6 Unforgettable Far Side Comics Set in the Front Yard

The lawn as a location provided space for The Far Side's visual comedy. Importantly, it was instantly recognizable, meaning it did a lot of heavy lifting for the jokes below.

This curated collection of The Far Side's most memorable front lawn cartoons are flawless odes to author and artist Gary Larson's ability to take something everyone recognizes and make it spectacular and unusual.

"Canine Samurai"

First Published: October 29, 1982

It is one of The Far Side's most recognizable, laugh-out-loud visuals. A dog dressed in the traditional robes of a samurai, a katana clutched in its paws, an oddly peaceful grin on its face as it prepares to leap out from behind the bushes and attack its mortal enemy: the mail carrier.

"Canine Samurai," as we'll call it, is a wordless Far Side masterpiece. A key factor in making this such a successful panel is that it features so many recognizable elements. The samurai imagery, and also the idea of the "dog vs. postal worker" beef, which The Far Side riffed on brilliantly many times throughout its history.

Equally important is the comic's location and composition. The reader is around the corner of the house, watching the dog lying in wait for the ambush as the mail carrier barges into the front yard. There is an ordinary quality to the scene, but which Gary Larson has skewered, like he's the one wielding the samurai sword, and turned into something outrageous.

"Beware Of Doug"

First Published: March 26, 1983

Another classic Far Side. It is always a pleasure to be able to envision the exact step-by-step creative process that birthed a Far Side cartoon, but that's rarely the case. This one is easy though, relatively speaking. Gary Larson almost certainly made himself chuckle by thinking of a "Beware of Doug" sign and then turned it into a comic.

It's the kind of stray observation anyone can have, but few creatively act on. "Oh, 'Doug' and 'dog' are one letter off. There's a 'Beware of Dog' sign. Imagine if it was 'Beware of Doug,' that'd be ridiculous." What Larson brings to the table with this Far Side cartoon is, again, composition. The panel is framed as an over-the-shoulder shot, as a traveling salesman approaches a house's picket fence and notices the sign on it. In the background, the reader can see a man, presumably Doug, poorly hiding behind a tree in the front yard.

Which is a brilliant visual joke. And it begs the question, is Doug hiding so he can jump out and attack the salesman, like the "Samurai Canine"? Or is Doug actually less scary than the signage implies, and it is really there to protect him, not visitors?

"The Scarepeddler"

First Published: February 13, 1990

Another Far Side salesman, another picket fence, another indication that maybe he should just keep walking and move on to the next house on the block. This time it is a non-verbal sign, and indeed, the only thing keeping this comic from being another immaculate wordless Far Side is the slightest concession to exposition by Gary Larson, putting "ABC Sales" on his briefcase.

In the yard of this house is a scarecrow, or "scarepeddler" in this case, dressed nearly identically to the man in a trench coat and fedora, and carrying a briefcase. The scarepeddler has an axe buried into the top of its head, a pitchfork jammed in its neck, and an arrow sticking out of it for good measure.

Even without words, the meaning of this couldn't be clearer to Far Side readers, nor to the approaching salesman. Hilariously, though, the way Larson frames the man walking down the sidewalk toward the gate to the house's front yard, it is open to interpretation whether he heeded the obvious warning or not.

There Goes The Far Side Of The Neighborhood

First Published: January 31, 1992

No caption. No words. No notes. This Far Side cartoon captures a scene that feels like it is answering the question, "what if Tim Burton made a suburban comedy about neighbors feuding over lawn decorations?" Or maybe, more simply, "What if Igor, or an Igor-like character, moved to the 'burbs?"

Gary Larson frames this Far Side comic as the view from the curb of two competing front lawn aesthetics. Both houses look nearly identical, and they share the same ubiquitous white picket fence. The lawns themselves are both well manicured; there are flowers out front of the house on the right, and small bushes under the living room window of the house on the left. The difference? The house on the right has plastic pink flamingos in its yard. The (last) house on the left has snakes and spiders.

It's a memorable visual contrast, but what really makes this panel perfect are the characters' contrasting attitudes, evident just from how Larson caricaturizes them. The woman is standing rigidly at her window, looking at her neighbor's unconventional decorations with annoyance. He's reading the paper, totally unfazed, happy and in his own world. In this way, it's also an iconic bit of Far Side outsider humor.

"What's Gotten Into Our La-Z-Boy?"

First Published: April 10, 1992

Finally, a Far Side with a caption. And a perfectly absurd one, to boot. "What's gotten into our La-Z-Boy?" a man exclaims, while standing at the window alongside his wife, watching his armchair inexplicably mow the front lawn. One can almost hear it in Homer Simpson's voice; after all, The Far Side and The Simpsons share a lot of comedic DNA. (The wife here even has a beehive hairdo.)

But the real star of the show here is the gloriously bad pun, one of The Far Side's best/worst, and the absurdist imagery it gave rise to. The front lawn location is crucial, in this case, because the joke requires the chair to have room to maneuver. If the conception was "a La-Z-Boy gets a burst of motivation," the execution required an activity that would look and feel active.

Gary Larson was a notorious reviser, redrawing cartoons repeatedly and reworking their captions, right up until he had to send them to his publisher. The best Far Side comics bear the traces of multiple shrewd creative decisions Larson made in the production of the panel, and this is a pristine example.

"That's Why We Have Wolves"

First Published: October 11, 1994

This late Far Side cartoon is one of Gary Larson's most savage lines of dialogue ever. "I know you miss the Wainwrights, Bobby," a man tells his young son, who, from the looks of it, is The Far Side's recurring nerdy kid. They're standing in their front yard, at another picket fence, which divides their property from their former neighbors' yard, and the father is sort of consoling the son, and sort of telling him the harsh truth about how the world works.

And this world is The Far Side, which means wolves can just run up into a suburban home at any time and eat the people living there. (We bet Milo from the Descendents wasn't thinking about that possibility when he sang about wanting one, was he?) Which is great, actually, according to the dad, because the Wainwrights "were weak and stupid people."

"That's why we have wolves and other large predators," he explains. It's hilariously harsh and Darwinian, the kind of gonzo Far Side joke Gary Larson only truly let loose and make in the final stretch of his career.

Final Thoughts:

Notice how the majority of the Far Side cartoons on this list are wordless, or nearly wordless? That says something about the universality of the front yard setting. Not everyone has a yard, but in the 20th century suburban scenery like this became engrained in Americana and exported worldwide as an idyllic measure of material stability.

And Gary Larson was able to exploit that to great comedic results many times, in many different ways. That's what makes the location especially important to each of these Far Side cartoons, because even when a Far Side comic does have a caption, its imagery has to speak volumes for the panel to reach its maximum potential.

Sound off, Far Side fans. What is your favorite location in Gary Larson's wild world?