Gary Larson’s The Far Side often found comedy in the natural world, giving even ordinary creatures an unusual point of view. Flies became a recurring source of dark, absurd humor, with Larson placing them in familiar human situations and making their insect lives the punchline.
Among the cartoons highlighted in this ranking is one in which two flies watch a news broadcast. The anchor teases an upcoming report with the phrase “poop at eleven,” while the station’s name, “kzzz News,” adds another joke to the scene. A related panel turns a fly’s death beneath a swatter into breaking news, complete with a warning that the footage may be upsetting and the station name “flywitness news.”
Larson also gives flies family and social lives. In one cartoon, a fly’s car displays a “Maggot on board” sign, parodying a familiar warning for human drivers. Another shows a family celebrating around a garbage can while a fly watches sadly from a window. The panel offers no explanation for the outsider’s absence, leaving readers to imagine why it has missed the party.
Dating provides another opportunity for awkward humor: a male fly approaches a female at a gathering and asks to join her. She replies, “It’s a free dead cow.” In a separate cartoon, a fly comedian struggles to win over an audience before trying to recover with a joke about friends who “flew in from the dump.”
Several of the featured panels lean into The Far Side’s darker side. A giant fly crashes into a windshield company, sending workers out of the building. Elsewhere, a fly mistakenly sprays insecticide instead of air freshener, with deadly results for its companions. The jokes turn small mishaps into disasters, a familiar feature of Larson’s comic world.
The selection also includes a scientist whose head has become that of a fly, and an artist who paints a woman with half a fly’s face because an insect is sitting inside his glasses. Both cartoons play with perspective and the strange outcomes of human behavior. Together, the panels show how Larson could build a comic scenario around a creature many people otherwise regard as little more than a nuisance.
Sources: Comic Book Resources.