8 Perfect Far Side Comics About Spiders

Published Oct 6, 2026, 9:43 AM EDT

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.

Spiders are spooky to many people, but to Far Side creator Gary Larson, they were a subject of fascination. Which in turn made them the subject of multiple classic Far Side jokes. This list counts down the best Far Sides starring eight-legged characters.

Animals and insects were staples of The Far Side, and they proved to be clutch players in Larson's ongoing project of making fun of humanity through the prism of various nonhuman characters. Different nonhuman characters achieved this in different ways, and spiders turned out to be a unique vector for The Far Side's comedy.

Below is a curated selection of Far Side spider jokes, ranked in terms of construction, impact, memorability, and unreplicable use of the arachnid as a comedic character.

8 "Tough Spiders"

First Published: August 29, 1987

There's something remarkable about encountering a trope, but in a novel form. That was part of The Far Side's charm. Take this cartoon for example. You know the stock character. Big, burly, biker-type. Looks mean and threatening, but he's got a big heart tattoo over his own heart that says "Mom," suggesting a big ol' softy hidden within the hard exterior. Now, make the guy a spider.

Lounging at the center of a web of chains, smoking a cig, daring any insect to insult him for being a mama's boy. Captioned simply, "tough spiders," the outlaw-coded arachnid and its "Mom" are the undisputed star of this Far Side cartoon.

7 "Did I Scare You Or What?"

First Published: October 26, 1988

The Far Side didn't make jokes like this often. Gary Larson pushed plenty of boundaries, in terms of what he could get away with in a newspaper comic. (For example: Larson proudly laid claim to the first ever cartoon butt in the morning paper.) But he never really indulged in toilet humor. With this cartoon being the exception to that rule.

The spider, as a character, proved to be the perfect proxy for Larson to test out some scatological humor, Far Side style. In the cartoon, one spider puts a bag with a scary face cut out over its head and scares the webbing out of its friend. Readers can tell the scared spider's eyes are bulging out of its head, but "Bob" has its back turned to us, and the focus is on the thread spilling out of him and piling onto the ground.

6 "The Spider Mafia"

First Published: November 8, 1991

With The Far Side, Gary Larson cultivated a portfolio of recurring jokes that he remixed and reimagined periodically over the years. He also had a roster of recurring, reliable character archetypes, including the spider. One of the great things about digging deep into The Far Side is finding the cartoons where two recurring elements intersect, like this one.

That is, Far Side's Mafia jokes done spider-style. Larson found the "cement boots" concept, an alleged method of Mafia execution, endlessly fascinating, and found multiple ways to make it funny over the years. Here, the doomed spider victim has all eight legs encased in cement blocks. It's an absurd classic, with every detail adding up in its calculus of ridiculousness, from the horrified look on the falling spider's face, to the stern satisfaction of the "spider Mafia at work" on the bridge above.

5 "The Old Spiders' Home"

First Published: September 7, 1987

Captioned, "At the Old Spiders' Home,' this Far Side cartoon is a "slice of life," American pastoral moment. If Americana painter Norman Rockwell and sci-fi author Vernor Vinge were fused together in David Cronenberg's Fly machine, that is. Which is exactly the kind of laboratory origin story for Gary Larson that Larson would probably be thrilled with.

One of the spiders regales its buddies with the story of "the time back in '54 when...a fly flew right down [its] throat," which one of the other elderly spiders notes has been rehashed "about 900 times." It is a classic Far Side blend of the recognizable and the surreal, putting human behavior in a context that shows its inherent absurdity.

4 "Moths, Moths, Moths!"

First Published: August 14, 1991

In this Far Side cartoon, a couple of spiders have posted up in a sweet spot, spinning their web right in front of a lightbulb in order to catch the bugs that are drawn to it. As this cartoon makes clear, that has its upsides and downsides. Upside: steady food. Downside: that food is mostly "moths, moths, moths!"

"Every night you ask me what's for dinner," one spider snarls at the other, "and every night I say the same thing." The idea of getting frustrated at a repetitive strain of conversation is familiar, and funny. But the real punchline here is the visual of the web and the lightbulb, and the bit about "moths," which leaves just enough room for Far Side readers to put it together themselves.

3 "Spider Personals"

First Published: February 12, 1987

Gary Larson loved science, and he loved insects. It's a fair guess to say that he probably had more than one book on insectology, and arachnology, specifically, in his house at the time he published this Far Side cartoon nearly 40 years ago. (And if Larson is the type to not get rid of his old books, he probably has even more these days.)

All that's to say, Larson probably knows more about spider mating rituals than the average person. The average person, though, is at least familiar with the mating process of the black widow, which can be fatal to males who don't escape immediately after. Which is the crux of "Spider Personals."

Here, a spider looks in the paper for a potential mate, and finds it only adds from black widows. Most of the ads read innocuous enough, though there is one, partially out of frame on the right side, that ominously mentions "having a male...for a quiet dinner."

2 "The Same Dream Night After Night"

First Published: July 7, 1987

Another iconic intersection of a recurring Far Side location, the psychiatrist's office, refreshed by having an unconventional client on the couch for counseling. In this case, a spider, with the arachnid recounting a dream it keeps having "night after night," one that seems rich with psychological significance.

"I walk out on my web," the spider says, as the doctor writes it down word for word, "and suddenly a foot sticks...and then another foot sticks, and another, and another, and another..." That repetition is the real heart of the gag here, its comedic raison d'être. Yet it is impossible to deny that there's a deeper meaning Far Side readers can extract from this cartoon.

That is, the idea of the predator subconsciously afraid of becoming prey to its own trap. Gary Larson likely didn't think that deep when delivering this punchline, but intentionally or not, it is there in the subtext.

1 "We'll Eat Like Kings"

First Published: November 17, 1983

An all-time Far Side classic. This cartoon stars a pair of spiders with big ambitions, and even bigger appetites. So much so that they've had enough with flies and decided to go after a much bigger target: a human child.

"If we pull this off," one spider says to the other, after they've strung up their web at the end of a playground slide, "we'll eat like kings." It's a hilarious line of Far Side dialogue, capturing the hubris of a couple of schemers who are probably not going to pull this stunt off.

The kid that goes down the slide might be horrified when they go through a spider web, but they're not likely to be captured and eaten. So, it's ultimately a win for the kid, and a loss for the spiders. Still, in this moment, success is still possible, and that's the added ingredient that makes this the best Far Side spider cartoon.