Nobody loves to make fun of people more than Gary Larson and The Far Side. While this may sound like the cruel behavior of your average bully, Larson sought to bring everyone down to the same level, including popular, real-world figures. ittedly, the cartoonist often preferred to use animals to highlight our absurd behaviors, but sometimes a celebrity or a historical figure may feel especially relatable.

Gary Larson’s The Far Side often employs the use of real-world figures to help break down the fantastical barriers that we, the average people, place between ourselves and cultural or historical icons. They, like us, are just humans, trying to figure their way through life. Likewise, Larson liked to use these cultural figures to poke fun at his comics’ viewers and our part to play in elevating certain people to iconic statuses. These satirical, and often dark, jokes don’t just serve to entertain but to remind us that we’re all the same underneath the accolades.

10 Abraham Lincoln’s Got Jokes

In this historic re-imagining of a historical turning point for the United States, Gary Larson draws President Abraham Lincoln moments before delivering the iconic Gettysburg Address. In this moment, the President called to usher in a new era of unity and prosperity for the entirety of the country. However, to bring levity to what will surely be a somber speech, Lincoln delivers a witty joke to break the tension with a bit of humor.

Here, Gary Larson playfully deflates the severity of Lincoln’s speech, reminding his audience that these historical figures were oftentimes just as playfully human as the rest of us. Larson frequently The Far Side to show the common humanity that we all share, especially during serious instances that could use a light-hearted joke. Of course, in this comic, Abraham Lincoln doesn’t seem to get the roaring applause he was hoping for, as the onlookers stare on with blank expressions on their faces.

9 The Mystery Of D.B. Cooper

The mystery of D.B. Coopers is one of America’s greatest enigmas that still exists today. In this comic, the legendary plane hijacker is mid-descent, parachuting from the sky after making his grand escape. In real life, we still have no clue what happened to the infamous criminal, but Gary Larson has his own answer. Instead of disappearing into the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, Cooper lands in a caged-off area filled with attentive rottweiler dogs.

In this strip, Larson takes one of the most notorious crimes in American history and steals away the great mystery which makes the crime worth talking about. The cartoonist pokes fun at how popular culture romanticizes outlaw figures by making Cooper’s ending relatively anticlimactic. Ultimately, Cooper escaped the law through nothing but sheer luck, which, in this comic, quickly runs out as D.B. Cooper meets what is surely going to be a grim end.

8 Donald Trump’s Single Tear

It’s rare for Gary Larson to write about current political figures. While the cartoonist does frequently poke fun at historical figures and celebrities, Gary Larson momentarily returned from retirement in 2020 to take a shot at the then-former President Donald Trump. In this comic, a woman in a museum of rare artifacts looks down at a lone glass jar labeled “Donald Trump Tear,” suggesting that the President rarely shows one of humanity’s empathetic actions.

The absurdity of this comic comes from the clinical preservation of something that is supposed to be associated with emotional depth, especially from a figure whose public image is defined by emotional deflection and bravado. Larson isn’t mocking Trump directly, instead satirizing the image that the President has built around himself. However, Donald Trump must have particularly spurred Larson if the cartoonist chose to return from retirement for this comic alone.

7 Edgar Allan Poe’s Writer’s Block

Have you ever had such horrible writer’s block that you have to just stare out a window and contemplate your life’s work? Apparently, Edgar Allan Poe did. Here, the iconic gothic-horror writer struggles to come up with the title for one of his most popular short stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Instead, Poe has numerous pages of defunct titles referring to other organs besides the heart, all scrawled out with ink and tossed in the garbage.

Any writer can attest that, at moments, your brain just doesn’t want to make the literary connections that you so desperately wish it should. The process can be deeply frustrating, even for well-known figures like Edgar Allan Poe. Once again, Gary Larson takes a historical figure and places them in an exceptionally relatable situation to humanize those we frequently dissociate from our modern lives. Decades may distance us from Edgar Allan Poe, but our shared human experience only brings us closer together.

6 Elvis Checked Into The Wrong Hotel

In this comic strip, Gary Larson combines two major pop-culture icons: Elvis Presley and the Bates Motel featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In life, Elvis Presley drew millions of fans worldwide, so when he tragically ed, copious amounts of rumors, conspiracy theories, and urban legends appeared surrounding the icon’s death. Here, Larson pokes fun at the odd mystification of Presley's death, calling these nonsensical theories just as fictional as the Bates Motel.

Gary Larson’s satirical comedy is in full effect in this comic as the cartoonist takes his shot at the theorists, lambasting the fictionalization of Elvis’s purely tragic and mundane ing. Larson frequently uses his comics to break down the grandiose images we construct around celebrities, historical figures, and scientists to show that, underneath the pomp and circumstance, we’re all just human. The somber reality is that even death is mundane and not often as fantastical as this comic.

5 General Custer’s First Stand

Before every historical giant rose to their station of power, they began their journey just as we all do - with our first steps. In this comic, we see General Custer, one of the United States’ most controversial military figures, as an infant, taking his first steps. This silly yet simple joke refers to General Custer’s “Last Stand,” also known as the Battle of Little Bighorn, where the General and his army were vastly overwhelmed by surrounding Indigenous American forces.

Once again, The Far Side seeks to humanize this legendary figure in American history. While Custer’s reputation has dwindled in modern times, he was considered a hero and a martyr at the time of his death. Gary Larson shows us that even the most well-known historical figures started life just as many of us do, proving that any one of us can rise to the same station that General Custer eventually did.

4 Leonardo da Vinci Isn’t A Master Of Everything

Here, Leonardo da Vinci, the father of anatomy, sits intently at his easel, utterly absorbed in perfecting what would become one of his most iconic pieces of art. Meanwhile, as the artist puts the final touches on the Mona Lisa, his dog sits nearby, wondering where his dinner is supposed to be. The impatient pup, exasperated by his wait, jokingly questions da Vinci’s status as a “Great Master,” thus reducing one of art history’s most revered artistic achievements to a simple household standoff between man and pet.

This comic’s dry humor lies in the contrast between da Vinci’s creative immortality and the everyday moments the artist experienced in life. More than that, it shows how neglectful we can become when we become obsessed with our work. Gary Larson isn’t mocking his fellow artist’s work, but instead grounding it. Larson knows as well as any artist that behind even the most iconic pieces of art are the simple, boring, everyday interactions of real life.

3 Madonna’s Outfits Are Deadly

In 1990, Madonna debuted her Blond Ambition tour, well-known for its extraordinarily expensive set designs, risqué choreography, and merriment of Catholic imagery with BDSM esthetics. Alongside this iconic tour, which elevated the artist from a pop star to a cultural icon, Madonna revealed a unique corset equipped with an especially pointed bra designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. Soon, Madonna was the talk of every town across the world, cementing her status for decades to come.

In this comic, Madonna finds herself on a life raft out at sea, until she falls over while wearing the iconic pointed bra. Soon, the bra pierces the raft, quickly sinking the vessel and her fellow survivors. Just as Madonna has become a cultural icon, this comic has become one of The Far Side’s most hilarious visual gags thanks to Gary Larson’s use of a real-world figure. Part of the reason these Far Side comics are still beloved today is because Larson loved using immortal icons like Madonna, who would still be recognized over the following decades.

2 Stephen King Has Always Been Unique

In this comic strip, we see a young Stephen King ominously standing over his childhood ant farm. However, in addition to his ants, King has placed a small diorama of a couple sharing a picnic. The ants, by comparison, dwarf the little figurines, as we are left to expect that the insects will soon attack and consume the poor couple. Meanwhile, Stephen King does nothing as he watches the artistic tragedy he has designed to unfold.

While Stephen King is well-known for his dark and twisted, macabre work, Gary Larson equally shares the author's dark sense of humor. In The Far Side Gallery 1, Larson its that his brother constantly teased the young cartoonist that monsters were everywhere, unlocking a dark sense of imagination that Larson would frequently depend on throughout The Far Side’s publication history. Fortunately, even Stephen King has acknowledged that Larson “turns the world as I know it into a funhouse mirror.”

1 Gary Larson’s Great Embarrassment

Only featured in The Far Side’s collected editions, Larson included a comic that features a man knocked out on the floor after having unsuccessfully used an at-home chin-up bar to work out. Despite the man’s efforts to make his life better and improve his physical health, his work was for naught, instead resulting in a serious physical injury. However, the funniest part of this comic is that the man is Gary Larson himself.

Alongside this comic, Larson shares that his work is “rarely spontaneous” and that this particular piece “came directly from [his] own personal experience.” Gary Larson rarely includes himself in his work, wishing to create universally relatable comics. While The Far Side would be nothing without Larson’s dark, satirical comedy, the jokes succeed because they simply depend on experiences that we have all recognized in our own lives. Once again, we see Larson willing to take someone monumental, in this case, himself, and knock them down a peg to remind his audience that we’re all human.