With its goofy, surreal sense of humor, you might think that Gary Larson's Clint Eastwood. However, Larson's love of cowboys and morbid sensibilities mean that there's more overlap than you think. One of the most iconic actors of all time, Clint Eastwood achieved worldwide fame in movies including A Fistful of Dollars, Dirty Harry and Coogan's Bluff - but what if his adventures were just a little bit weirder?
Here are 10 hilarious Far Side comics you need to see if you've followed Clint Eastwood's career, from gun-toting Wild West outlaws to cops pushed to their limit. We've chosen these hilarious comics by Gary Larson for their surprising connections to Clint Eastwood movies.
10 Far Side's Take on Clint Eastwood's Hang 'Em High
The 1968 Western Sees Its Hero Survive the Noose and Seek Revenge
In Hang 'Em High, Clint Eastwood plays Jed Cooper - an innocent man wrongly accused of cattle rustling. Lynched by a group of villains, Jed nevertheless survives, taking a job as a marshal to bring his attackers in the right way. While Eastwood's character almost dies from his horrifying treatment, Far Side imagines a lighter take on the same scene. In Gary Larson's world, a hanging victim survives not because he's rescued after hours of suffering, but because his executioner is terrible at tying knots.
While Far Side is considered family-friendly, Larson often engages with the topic of death, and specifically execution. Far Side's characters face the gallows, the electric chair, and even the firing squad - though always with a surreal twist. Open the image gallery below for more Far Side comics about goofy executions.
One of Gary Larson's best tricks is presenting underwhelming responses to serious situations. It's therefore no surprise that he deals with death so often, as there's no more serious situation to flip on its head than an execution.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Show Why Robin Williams Loved Gary Larson's Work
Comedy icon Robin Williams joked that reading Gary Larson's Far Side was like "watching a National Geographic special on Prozac."
9 Far Side's Take on the Iconic Dirty Harry
Far Side's World Doesn't Push Its Cops Quite as Far
1971's Dirty Harry introduced movie-goers to Harry Callahan and his iconic .44 Magnum. Going on to star in Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool, Callahan is a San Francisco cop who's only too happy to break the rules if it means bringing down the bad guys. Dirty Harry took on villains including the psychopathic serial killer known as Scorpio, terrorist Bobby Maxwell and vigilante Neil Briggs, committing lurid crimes and being gunned down in response. Open the image gallery below for more Far Side comics starring police.
In the world of Far Side, the cops aren't dealing with the same level of threat - in Larson's strip, a cop accosts a mysterious criminal who apparently comes to the park just to give dutch rubs (aka noogies) to the birds. Apparently, installing a sign asking him to knock it off hasn't worked, leading to escalation that isn't quite in the same league as Dirty Harry.
8 Far Side Ruins Clint Eastwood's Escape from Alcatraz
This Ending Would Have Ruined the 1979 Movie
In Escape from Alcatraz, Eastwood plays Frank Morris - a prisoner in the notorious Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Morris has a reputation as an escape artist, and ends up leading an escape attempt from the island fortress. The movie leaves Morris' fate unclear, posing the question of whether the convicts drowned or faked their deaths as part of the escape attempt.
In Gary Larson's version, it was definitely the former, as a group of convicts dig a tunnel to escape captivity, only to surface under a gigantic body of water. Larson always sets his gags at the perfect moment, usually right before (but sometimes after) something truly catastrophic happens. In this case, Far Side creates the exact opposite cliffhanger to Escape from Alcatraz - one where the reader knows for a fact that the characters are doomed, even if they'll never see it happen.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Will Change How You See Ghosts
The world of Gary Larson's Far Side is often a deadly place, so it's no surprise that there are so many ghosts wandering around.
7 Far Side Makes Eastwood's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Even Uglier
Eli Wallach's Bandit Tuco Is Scarier Than We
In Clint Eastwood's most iconic film, he plays honorable bounty hunter Blondie alongside Lee Van Cleef's vicious mercenary Angel Eyes and Eli Wallach's chaotic criminal Tuco. The movie ends with Blondie outsmarting Tuco but leaving him with his fair share of the loot.
In the comic above, Larson makes the relationship between the Good and the Ugly way more extreme, as a naive cowboy manages to instantly irritate a hulking outlaw by commenting on his tiny hat. Not only does his enemy look as threatening as possible, but he already has one hand on a rifle, suggesting that without some kind of major twist, our hero is about to pay the price for not keeping his opinion to himself. It's a twist to the ending of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, where Blondie actually saves Tuco's life by shooting through his noose... albeit having been the one to put it on him in the first place.
6 Far Side Takes on 2000's Space Cowboys
Far Side Ruins Tommy Lee Jones' Heroic Death
Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner teamed up for this 2000 movie (also directed by Eastwood), in which a group of aging astronauts are tasked with repairing a damaged satellite. Tommy Lee Jones' Hawk ends up sacrificing himself for the mission, and the film ends with Eastwood's Frank looking up at the stars, hoping his friend got to achieve his life's dream of touching down on the Moon before he died. In the final moments, Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon strikes up, and it's revealed that while Hawk may be dead, he indeed got to enjoy the spectacular view of Earth from the lunar surface.
This story of heroic sacrifice and the grandeur of space sadly can't survive the Far Side treatment. Larson shows two astronauts arrive safely on the Moon, only for one to shatter the visor of his colleague while celebrating - essentially the opposite of Hawk's sacrifice in Space Cowboys. Open the image gallery below for more Far Side comics about astronauts.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Will Change How You See Stephen King
The King of Horror, Stephen King is one of the most successful writers of all time... and a huge fan of Gary Larson's Far Side
5 Far Side Makes Eastwood's High Plains Drifter a Little More Honest
The Iconic Trope of a Frontier Town Preparing to Repel Outlaws
In 1973's High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood's cowboy hero takes a job protecting the undeserving mining town of Lago against a group of outlaws. Ultimately, the stranger has no intention of saving the town, seeking to punish both the town and the outlaws for the death of their former marshal (whether Eastwood is the marshal's ghost, an embodiment of justice or the devil is hotly debated by fans.)
In this Far Side strip, a sheriff likewise helps a town organize a violent welcome for some bandits, but he doesn't reckon much for their chances, asking that if they're going to die, they at least do it dramatically. It's Larson's reference to old Wild West media where - partly due to a ban on showing blood - actors sold the experience of being gunned down with pure, 100%-commitment physicality. Larson imagines a world where this obvious over-acting was entirely deliberate, since the characters in question didn't want to let down their sheriff.
4 Far Side Twists an Iconic Scene from A Fistful of Dollars
Clint Eastwood's Disagreement About a Mule Gets Surreal
In a truly iconic scene from 1964's Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood menaces some ne'er-do-wells who mistreated his mule on his way into town, demanding they apologize and warning that, "my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughing at him."
In Far Side's take on this disagreement, two Wild West outlaws indeed clash over their horses, but this time because they're competing over who has the tiniest steed in town. These cowboys' horses are so small they have to carry them around in jars, begging the question of what use the horses have in the first place.
12 Funniest Far Side Comics About Hilarious Mistakes
Few things go right for the denizens of Gary Larson's world, but some Far Side characters are responsible for their own suffering.
3 Far Side's Take on Gang Violence Differs from Gran Torino
Eastwood Acted, Directed and Produced the 2008 Movie
In 2008's Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's Walt Kowalski sacrifices himself to save his neighbors from a local gang, ensuring that the criminals go to prison for his murder. It's a twist on Eastwood's former epic tales of revenge and gunfire, as he saves Bee Vang's Thao Vang Lor by tricking the gang into a crime that stops their forced recruitment of the reluctant teen. Far Side's Larson depicts a different kind of gang violence, as a group of ants shake down an unfortunate soul for all their calculators and pencils. Typical to The Far Side, it's a juxtaposition of the riskiest behavior with the least risk-prone people imaginable.
2 Far Side Reimagines Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name
Not Quite as Intimidating as in For a Few Dollars More
Alongside Dirty Harry, Eastwood's most iconic character is the Man With No Name - the title given to his role in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy. In this Far Side strip, Larson puts a hilariously childish spin on this concept, as a cowboy refuses to take candy in a saloon because he doesn't know the person offering it. Again, Larson juxtaposes the rough and tumble cowboy with a little kid, suggesting that Old West rogues lived by the same code as six-year-olds.
Strangely, Eastwood actually does have a name (or at least a nickname) in each of Leone's movies, going by Joe, Manco and Blondie. The concept of the Man With No Name was a creation of the movies' distributor, United Artists, as a way to link the films, which don't necessarily overlap in of narrative. Nevertheless, the idea was a hit, and became the iconic title of Eastwood's character/s.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Will Make You Fear Mother Nature
Nature is a powerful force and humans disrespect it at their peril - especially in the world of Gary Larson's Far Side, where even clouds get angry.
1 Far Side Gives a Different Meaning to American Sniper
Clint Eastwood Directed This 2014 Movie
2014's American Sniper adapted the biography of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, with Bradley Cooper playing the soldier as he tries to adjust to civilian life. Of course, The Far Side takes the idea of an 'American sniper' in a very different direction, seeing the unscrupulous Ted try to turn a profit by offering suspicious maps to those leaving a gun store that specializes in high-powered rifles.
Those are the 10 funniest Far Side comics every fan of Clint Eastwood needs to see, whether they love the Man With No Name or Eastwood's modern directing projects.
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The Far Side
The Far Side is a humorous comic series developed by Gary Larson. The series has been in production since 1979 and features a wide array of comic collections, calendars, art, and other miscellaneous items.
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Clint Eastwood
Discover the latest news and filmography for Clint Eastwood, known for Dirty Harry and Unforgiven.
