Summary
- Gary Larson's recurring detective character is the best in Far Side history, playing the perfect straight man to a world of truly bizarre crimes.
- Larson uses the detective to explore Far Side's bizarre crimes, from murder to bank heists to stolen... ducks?!
- Larson never wanted recurring characters as he didn't want readers to sympathize with them, however his frequently-used archetypes mean there are several familiar faces.
Gary Larson's iconic comic strip to have recurring characters. While Larson's editors originally tried to talk him into creating the next Garfield or Peanuts, Larson wanted to debase and abuse his characters at will without inviting readers' sympathy. However, Larson's use of repeated character archetypes did end up creating recurring figures who appear in comic after comic.
One of the best is the detective - a Noir-ish lawman wearing a trench coat, fedora, and often smoking a gigantic stogie. Larson uses the detective as a recurring archetype whenever a bizarre crime occurs in the world of The Far Side, and with everyone from elephants to clowns capable of being arrested for nonsense misdeeds, the detective is always in work.
Screen Rant has collected the 16 best comics starring the detective - be sure to vote for your favorite in the end-of-article poll, and see which strip other readers voted as #1.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Prove It's Obsessed with Nursery Rhymes
Gary Larson's Far Side found macabre gold in parodying popular nursery rhymes, exposing the dark side of everyone from Humpty Dumpty to Old MacDonald.
16 Professor LaVonne
We Think We Have This Far Side Murder Solved
This strip showcases the detective's role in Far Side stories - someone who just arrived at the crime scene and can encounter its weird and wild details alongside the reader. In this case, an entomologist has been pinned to a board like the insects he studied. While The Far Side was never meant to be a cohesive world, we think we know who carried out this particular crime - the villainous Professor DeArmond, Far Side's epitome of evil (amongst butterfly collectors.)
Larson's love of bugs appears throughout The Far Side, and even inspired multiple scientist fans to name bugs in his honor, including the butterfly species serratoterga larsoni. However, if entomologists thought this tribute was going to earn them preferential treatment in Larson's strips, they were out of luck.
"The Worst Cartoon I Ever Drew": Gary Larson Hates This Far Side Comic So Much, He Can't Read It Without Cringing
Gary Larson considers this strip The Far Side's worst comic, saying that it still makes him cringe to read. But is it really that bad?
15 Curiosity Killed the Cat...s
Far Side's Detective Actually Gets to Solve a Case
Larson loves nothing more than taking a weird idiom or phrase literally, and in this case, the Far Side detective discovers a group of cats killed by concentrated curiosity. Cats tend to suffer grim fates in Larson's comics, especially when they encounter dogs. Larson's love of nature inspired a detached attitude to how his cartoon animals fare against their natural 'enemies,' sometimes to the point that readers responded negatively.
The above 'Tethercat' comic was Larson's most controversial, receiving hate mail when it was published and even causing the strip to be pulled from some newspapers. Larson has reflected on the response to what he saw as a comic that "didn't cross any line," especially because characters like Tom and Jerry have done so much worse to each other. In The Prehistory of the Far Side, Larson concludes:
What I think I've figured out is, in animation, a cat might be flattened by a steamroller or get blown up by dynamite, but a few seconds later we see him back in business - chasing something or being chased until he's "killed" again. There's never a suggestion that the cat's suffering is anything but transitory. In a single- cartoon, however, no resolution is possible. The dogs play "tethercat" forever. You put the cartoon down, come back to it a few hours later, and, yep - those dogs are still playing 'tethercat.'
14 Shave and a Haircut
Far Side's Criminals Fail to Carry Out a Bank Heist
In a thankless non-speaking role, Far Side's detective busts a group of mobsters who are planning what appears to be the most simplistic bank robbery of all time. It turns out the cops were able to get the drop on the bad guys because they'd chosen the popular musical riff 'shave and a haircut' as their secret signal. While the tune has been used in vaudeville, it's also common for people to playfully recreate it when knocking on a door, suggesting the cops cracked the code totally by accident.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Somehow Found the Funny Side of Fossils
The Far Side has plenty of funny dinosaur comics, but Gary Larson is so talented he can even make their ancient bones hilarious.
13 The Work of a Copycat
Far Side's Serial Killers Are About What You'd Expect
In this comic, the detective (recolored with a different coat, but still bringing beat cop Norm along for the ride) discovers the incredibly specific telltale signs of a serial killer. Namely, a victim dressed in a diving suit with a frog shoved in their mouth, a full fishbowl over their head, and adorned with fairy lights. Hilariously for such a specific situation, the police still aren't 100% positive this is their killer, but the detective is still more competent than 99% of Far Side's human characters.
12 Kangaroos and Wallabies
Does the Kangaroo Count as the Detective's Nemesis?
In this Far Side strip that just turned 40, the detective and Norm guide a witness through identifying the marsupial he presumably saw commit a crime. Sadly, the witness is no help, and the criminal macropod will likely go free. That's unfortunate, because The Far Side has a few different strips where kangaroos are involved in crime, suggesting the animal in question may well be the Moriarty to the detective's Sherlock Holmes.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics Where Gary Larson Made Pirates Hilarious
Gary Larson's The Far Side has a lot of recurring themes, from cowboys to clowns, but pirates are some of its most underrated stars.
11 Hundreds of Bright Copper Kettles
Far Side Parodies The Sound of Music
In this strip, the detective gets to do some actual investigating (while Norm sticks to taking copious notes), deducing that the killer in this particular crime was trying to steal the objects named in The Sound of Music's 'My Favorite Things' song. Larson often referenced iconic pop culture in his strips, and had a great eye for what movies would stand the test of time.
15 Funniest Far Side Comics That Somehow Found the Funny Side of War
War isn't exactly a barrel of laughs, but Gary Larson managed to find Far Side's unique brand of humor in some of civilization's biggest conflicts.
10 Time of Death
Larson Dials an Iconic Murder Mystery Cliché Up to 11
In this comic from May 1980 - only the fifth month of Far Side's publication - the detective is decidedly off-model, as Larson hadn't quite settled into his definitive style. Despite these growing pains, the gag of the strip is absolutely solid - it's a classic trope in whodunnit murder mysteries that a clock or watch is damaged during a crime, offering up evidence of exactly when it happened. In this case, the detective has more than enough evidence to go on, but sadly at this point in his career, he's not quite as adept as he'll become in later cases.
9 The Brains of This Outfit
Not the Far Side Detective's Proudest Day
Larson loves any gag where he can warp the human body, and in this case the giant-brained character is the obvious leader of an illegal gambling ring. It's another embarrassing fumble that the detective needs to ask, though at least this time he's looking a little more on-model.
8 The Plot Thickens
Three Far Side Comics Combine into a Crime Story
In another early comic (also from May 1980), the detective stumbles across a truly surreal murder, only to discover a wardrobe packed with ducks. While Larson often depicts evil ducks in his strips, on this occasion they don't seem to be the perpetrators, but rather just a weird detail at the crime scene. However, for fans who want some closure, a couple of Larson's other comics complete the narrative.
In the first strip (also starring the detective and Norm), the lawmen watch a duck deal going down, while in the second, readers get a satisfying answer for why ducks are so prized in the groan-worthy pun of "snorting quack."
7 Wasp Detective
Larson's Nerdy Kid Is Another Recurring Archetype
The fun thing about archetypes is that they're malleable, and in this strip Larson's detective isn't even human, though he does retain the trench coat and fedora, and a little wasp Norm in a patrolman's hat. The 'criminal' in this strip is another example of Larson using recurring character archetypes, as the crime was committed by the 'nerdy little kid' that appears in some of Larson's best comics.
In the second comic above, Larson calls out his use of character archetypes, 'revealing' that his repeating character designs were because different characters are played by the same 'actors.' Sadly, the detective and Norm aren't mentioned, so we don't know their 'real' names.
This Far Side Comic Was a Direct Insult to Gary Larson's Editor
One of Gary Larson's The Far Side comics is actually a dig at his editor, who its the strip "doesn't cast me in the most flattering light."
