Gary Larson The front side Has many different obsessions, from cows to Vikings to scientists, however The most frequent recurring theme in Larson’s work is children getting eaten. While The front side Seen as family fare, Larson has always had a dark sense of humor, with strips that are just as morbid as they are surreal. It’s hard to think of a darker joke than kids being eaten by everything from lions to witches. Of course, Larson’s signature humor goes a long way to making the comics endearing, despite their subject matter.
Here are the 13 best For side Comics where kids get eaten – Be sure to vote in our end-of-article poll For your favorite of the bunch, and (as we did with Larson’s celebrity comics) we’ll publish the results and crown the best of the best.
13
Witch Babysitter
Larson loves this controversial classic
Although this strip was just a joke combining the habit of fairy tale witches of trying to eat children with a mundane ‘unreliable babysitter’ situation, it still got Larson hate mail from some readers. However, although he admits there are some strips that made mistakes, Larson is still happy to go to bat for this, call it “One of my personal favorites” in The prehistory of the front side. Larson says he likes it because of how it downplays the reaction of parents, writing:
First of all, the cartoon “couple” didn’t hire a witch-like babysitter to watch their kids – they hired a witch! Secondly, they are not afraid of what happened, as we might suspect, but mostly outraged. And finally, they are especially upset that the witch ate both their kids – as if to suggest one would have been pretty bad, but both is really unacceptable.
Despite the negative feedback, this isn’t Larson’s last witch comic… or even the only one For side Gag that hinges on witches eating kids.
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12
Ants vs Baby
The comic was rejected until Larson made it even darker
For side Fans almost never saw this version of Larson’s comic, which jokes on the idea of ​​ants being able to carry much more than their body weight, bringing home a snack that there is no way to really get into the anthill. in PrehistoryLarson reveals that The comic originally starred an old man being run over by the bugsbut was rejected with the brusque response, – No, thank you. Larson cleverly waited a few weeks to let the pass pass from memory, then handed it over with a baby. The pass was accepted without a word, with Larson writing, – I’m still scratching my head about that one.
The Far Side was syndicated in newspapers across the country, and so concerns about taste were not only an issue of Larson facing criticism, but every individual newspaper that carried the comic did not want to anger its readers. The front side Was dropped by individual newspapers many times, but Larson notes that when it was, far More Reader ended up campaigning to bring it back, thanking fans for keeping him in work.
11
“So close…”
For side love when humanity and nature cross paths
Maybe The front sides biggest obsession is contrasting human behavior with the natural world (indeed, Larson originally wanted to call his passport Nature’s way), and this comes perfectly as readers get the animal perspective on a trip to the zoo, with a shark lamenting that an awesome meal is so close and yet inaccessible. This is not the only time that animals behind Plexiglas have wanted to eat the kids who come to watch them in The front side.
In the strips above, two snakes slither into the glass of their enclosure after a young musketeer makes them think that the world’s largest mouse has just arrived for them to prey on. For those who side with the animals in the stripes, don’t feel too bad – the snake’s time is coming soon…
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10
Chicken vs baby
Larson’s chickens know that humans are the enemy
In this passage, a farmer carries eggs from the chicken coop to the house, only to meet a chicken coming the other way with her baby in her arms. The strip contrasts the normal idea of ​​collecting eggs with the perspective of how it would look the other way around, with the farmer’s low-key reaction heightening the joke. Of course, anyone who has spent time around For sideS chickens would know they generally treat humans as the enemy.
Larson’s love of the tension between humanity and nature shines in his chicken comics, where the fowls figure out that they’re being kept for eggs and meat and aren’t too happy about it (but at least they’re not as malevolent as For sides duck.)
9
Snake vs Baby
The front page comic never saw the light of day
This may be Larson’s darkest ‘animal eats child’ strip, showing a python with a suspiciously large bulge in its stomach trying and failing to escape a (now) empty crib. Larson liked to use the visual of a python with a giant bulge, clearly indicating that it only ate what the surrounding context implies, but the theme seemingly comes from a real experience where a young Gary Larson’s pet snake attacked him!
of course, The dark comic never aired in syndication, because Larson always knew his editors would never approve. Thankfully, Larson’s own For side Collections include it proudly.
8
Honey, I ate the kids
Rick Moranis gets an unlikely far side shoutout
The strip combines two concepts – Rick Moranis’ series of sci-fi comedies beginning in the 1989s Honey, I shrunk the kidsAnd the ‘fun fact’ that praying mantises will sometimes become cannibalistic if food is scarce (although it is a myth that the females always eat the males after mating.) Apparently, in mantis society, the idea of ​​cannibalizing your kids is normalized enough to Support a big budget family movie. They’d love The front side!
7
Alligator vs Babies
A truly dark side entry
In one of Gary Larson’s darkest comics, two nurses in the maternity ward are Way Also calm about an alligator repeatedly slipping in to eat the babies. As with the witch comic, a lot of the fun comes from the characters’ incredibly low-level responses to a life-or-death situation, branding the alligator a “jacket” And count the babies to see if it was the last in a long line.
6
Bears eat Cub Scouts
Larson’s new work experiments with new tools
This pass actually comes from a long time ago The front sides 1980-1994 syndicationPublished by Larson by The Far Side website. After years of enjoying retirement, Larson says he has the urge to return to creating comics, but this time experimenting with a drawing tablet and the various new tools that work digitally. Larson notes that his experimental new comics came with a rekindled “A sense of adventure.”
The painted comic shows exactly what Larson means, because the gag hinges on the fact that an image of bears slaughtering cub scouts in honey before eating them is presented in the style of a traditional painting that could hang on a museum wall. The style contrasts with the morbidly surreal subject matter, as clear bears prepare to wolf down some kids.
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5
The new neighbors
Far Syed takes on Suburbia
Larson loves the theme of unusual neighbors causing trouble in suburbia, and in this strip, two crocodiles cross the path of Al’s all-American family. The gag comes from Billy’s mother feeling judged by the neighbors, who feel compelled to keep an eye on Billy when he plays, while the reader knows that the crocodile is really just waiting for their chance to get over the white picket fence. . And grab a snack.
Larson has various everyday families move in next to everything from wolves and howler monkeys to monsters and cavemen, pushing the envelope of the observational humor of nice, suburban families trying to maintain their relationships with increasingly weird neighbors.
4
Chicken vs Eggs
The Far Side Chickens return, but this time they’re still their own
Larson’s human-intelligence-level animals often struggle with the fact that they can create things that humans see as commodities, from the cow rationing its own milk while drifting on a liferaft to the chicken that might be willing to sacrifice its own eggs instead From going to the store for ingredients.
3
Monster vs Children
Far Side has a recurring theme of childhood monsters
Larson jokes about the parental threat that a monster will come to eat kids who don’t eat their vegetables/don’t do their homework/refuse to go to sleep. in The prehistory of the front sideLarson shares how his brother would torture him with threats from unseen monsters, and The theme comes up again and again The front sides run.
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2
Pinocchio gets his wish
Larson loves taking shots at the little wooden boy
in One of the definitive For side Comics that nails Larson’s sense of humorThe enchanted puppet Pinocchio suddenly gets his wish to become a flesh and blood child… just in time for the change to get him mauled by a pride of lions. The comic demonstrates Larson’s habit of showing the moment Before The action, which allows the reader to imagine what comes next. While all the comics poking fun at kids being eaten so far have clearly been done in good humor, the number of Pinocchio comics across For side‘s run could lead anyone to believe that Larson had it in for the character (Disney’s version in particular.)
Throughout Larson’s run, Pinocchio is attacked by everything from cats and beavers to vulture-like woodpeckers, while Jiminy Cricket ends up in an entomologist’s killing jar. However, The Lion Pass remains the darkest (and funniest) specifically because it deals up the horror by making Pinocchio (temporarily) flesh and blood.
1
The Anderson Brothers
Larson’s conservationist beliefs shine through
While For side Often showing terrible things happening to goofy characters, this strip serves up some truth schadenfreude As two kids throw a bear cub between them are quietly stalked by his mother. Unlike the Pinocchio comic, The violence here is not just impliedWith Larson authoritatively stating that the kids were never heard from again.
Larson is a long-term supporter of conservationist charities, engaged in fundraising for the cause of protecting the natural world, and has stated that this belief is one of the only ‘political’ aspects of his work. In this case, messing with nature comes with a heavy price, even for kids.
Bonus: bobbing for poodles
The pass may not seem like it has anything to do with eating children, but that’s only because Larson made a last-minute change. Some For side Comics ended up receiving hate mail, especially those that included violence directed at household pets. in The prehistory of the far sideLarson includes some hate mail about the strip that reads:
You have offended millions of pet owners with this garbage. If you can’t do better than this, we suggest you look for another profession.
However, things could have been a site Worse for the reader, as Larson adds, “Thank God I didn’t go with my first headline, ‘Babbing for Babies’.”
These are the 13 funniest For side Comics that showcase Larson’s inexplicable obsession with kids being eaten by animals, witches and bugs. We still need to know which of the strips is #1, so Please vote below For the kids For side Pass that you think deserves to be crowned the funniest.
Source: TheFarSide.com