10 Darkly Funny 'Far Side' Comics About Clowns

On Oct. 3, 1994, The Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson released what he would later regard as his worst-ever comic strip. It features two clowns in a back alley. One of them has his back to the wall, while the other clown is about to throw a pie at him.

The clown with his back to the wall says, “I wouldn’t do that, Spunky — I have friends in pie places.” Years later, when Larson published The Complete Far Side, he included a note below this panel saying “Cartoonist’s note: Above is my own nominee for the worst cartoon I ever drew. (I still cringe.) — Gary Larson.” Honestly, I’m not so sure I agree with Larson here, as I think the pun is funny in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way. I also agree with the Redditor that said this comic strip would be a whole lot funnier without a caption at all. Regardless, it’s definitely not Larson’s best work, and certainly not his best featuring clowns.

They were actually a frequent subject of The Far Side, and the best jokes involving them were usually very dark, with clowns often dying, about to die, or causing some sort of horrible death to others. Here are 10 incredibly funny — and incredibly dark — The Far Side comics starring clowns. This is one of those Far Side comics where it takes a second to get the whole joke, as your eye immediately goes to the dead clown.

Once you notice the pie in the face of the gunfighter, then you’ve got it. This one is from 1984, a full decade before the comic strip Larson would later regard as his worst one ever. It kind of plays on the same idea, with criminal clowns sticking people up with pies.

It is a heck of a lot funnier, though. Maybe the problem with the 1994 one is that it was just a little too similar to this strip. This isn’t quite as dark as some of the others, but it’s still a clown terrorizing a whole city.

Just imagine how many people those giant feet have stepped on. I feel like if bullfights were just a sport where bulls had to run down clowns, everyone would get behind it — except maybe clowns. Somehow, in a comic strip that doesn’t feature a clown, Larson still makes clowns the butt of the joke.