8 Far Side Comics That Prove Deer Were Its Secret Best Characters

Published Nov 2, 2026, 11:43 AM EST

Ambrose Tardive is an editor on ScreenRant's Comics team. Over the past two years, he has developed into the internet's foremost authority on The Far Side. Outside of his work for ScreenRant, Ambrose works as an Adjunct English Instructor.

There are certain animals that dominate the conversation when it comes to The Far Side. Cows, obviously, and chickens, but also bears, and alligators, and snakes, and all kinds of insects. Deer are often overlooked, which is funny, because they might have wound up being Gary Larson's favorite animal characters by the time he retired.

It didn't start out that way. Larson didn't make his first full-fledged deer joke for a few years (we'll get to it below), but once he did, they started to appear with increasing frequency. By the mid-80s, they were official Far Side regulars, and by the end of the comic's run, they were tried-and-true staples of the strip.

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8 The First Far Side Comic Starring Deer

Surprisingly, aside from a couple cameos as "extras" in Far Side cartoons starring other animals, it took a few years for deer to catch on as regulars in Gary Larson's cast of repertory players. This 1983 cartoon was the one that started it all. In the panel, a pair of fawns play a classically cruel Far Side prank on their mother.

They play dead, but in a way that only works for animals who have to fear human trophy hunters. That is, one of them puts a wooden plaque around their neck and pretends to be a mounted head. The other acts as a look-out, giving a heads-up when their mom approaches in the distance. It's a solid punchline, and it gives a taste of the hilarity that would ensue as deer became The Far Side's low-key most reliable recurring characters.

7 "Everything's Gonna Be Reeal Cool, Son"

The dialogue is the real centerpiece of this Far Side cartoon, but words are nothing without context. The context here is that they are being spoken by a deer, to a human. The human has a rifle, but he's still cowering in terror. The deer approaches him, on its hind legs, with its front hooves in the air in a calming gesture, speaking like a veteran hostage negotiator. "I'm gonna come over there now," the deer says, "and you can just hand me your gun."

This Far Side comic brilliantly flips the power dynamic between hunter and deer, in a way that Gary Larson would revisit repeatedly over the years. "Deer vs. hunters" became as reliable of a Far Side gimmick as "dogs vs. mail carriers," and in both cases, the odds were usually skewed in favor of the animals.

6 "No Trade Until We Check Our Guy Out"

Here, at least, the playing field between hunter and hunted is pretty much level. Each side has captured one of the other, and they're meeting in a clearing to arrange a quid pro quo exchange. It is a great visual Far Side punchline. The humans on the left side of the extra-wide frame, a deer on its hind legs, tied up with a rope. Across the clearing, the deer's friends have his opposite number bound the exact same way.

Earlier, we said context is important, and that's true, but The Far Side is also a testament to the glory of the non sequitur. Most Far Sides capture a single moment, leaving the before and after to readers' imaginations. In this cartoon, for example, enough context can be inferred to get the joke, but Far Side fans are still left wondering "how, exactly, did these characters get in this situation?"

5 "The Mark Of Deero"

Pop culture references dominated The Far Side. In this cartoon, Gary Larson imagines an animal equivalent to Zorro, the swashbuckling renegade who debuted way back in 1919 and has been a popular modern folk hero ever since. (Funnily enough, "zorro" is Spanish for "fox," but foxes were never more than bit players in The Far Side canon.)

Making the character into "Deero" highlights how the choice of animal character was essential to any given Far Side joke. Zorro is a liberator, who fights for the weak and oppressed against their oppressors. Unlike bears, or rhinos, deer are prey to human hunters that don't stand nearly the same fighting chance. So, having a masked swordsdeer to champion them is the crux of the punchline, with the illustration showing Deero absconding after carving his mark into the door of "Norm's Hunting Lodge."

4 "Settle This The Old-Fashioned Way"

In this Far Side cartoon, not only are deer and hunters equally matched combatants, but they share a degree of mutual respect as enemies. Enough so that when a human hunter and deer find themselves face-to-face "deep in the forest," with no one else around, they opt to "settle this the old-fashioned way." Who is going to win in a "fair" fight? That's up to readers to decide for themselves. (Tell us what you think in the comments!)

Meaning, fist vs. hoof. The man tosses his rifle aside, and the deer does the same with its antlers. That visual is the peak of the punchline, the moment when an already ridiculous premise becomes even more patently outrageous. Which solidifies it as a masterpiece. It is like having an absurdity sundae with an absurd cherry on top.

3 "Deer Vandals"​​​​​​​

Captioned simply "Deer vandals," this is one of those "slice of life" Far Side comics, where ordinary human behavior is revealed for how ridiculous it actually is. Here, Gary Larson uses one of his most tried and true techniques: swapping in animals for humans. This amounts to a trio of deer youths, smoking and drinking by the side of the road, proudly observing their work after having just dinged up a "Human Crossing" sign.

Just like human delinquents might do to a "Deer Xing" sign. As The Far Side progressed, it seems like Larson saw more and more of a close correlation between deer and humans, or at least the most comedic equivalence. That paid dividends with more Far Sides like this one in the later years of his career.

2 ​​​​​​​"The Trail, Apparently, Had Been False"

An all-time Far Side classic. Bathrooms, public and private, might have been underutilized as Far Side locations, but here it proved to be the perfect setting to bring the "hunters vs. deer" conflict into. And it is about as close to scatological humor as Gary Larson ever tread. In this panel, a deer manages to evade a hunter by going into a human public restroom.

Despite the deer's hooves being visible, if "Gus" the hunter were to bend down and look under the stall doors, he ultimately concludes that "the trail, apparently, had been false." The mock Nat Geo tone of this cartoon and the incongruity of its setting with its subjects makes this a high-level success for Larson, one of those Far Sides that came together perfectly from a confluence of comedic elements.

1 The Last Far Side Deer Comic

By the time it ended on New Year's Day 1995, The Far Side hadn't exactly gone out with a whimper, but it didn't end with a bang either. That's literally the case in this Far Side, where a hunter finally gets the drop on a buck, only to have to stop short of pulling the trigger because of the "Reserved" sign hanging around its neck.

Whether another hunter put that there, or the deer wisely wears the sign to outsmart hunters like this guy, it gets to live another day. And one more hunter's plans are thwarted. That makes it a successful last Far Side deer comic, even if it doesn't reach the spectacular heights of some of its predecessors.