Here, then, are the 10 funniest Far Side comics where astronauts make a disturbing discovery, whether it be alien life, unexpected celestial bodies, or just plain human error. Stick around to the end of the list to vote in our end-of-article poll, and let us know which strip you think is the funniest.

10 Lunar Lander Love

This Early Comic Shows Gary Larson's Love of Visual Humor

Originating from the beginning of The Far Side's 16-year run in newspapers, this comic demonstrates Larson's abiding love for visual gags. The same comic later in his career would likely have been enhanced with a witty caption, but truthfully that would be unnecessary - the joke of an unusual alien creature being attracted to the astronauts' lunar lander is perfectly delivered. Larson makes some fun choices to really accentuate the joke - the bent legs of the lander and its mouth-like side plating are tiny details that don't jump out, but help immediately establish the gag.

One of the things that makes The Far Side so unique is that while it may have recurring situations - at least on the conceptual level - it doesn't have recurring characters. There's no single way that Far Side aliens always look, opening up the space for jokes like this. While it's a goofy, one-dimensional joke, it also shows how fluid Larson's thinking is - sometimes his aliens are basically tourists who took a wrong turn, and sometimes they're so 'other' that they perceive NASA spacecraft as objects of lust.

9 "Feldman Must Be Freaking Out"

Far Side Imagines First as a Clumsy Hug

Perhaps because of his love of the natural world (Larson originally titled the comic strip Nature's Way), Larson has a gift for treating humans as just another kind of animal. Here, they're really no different to the aliens they've encountered, as the two groups initiate via a cosmic embrace. It's easy to imagine that on the alien ship, the eight-limbed aliens are pitying their own astronaut for similar reasons. Quite why Feldman would be chosen for this mission when he suffers from arachnophobia is another question, though his wide eyes suggest that the space shuttle enger has accurately gauged his mood.

8 Sunglasses

Larson's Humans Remain Gloriously Petty, Right to the End

It's rare that The Far Side shows much sympathy for its human characters - no more than it would its clueless dogs or surprisingly evil ducks. Here, even in the face of total incineration, two astronauts find time to bicker over who owns the sole pair of sunglasses. However, all is not lost - it's possible that the guy who actually runs the Sun will see them coming and flip the gigantic switch that controls it:

It's typical of Larson to include a joke inside a joke - the idea of astronauts wearing sunglasses for protection as they float towards the Sun is a funny gag, even before they start bickering about them in the same breath as realizing they're about to die.

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7 "Shake the Jar!"

Larson's Conservationist Streak Makes It to Other Planets

Along the same line of thinking that has an alien attracted to a lunar lander, this comic asks what if aliens were essentially human, but way, way bigger (an idea The Far Side returns to again and again.) A lot of dark sci-fi literature operates from the basic logic of 'what if aliens treated humans like we treat each other.' For example, H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds sees 1890s Britain experience colonialism from the other side, as interstellar conquerors arrive with superior weapons and no interest in peaceful co-existence.

The Far Side isn't shooting for that kind of grandeur, but as someone whose work often critiques human cruelty to animals, Larson is doing essentially the same thing - if we encounter aliens who see us as insects, we better hope they treat their insects better than us. Of course, Larson has something of a vested interest in creepy crawlies, as the comic creator has had a species of insect named after him by a biologist fan - strigiphilus garylarsoni.

6 Alien Mount Rushmore

A Lot of The Far Side's Concepts Would Work as Genuine Sci-Fi

The idea of an astronaut landing on another world and encountering an alien monument is surprisingly creepy - at least until The Far Side builds on the idea with a Mount Rushmore of off-brand Snorks. Knowing that an alien species are out there - and even what they look like - before actually encountering them would make for a great short story (indeed, in The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson notes that some of his strips start life as short stories), though at least this astronaut knows that whatever is waiting for him, it broadly shares American values.

5 Alien Picnic

The Far Side Doesn't Play Favorites - Aliens Are Just as Likely to Lose Out

The Far Side has a dark sense of humor, and the strip loves few things more than turning moments of triumph into secret tragedies. Here, some astronauts cook an alien alive in their attempt to take one giant leap for mankind. As in Men in Black's famous recruitment scene, a first glance might suggest that the astronauts accidentally wiped out a deadly predator, but closer inspection reveals the poor extraterrestrial was just out for a picnic. Larson loves taking mundane situations and having weird characters live them out, leading to a lot more Far Side comics where unusual beings enjoy a picnic.

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4 "We've Made It, Warren!"

Even on the Moon, The Far Side Isn't Above Slapstick

Another early gag from The Far Side's newspaper run, this simple visual gag yet again swaps triumph for tragedy. It's a funny cartoon conceit that an astronaut's visor would shatter so easily, and the dumpy, faceless astronauts stop the nightmarish circumstance feeling too disturbing. However, even this early in The Far Side's run, Larson has mastered his habit of giving doomed characters a name, just to make their demise feel a little more personal.

3 "Dear Henry..."

There's a Thin Line Between Comedy and Horror

In another nightmarish scenario that could make for some great straight sci-fi (and in this case did, in Andy Weir's The Martian), an astronaut is abandoned on the moon because his fellow travelers got tired of waiting. In an amusing bit of Far Side's surreal logic, he finds this out from a paper note left at the landing site. Adding insult to injury, the rocket in the sky makes it clear that if Henry had just been a little faster, he'd have been able to catch his ride home - hopefully he's stranded on the Mount Rushmore planet, not the one where he'll be kept in a jar.

2 Scarecrow

Larson's Use of Small Details Is Seriously Underrated

While essentially the same gag as the Mount Rushmore comic, this strip better encapsulates Larson's skill as a storyteller. The Far Side is the supreme example of using a single comic to tell a larger story, with a carefully chosen moment often communicating what happened before, after, and what a character is bringing into the situation. Here, Larson manages to make a tiny, faceless astronaut feel deflated and fearful as they stand holding an American flag on a far different landscape than the one they expected - suddenly knowing that not only is this planet inhabited by gigantic, insectoid aliens, but that the extraterrestrials are trying to keep away some kind of scavenger which is implied to be the perfect size to prey on humans.

1 "We Better Keep This Quiet"

Did Far Side Do the 'Always Has Been' Meme First?

Astronauts making it to space only to look back and discover something terrifying about Earth is another hard sci-fi concept that Larson plays perfectly for laughs. The understated reaction is pure Far Side, as is the hint of menace that's implied by the world being a balloon - who blew it up, who's holding the string, what if it pops? Like Frasier's genius joke where astronaut John Glenn reveals he saw aliens and was forced to keep it quiet (while Frasier and Roz are too busy bickering to notice), there's an extra level of humor/horror to the idea that this astronaut will simply return home and have to live with what he knows.

The Far Side's wild imagery and fluid imagination is perfectly captured in these strips where astronauts have to cope with disturbing discoveries. From ants living through nuclear armageddon to a city being attacked by a Godzilla-sized penguin, Gary Larson's comics constantly inhabit a world where the unexpected is always around the corner, and the world is far, far stranger than it seems - the exact reason that The Far Side flourishes most when it gets to leave Earth's atmosphere.