

The Far Side Ends Its Run With A Big “Reveal,” Riffing One An Iconic Cinematic Conclusion

First Published: January 1, 1995

The final Far Side comic appeared in newspapers on New Year’s Day 1995, thirty years ago today. The apropos ending featured an extended callback to the final moments of The Wizard of Oz, a movie that Gary Larson held in high regard and made multiple jokes about over the years.

1994 was the final full year of The Far Side, and it started without a New Year’s Day comic, which Gary Larson ultimately made up for with one final cartoon on New Year’s 1995.

In this panel, Larson’s cartoon stand-in wakes up surrounded by many of the most familiar recurring Far Side characters, remarking on the exceptionally strange dream he had. For the artist, ending The Far Side must have felt, at once, like a dream in its own right, and waking up from an extended break from reality. In this way, this Far Side panel is surprisingly emotionally effective, and served as a perfect goodbye.