Widely considered among The Far Side most iconic cartoons, ‘Dog With Gun’ also perfectly encapsulates one of Gary Larson’s favorite comic book tropes: jokes about animals, especially pets, turning the tables on humans. This perennial premise has appeared repeatedly throughout The Far Side run, but perhaps no other panel illustrated it better than “Dog With Gun.”
The beauty of The Far Side it was the way Larson could return to the same joke in drastically different ways, sometimes weeks apart, sometimes years apart; In a sense, “animals vs. humans” is an entire category of Far Side cartoons, and a subcategory that involves animals subverting their usual dynamics with humans.
Naturally, dogs and cats were Larson’s most effective animal characters in reaching this conclusion, because these were the animals whose behaviors his readers were most likely familiar with.
Far Side’s ‘Dog With Gun’ Comic Strip Explained (Why It’s Considered One of Gary Larson’s Funniest)
First published: June 3, 1987
Far Side Comics that hook readers often fall on two opposite sides of the comic book confusion spectrum – that is, they’re either incredibly difficult to decipher or incredibly simple. “Dog With Gun” is one of the latter; its humor, both at the level of the image and the caption, is immediately clear and has a great chance of connecting with readers due to the comic’s deft inversion of familiar subject matter. What’s more, readers can even imagine themselves in the place of the human characters, something that hasn’t always happened with The Far Side.
Most dog owners would have a hard time imagining their beloved pet suddenly pointing a pistol at them without bursting into laughter…here, Larson captures that fanciful, fleeting thought in an expert Far Side fashion.
In “Dog with a Gun”, A canine points a pistol at his owners as they eat dinner, the dog baring his teeth and sternly telling the house owner, “hHey, Bucko… I’m tired of begging,“ leaving the man to process this drastic turnaround with his mouth still full of food. Part of what makes the cartoon so funny is this sense of escalation – without any additional context for this moment, readers might assume that the dog, up to this point, has acted like an ordinary household pet.
The caption for “Dog With Gun” takes the most ubiquitous dog behavior – begging for scraps of food – and inverts it to achieve a hilarious result, as the dog completely distorts the power structure of the pet owner dynamic by bringing a gun. of fire to the table. , literally. More than clever, this joke is easy for readers to connect with; Most dog owners would have a hard time imagining their beloved pet suddenly pointing a pistol at them without bursting into laughter at the thought, and here, Larson captures that fanciful, fleeting thought in an expert Far Side fashion.
Gary Larson Produced a ‘Sequel’ to ‘Dog With Gun’ – The Far Side’s ‘Dog With Dynamite Vest’ Comic, Explained
First published: February 6, 1988
Since the beginning of The Far SideThe “animals turn the tables on humans” concept had been a staple of Gary Larson’s recurring jokes and tropes, and so it’s interesting to note that “Dog With Gun” was published in June 1987 – in what is essentially , the exact midpoint of The Far Side run. In a way, Larson worked on this iteration of the joke over the years, and even he apparently knew how great it was, because he came back to play with a “sequel” of sorts a little over six months later.
“Dog With Dynamite Vest” is a “sequel” in the sense that it takes the premise of the original and expands on it even further; Instead of a gun, this dog confronts his owner with dynamite strapped to his chest. While this panel is also funny, it also has a harder side, which, one could argue, detracts from the humor – at least in comparison to “Dog With Gun.” “Dog With Dynamite Vest” also firmly expresses the readers’ sympathy for the dog rather than humans, further changing the tenor of the joke.
That is, the humor of “Dog With Gun” is rooted in the pet dog driven to the limit by his desire for people’s food and, consequently, an overreaction. In “Dog with a Dynamite Vest”, the owner is presented as abusive, with the dog’s exhortation of “do you want to kick me? Go ahead!“making it clear that he was driven to this point of despair by the cruel treatment he suffered. In a way, this makes the “story” of this Far Side more engaging panel, but possibly at the expense of making you laugh.
The animals on the other side were vindicated when they faced the humans – for the most part
Gary Larson’s Most Socially Relevant Humor
There is a way in which “Dog With Dynamite Vest” is more reflective of the central theme present in The Far Side “animals versus humans” cartoons than “Dog With Gun” is a matter of perspective. “Dog With Gun” makes the reader identify with its human characters, while “Dog With Dynamite Vest” does the opposite, which is much more in line with The Far Side pro-animal foundations. Most of the time when animals attack The Far Sidehumans were described as having brought this about by abusing nature.
The Far Side panels “animals vs. humans” pointed out the excesses of violent behavior of humans towards other species; although he did it through humor, Gary Larson’s criticism was very real.
It wasn’t always this way – in many panels, humans Far Side the characters were doomed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and encountering the wrong predator. Generally, however, The Far Side panels “animals vs. humans” pointed out the excesses of violent behavior of humans towards other species; although he did it through humor, Gary Larson’s criticism was very real. “Dog With Gun” managed to balance this theme with a fun illustration and an equally funny caption, possibly better than any other Far Side panel of this type.
‘Dog With Gun’ stands out the most, but many of Far Side’s ‘Animal Vs. Humans’ comics hold their own
Larson has nurtured this recurring joke for years
The reasons why “Dog With Gun” remains so memorable are quite evident – it is, perhaps, the closest Gary Larson has come to producing a true successor to “Dogs Playing Poker” with The Far Sidein an image that struck a perfect balance between the absurd and the familiar. Still, many of Larson’s “animals versus humans” cartoons achieved equally effective and hilarious results; essentially, each The Far Side The most common animals, from bears to cows to ducks and more, have their own “turn the tables” moment.
Part of The Far Side the strength came from playing with things that readers recognized and, over time, being able to cultivate its own familiar set of recurring elements and signifiers. By the time “Dog With Gun” was published, regular readers of Gary Larson’s strip would have recognized the setting and appreciated the joke of how close to home it hit, at least for the many American newspaper readers with pet dogs. In this way, the panel is representative of The Far Side in its greatest success, in one of its most appealing comics.