Far Side Comics Best Wild Animal Panels Ranked
Gary Larson's The Far Side gets deep dives all the time, but this ranking focuses specifically on the panels featuring wild animals—which actually comprise a huge chunk of what made the strip legendary. Larson's background as a naturalist gave his animal-focused comics a unique philosophical bent; he treated humans as just another species rather than the main characters. The best Far Side panels often used animals to explore absurdist humor and existential observations that wouldn't have landed the same way with human protagonists. Ranking these is tougher than it sounds because Larson's animal comics range from hilarious to genuinely unsettling.
ComicsBuzz Take
It's interesting that Far Side's longevity partly hinges on how Larson treated nature as the real star—modern comics often struggle because they anthropomorphize animals too cutely rather than letting them be genuinely weird.
💬 Fan Reactions
"The penguin comics alone deserve their own ranking. Larson was a genius."
— u/FarSideFanatic on Reddit