Summary
Gary Larson’sFar Sideloves to combine laugh-out-loud humor with surprisingly dark themes, making the mob the perfect subject matter. Larson’s gangsters exist in a world of criminal clowns and sentient sandwiches, turning violent organized crime into an unlikely source of surreal humor.
Here are the 10 funniestFar Sidecomics that include mobsters, from acrossFar Side’s original 1980-1994 run. Be sure tovote in our end-of-article pollfor your favorite, and to see which strip was voted #1 by other readers.
10Primitive Mobsters
Far Side Loves Its Cavepeople
One ofFar Side’s best recurring jokes seescavepeople inventing various tools and gagetswith an uncanny idea of how they’ll be used in future. In the case of Larson’s prehistoric gangsters,Far Sidetakes the iconic image of 1930s mobsters hiding their tommy guns in violin cases. However, with no access to metallurgy or gunpowder, the hominids have hidden clubs rather than guns. However, the early gangsters at least retain their telltale fedoras.
OtherFar Sidecavepeople comics see the invention of the milkshake and an incredibly simple version of checkers with only two squares.This isThe Far Side’s oldest recurring gag- in fact, it appeared in thefirst everFar Sidecomic, where the gag of a caveman chiseling a wheel is revealed to actually be the debut of the hammer and chisel.
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9The Sandwich Mafia
Larson Revisited ‘Concrete Shoes’ Multiple Times
Another iconic aspect of the ’30s mobster aesthetic appears here, with the idea of gangsters using ‘concrete shoes’ to send their victims to a watery grave. In the case ofFar Side’s ‘sandwich Mafia,’ hungry kids can be trusted to remove all evidence of their crime far more than hungry fish. It’s worth noting that even in sandwich form, the mobsters still have their iconic fedoras, showing Larson’s love of giving instantly recognizable archetypes a new spin.
Larson revisits the ‘concrete shoes’ idea throughoutThe Far Side, finding new twistslike a spider being given eight ‘shoes’, a fish getting the opposite treatment with ‘styrofoam shoes’ and the Godfather’s dog receiving a mob execution after biting him.
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8Kneecaps from Hell
Larson Loves Messing with the Human Body
Two Mafia leg-breakers get way more than they were bargaining for after being sent to ‘deliver a message’ to a guy with gigantic, seemingly unbreakable kneecaps. It’s an incredibly goofy gag, while also exemplifying how Larson was able to take subject matterwaytoo dark for his contemporaries and turn it into belly-laugh humor. Of course,this wasn’t the only timeFar Sidegave a character a single gigantic body part.
InThe Complete Far Side, Larson says that he couldn’t always be sure he’d make the reader laugh, but hecouldalwaysmake them exclaim “What the–?“That’s definitely the case in these ‘giant body part’ gags, where the rules of the human body fly out of the window in favor of creating the weirdest situations possible.
7Slapman
Gary Larson’s Love of Worldplay Creates a Goofy Comic
Despite claiming inThe Complete Far Sidethat he never worried aboutThe Far Sidebeing"witty,“Larson has a love of wordplay, and especially of taking common idioms and unusual terms to their logical conclusions. In this case, Larson takes the idea of murderous mobhitmen and invents a lesser variant,slapmen, who deliver a slap across the face before running out of the door to their waiting getaway car. Showing the other diners' reactions helps sell the moment, since they react as if the poor victim has been gunned down, rather than just slapped.
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6Living Room
Far Side’s Gangsters Aren’t Exactly Terrifying
In the same vein as the slapmen,Far Side’s mobsters threaten their victim by adjusting thefeng shuiof their living space. This appears to be a play on the threat to ‘rearrange your face’ as a threat of violence. Larson increases the humor by including a six-strong team of mobsters to enact this incredibly low-stakes shakedown.
5Secret Knock
Far Side’s Recurring Character the Detective Busts Some Mobsters
Far Side’s gangsters don’t always get to win, and in this case their terrible choice of secret knock ruins their intended bank job. ‘Shave and haircut’ has a long history in Vaudeville performance, which is very much a forebear ofLarson’s sense of humor. This strip also includes theFar Sidemobsters' natural enemy - Larson’s recurring Noir detective.
While unnamed,the Detective appears acrossFar Sidehistory, acting as the straight man for many of Larson’s most bizarre crimes (indeed, we already met the detective in Larson’s"brains of the operation"comic.)
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4The Farmers' Mafia
Larson’s Movie References Are Still Genius Decades Later
In this strip, Larson combines mobster aesthetic withhis love of pop culture, referencing the iconic ‘horse’s head’ scene from Francis Ford Coppola’sThe Godfather. Of course, this beingThe Far Side, the dark scene gets a goofy twist, as the farmer’s Mafia uses the head of a chicken to make their threats. Larson often referenced classic movies inThe Far Side, putting his surreal twist on instantly recognizable scenes.
It’s notable that - in a comic published in the ’80s and ’90s - almost all ofLarson’s pop culture referencesstill hold up today. TheFar Sidecreator had a great eye for which movies and TV shows would still be relevant to readers decades later, and the most iconic scenes that would live on in the public imagination.
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3Wipe That Smile Off Your Face
Far Side Loves Clowns as Much as Mobsters
The Far Sideloves clowns even more than it loves gangsters, and here the two meet in an unfortunate moment for the restrained entertainer. This is another wordplay gag, as the threat to"wipe that smile off your face"no longer means to silence a mocking adversary but toliterallyremove the clown’s make-up. Larson enjoyed combining tragedy and humor in his comics - indeed, this iswhy he used cows so often, claiming they perfectly combined the two elements - and this is clear in his clown comics, where the merry jokesters often meet horrifying ends.
Larson’s clowns are gunned down by cowboys, hunted by polar bears, and taken (still grinning) to the electric chair. Consideringwhat’s possible for clowns inFar Side’s universe, being captured by Larson’s incompetent mobsters is actually one of the best outcomes they could hope for.
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2Death by Mime
Far Side’s Mobsters Finally Get Scary
Sometimes,The Far Side’s humor crosses over intogenuine (if still surreal) horror territory. Here, a victim of the mob is encased in a glass prison to run out of air, with passersby ignoring them (and even taking pictures) because they believe they’re a mime.As twisted as this joke is, it’s a gag that Larson clearly intendedFar Sidereaders to take with them into the real world, giving them an extra laugh the next time they see a ‘mime’ on the street.
1Organized Crime Informant
Far Side’s Best Mobster Comic
The Far Side’s best mobster joke doesn’t actually include any mobsters, as an organized crime informant’s identity is accidentally revealed to the world by a careless janitor.The Far Sidealways made fans work just a little bit harder for the joke than other newspaper comics, and here Larson lets the reader make the final connection of what just happened. Sadly, it seems the well-meaning informant is now heading for any of a number of punishments, ranging from rearranged furniture to asphyxiating in public while dressed as a mime.
Those are Gary Larson’s 10 funniestFar Sidecomics making fun of mobsters -be sure to vote in our poll belowfor your best of the bunch, as well as to see how your pick matches our other readers.
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.
