The Far Side's all-pervasive cow characters starred in one of the strip's most widely recognized instances of dark humor, the infamous "you're sick, Jesse" cartoon about a cannibal cow cooking burgers, but less well known is the follow-up "sequel" , which revisits the gruesome gag and, in the process, pushes the limits of good taste even further.

The Far Side was notorious for not shying away from jokes about taboo topics, which it got away with, and, in fact, established as an integral part of its "brand," in large part because of Gary Larson's idiosyncratic approach to humor, including the way he lampooned human behavior, from the mundane to the extreme, using animal characters.

Despite the “one-off” nature of The Far Side, Larson returned to ideas and punchlines more than most people realize, making these pseudo-sequel comics valuable to understanding The Far Side artist’s chaotic creative mind.

Cows Embrace Cannibalism In This Shocking Far Side Barnyard Comic

First Published: May 26, 1993

The Far Side's "You're sick, Jesse" comic features a spatula-wielding, chef-hat wearing cow, who is caught flipping some burgers on the grill and confronted by a pair of its fellow bovines, one pointing a sharp hoof at him, the other with its hooves on hips, who call out the griller for being "sick, sick, sick" for eating their own kind. Published in the summer of 1987, this cartoon came at what is arguably the peak of The Far Side's notoriety, and it remains one of Gary Larson's most iconic, immediately recognizable cartoons.

The two jokes, when situated together, provide readers with the opportunity to fill in their own ideas of how the characters, and behind-the-scenes, Gary Larson, might have gotten from A to B

Six years later, Larson returned to the cannibal cow concept, except this time with a disturbing twist: more cows are getting on board with eating beef. In this 1993 , a clutch of cows come together clandestinely in the barn, surrounding one of their number who is seated at a table, wearing an apron, holding a fork and knife awkwardly in its hooves, and tasting stake for the first time, calling it "interesting" and concluding: "I'd say we taste a little like chicken."

The cows here are unnamed, but it is not hard to imagine that one of them, perhaps the one keeping an eye out for the farmer, who is in the house reading a newspaper, is Jesse from the previous comic. While this is only conjecture, the two jokes, when situated together, provide readers with the opportunity to fill in their own ideas of how the characters, and behind-the-scenes, Gary Larson, might have gotten from A to B, which is essentially what qualifies it as The Far Side's equivalent of a "sequel."

The Far Side's "Sequel" Comics Show Which Ideas Nagged At Author Gary Larson Most

Why Some Far Side Jokes Reocurred

One notable thing about The Far Side comics that can be called "sequels," in at least a spiritual sense, to earlier s, is that they tended to be separated by long intervals of time, begging the question, at least for hardcore fans of Gary Larson's work, what prompted the artist to return to this particular scenario. Larson frequently revisited premises, and perennial themes, but usually in wildly different ways, so the examples in which direct parallels between punchlines can be drawn, especially with intervals of hundreds of Far Side comics in between, seem particularly significant.

So, there are a few interesting potential explanations worth considering. First, there were many Far Side comics Larson wasn't entirely satisfied with, and so his "sequel" comics could be the result of thinking he could do a joke better. Alternatively, they could be the product of looking back on his old work and having a new idea inspired by one of his own jokes. Finally, there is always the possibility, unlikely as it might seem, that these were coincidences, seemingly linked ideas popping into Larson's head years apart, but that is perhaps the least satisfying conclusion.

The Lasting Impact Of Gary Larson's (Relatively) Short Career As A Cartoonist

The Cartoonist, The Myth, The Legend

Part of what makes The Far Side's popularity persist to this day is a degree of mythologizing surrounding creator Gary Larson himself, who is cast as the aloof artist, with a mysterious creative process, a perennial outside who walked away at the top of his game, retiring after just fifteen years, when many of the other greats of the medium, or Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau, to name just a few, labored for literal decades upon decades.

Despite his relatively short tenure as a cartoonist, Larson's work remains a constant fascination for generations of fans because there is something wondrous about it, a quality that readers can never quite put their finger on, no matter how much they learn about The Far Side or the creative process behind it. Even still, or perhaps because of this, sifting through The Far Side for meaningful, or even just curious connections between the thousands of comics Gary Larson produced has become a ion project for many readers, one that sustains and amplifies the legacy of the artist's work.