Chicken jokes are one of the most beloved recurring elements fromThe Far Side, meaning thatby developing a better sense of how artist Gary Larson used chickens in his cartoons over time, and how that usage changed over time, can afford readers a greater understanding of his workas a whole.
Given their ubiquity during the halcyon days ofThe Far Side’sfifteen-year run in publication, chickens were surprisingly slow to become a staple of Gary Larson’s work. By thetime of Larson’s retirement, though, his chicken jokes were as ambitious and outrageous as anything he produced late in his career.
In fact, Larson continued to producehigh-gradeFar Sidechicken jokesright up until the end, with some of his funniest coming in the final stretch of the comic’s run.
10The Far Side’s First Chicken Comic Hinted At Ther Potential For Comedy
First Published: June 18, 2025
Readers might be surprised to discover that chickens were almost an afterthought in theirFar Sidedebut. That is, in this panel, they are not the focus of the punchline, though they play an integral role in making it funny.“The next trail drive I sign onto, I’m readin' the fine print!” a disgruntled cattle rustler says, havingtaken this job expecting cows, and instead herding chickens.
The role of chickens here stems from Gary Larson considering what the funniest substitute for cows would be, and choosing an animal he could easily populate an entire frame with. Overall,this early Far Side cartoonis just a taste of chickens' capacity for comedy, as Larson would make clear with subsequent comics.
9Gary Larson’s Second Chicken Comic Helped Establish More Than One Classic Far Side Trope
First Published: July 14, 2025
The Far Side’schickens take center stage for the first of many times in this panel, which also provides an early example of tworecurring bits every fan of Gary Larson’s work will recognize. The first is the idea of animals, especially farm animals, clandestinely acting like humans; the second is the “scientific presentation” trope, which was theformula for many hilariousFar Sidecomics.
The Far Side’s First 5 Cow Comics & Last 5 Cow Comics (And How Gary Larson’s Style Evolved In Between)
Cows were a staple of “The Far Side” over the years, and a look at the first & last 5 cows to appear in the comic shows how Gary Larson’s style grew.
That includes this one, in whicha chicken points at an image of a grown man, next to that of a baby, and lectures its cohorts, “now here’s one of the mysteries of the universe…which came first?“in a pitch-perfectFar Sideinversion of the perennial “chicken or the egg” question.
8The First Full Color Far Side Chicken Comic Uses It To The Joke’s Advantage
First Published: June 06, 2025
“Don’t encourage him, Sylvia” one chicken tells another, as they sit having a drink in a bar –while from an adjacent table, a peacock tries to get their attention with his brilliantly rendered blue-and-green plumage. It is as straightforward a joke asThe Far Sideever delivered, which is why itsticks with fans of Gary Larson’s work, who embraced confusion by necessity, if not by choice.
Here, the notable thing is the way color makes it stronger; while the joke still works in black-and-white – as it would have appeared in many newspapers originally – the visual gag lands more effectively in color, as the peacock’s feathers draw the reader’s attention just as they are tempting Sylvia.
7The First Time A Far Side Chicken Threatened The Life Of A Farmer – But Not The Last
First Published: August 15, 2025
“Well, that does it,” one hen says to anotherafter a farmer takes one egg too many from her, “tomorrow he dies.“It is a shockingly terse, callous declaration of the intent to murder a man, with the brevity and bluntness of the line making it all the more of a sharp, laugh-out-loud punchline.
The relationship between chickens and humans would only grow more convoluted and contentiousasThe Far Sideprogressed, with this panel essentially acting as a prelude to all that was to come. In this sense, Gary Larson’s chicken humor takes another step forward here, setting a precedent for a joke the author would return to frequently, one that notably holds up as one of the best examples of it.
6The Fifth Far Side Chicken Comic Is An All-Time Great One
First Published: June 21, 2025
ThisFar Sidepanel is peak absurdity, featuring a womanwalking along the path back to her house from her chicken coop with a fresh basket of eggs – while a chicken heads in the opposite direction carrying a baby.Without needing a caption, thisFar Sidecomic executes its punchline at a high-level, and in the process, offers one of the best examples of a perennialFar Sidetheme.
The Far Side Complete Collection
Fans of the far side can’t pass up this master collection of Gary Larson’s finest work. Originally published in hardcover in 2003, this paperback set comes complete with a newly designed slipcase that will look great on any shelf. The Complete Far Side contains every Far Side cartoon ever published, which amounts to over 4,000, plus more than 1,100 that have never before appeared in a book and even some made after Larson retired.
Gary Larson often highlighted the innate strangeness of human behavior by swapping in animals, but here he takes that one step further by actually having the human character, mid-behavior, confronted by her warped mirror, in the form of a chicken making off with an infant. It is strange and surreal, and it shows another leveling up of Larson’sFar Sidechicken jokes.
5The Far Side’s Final Stretch Of Chicken Jokes Starts With A Vision Of A Bleak Future
First Published: June 22, 2025
Apropos for a comic that was less than a year from ending, thisFar Sidechicken comic is all about impending doom, as a barnyard fortune-teller looks into her crystal ball and finds nothing good coming for any of her clients.As the caption reads:
Whoa! Another bad one!…I see your severed head lying quietly in the red-stained dirt, a surprised expression still frozen in your lifeless eyes…Next!
There is a lot going on in thisFar Sidejoke, from the base-level absurdity of the chicken soothsayer given all the other hens the exact same bad reading, to the evocative, detail-filled dialogue, and the matter-of-fact tone it is delivered in. All of this amounts to a solidFar Sidecomic, one that shows how much more sophisticatedGary Larson’s style of humorbecame over the course of his career.
4The Far Side’s “Stackable Livestock” Comic Is One Of Gary Larson’s Weirdest “What If?” Questions
First Published: August 11, 2025
ThisFar Sidecartoon stands out as particularly strange, even among Gary Larson’s notoriously weird ouvre. “My life’s changed,ever since I discovered Stackable Livestock” a farmer tells his friend, showing off his neatly stacked sheep, cows, and of course, chickens.
Seemingly the result of Gary Larson asking himself, “how much space would farmers save if they could stack their livestock?” thisFar Sidecartoon is a deliberately ludicrous “What if?”, one that reminds readers Larson had to amuse himself with an idea before it could be realized and published, so that it could amuse anyone else. Admittedly, the imagery is undeniably funny, and the concept is so bizarre that it will stick in readers' minds.
3One Of The Far Side’s Last “Bedtime” Cartoons Starred Chickens
First Published: July 08, 2025
Kids being put to bed at night was another semi-regularFar Sidetrope, and this is one of the final ones Gary Larson produced. Here, a mother hen stands at the foot of her kids beds,as one chicklet blames the other for making noise past their bedtime, saying “no way it was me, Mom– you must have heard a peep out of Eddie!”
Larson’s playful over-literalization of a popular sayingwill elicit a smile from most readers, even if it doesn’t strike them as laugh-out-loud funny. Though it is undervalued as one of the many emotionsThe Far Sidecould elicit from any given panel, it is possible the intention of this cartoon was more to tug on the reader’s sense of sentiment, rather than to get a huge laugh.
2Gary Larson Uses Chickens To Make A Dig At The Exploitation Of Labor
First Published: June 01, 2025
“Oh yeah! They work real hard, all day long, seven days a week,“a human factory owner tells a visitor, as they look down at his work force, which consists entirely of chickens.“And here’s the best part,” he adds, “for chicken feed!“Though the pun here is obvious enough, thisFar Sidepanel also clearly has something to say about very real labor exploitation.
The Far Side’s “Chicken Of Depression” Comic (And How It Shows Off Gary Larson’s Technique Of Taking Things Too Literally On Purpose)
Despite the Far Side’s reputation for sowing confusion, Gary Larson’s humor was often overly literal, as his “Chicken of Depression” comic shows.
ThoughGary Larson deniedFar Sidecomics had deeper meaning, his opinions and feelings saturated the cartoon, and as a result, a form of social critique can be readily extracted from at least some of his work. That is certainly the case here, as Larson comments on inhumane labor practices by making his characters literally not human.
1The Chickens Of The Far Side Mourn The End Of The Comic
First Published: August 10, 2025
The Far Side’sfinal chicken panelfeatures a funeral, which is fitting considering it is the last of the birds' iconic appearances in Gary Larson’s magnum opus. The funeral in question is for a chicken named Norman,who “was beheaded, cleaned, and plucked” – with a cooked chicken hilariously sticking out from an open casket.
Just as readers shouldn’t mourn the end ofThe Far Side, the speaker at the podium here suggests that those gathered “take comfort knowing he would have gotten a kick out of this,” as apparently the deceased had “a wacky sense of humor.” It is a deliriously funny response to death, making it a fitting note forThe Far Side’schickens to go out on.
The Far Side
The Far Side is a humorous comic series developed by Gary Larson. The series has been in production since 1979 and features a wide array of comic collections, calendars, art, and other miscellaneous items.
