Some of The Far Side’s less well-known recurring elements deserve recognition alongside the strip’s ubiquitous cows, and its constant jokes centered around canines – case in point, the regular appearances of Igor, the consummate mad scientist’s assistant, who popped up in many hilarious panels over the years, in which he routinely stole the spotlight.
Frankenstein was a common subject of Gary Larson’s pop culture humor, and Igor naturally shares many panels with both the infamous Doctor, and his monster. Yet there are a surprising number of cartoons in which Igor goes solo, and some of these represent Larson’s funniest use of the character.
The Far Side’s Igor panels also offer a window into how ideas tended to get stuck in Gary Larson’s mind, causing him to return to them over and over, in order to find the perfect formulation of a joke, even if it took years.
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Igor’s First Far Side Appearance Finds Him Freelancing
First Published: May 26, 1980
Though they are most commonly associated with one another – in pop culture and The Far Side – Dr. Frankenstein and Igor actually made their debuts in the strip separately. Frankenstein and his monster first appeared a little over a month before Igor showed up in this panel, in which he, somewhat surprisingly, isn’t working for his usual boss.
Or at least, it can be inferred this isn’t Frankenstein from the fact that the unnamed frustrated scientist – who sends Igor to the store for “two size D flashlight batteries” when their remote control dies – is not working on reanimating the dead, but rather on a giant city-destroying robot. In any case, it is clear that Gary Larson considered Igor the prototypical mad scientist’s assistant, making it a no-brainer that he would be used to help make this punchline more accessible to readers.
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The First Of Many Mix-Ups & Mishaps For The Far Side’s Igor
First Published: January 14, 1983
In this panel, Gary Larson establishes a premise he would revisit in multiple panels starring Igor, in which he is depicted as perennially hapless and put-upon by his manic employer. Here, Igor is shouted at, berated after he brings the wrong-sized wrench to Dr. Frankenstein, who is frantically working on his monster.
This characterization is the crux of the joke in this panel; while some Far Side readers might think they’re missing something here, rather than being too subtle, this cartoon is almost too obvious. That is, the punchline relies a little too heavily on readers to already find the dynamic between these characters amusing. Nevertheless, the look on Igor’s face in this comic is enough to get at least a solid chuckle out of many fans.
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A Classic Misunderstanding Has Igor In Trouble Again
First Published: November 18, 1983
Without a doubt, this is one of The Far Side’s funniest Igor appearances, as well as one of Gary Larson’s most outrageous pieces of wordplay. It is also a marvel of composition at the level of illustration, which works flawlessly with the caption to deliver a laugh-out-loud punchline.
As Dr. Frankenstein stands with his hands on his hips, complaining about how long he’s had to wait for Igor to “bring back a simple little brain,” Igor appears at the top of the stairs lugging a train. The humor of this panel has an almost slapstick quality to it, while the funniest part by far is the look on Igor’s face, as he overhears the mad scientist’s grumbling and realizes he completely misunderstood the assignment.
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It Doesn’t Take A Lot Of Brains To Understand What Makes The Far Side’s Igor Funny
First Published: September 19, 1985
Once more, the underlying premise of this Far Side Igor panel involves the character being sent out into the world to procure a brain for his employer’s experiment. In this instance, it seems as though his task is easier than ever, as he walks down a city street past multiple brain shops, including “Cerebellum City,” “Brainland,” “World of Brains,” and even “Bucket o’ Brains.”
Of course, readers have to question whether the pleasantly goofy look on Igor’s face is a result of the bounty of brain-selling establishments he has to choose from, or if it is a sign that he is obliviously walking right past all of these stores. Either option serves to similarly highlight the irreverent, outright goofy nature of The Far Side’s incarnation of Igor.
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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.
6
Sometimes The Far Side’s Igor Was Too Weird Even For Doctor Frankenstein
First Published: December 17, 1985
Another laugh-out-loud Far Side Igor joke, this one stands out for the way that it “lampshades” the weirdness of Gary Larson’s humor. In other words, this self-aware punchline calls attention to its own strangeness, as Dr. Frankenstein barks at Igor to stop putting his Wolfman puppet in the monster’s face, adding, “boy, sometimes you really are bizarre.“
Hilariously, this aside from no less than a mad scientist has the feeling of Gary Larson addressing himself – not just in a moment of personal reflection, but as if he has fully stepped outside himself and, even for a brief moment, into the shoes of the average reader. Without a doubt, many members Larson’s audience would have said to him precisely what Frankenstein tells Igor here.
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Igor Blows Off Some Steam, As Gary Larson Finds An Innovative Use For Him
First Published: January 8, 1987
By this point in The Far Side’s run, Gary Larson had already gotten some solid laughs with the idea of Igor as the constantly put-upon and put down assistant; here he finds a fresh new angle for that same joke, as Igor sits at a crowded bar and complains about how he is undervalued at work.
“My boss doesn’t appreciate me either” Igor gripes, and in the process, Gary Larson turns him into a proxy for every reader who might be dissatisfied with their job, or feel stuck in their career, or finds themselves at odds with their boss. By taking the character out of the laboratory and putting him in a public setting, Larson was able to inject new life into this premise, and the result is incredibly funny.
4
A Wild Departure From The Igor Readers Grew Familiar With
First Published: November 7, 1987
In one of Gary Larson’s patented wild swings, this Far Side panel doesn’t feature Igor proper, so to speak, but instead delivers a ridiculous extrapolation of the concept of the Igor character. It does this by depicting “a camel named Igor” – the joke being that the camel has an inverted hump, or an anti-hump, in contrast to the human Igor’s traditional depiction as having a hump on his back, something that Larson routinely leaned into with his iteration of the character.
While moreso smile-inducing than laugh-provoking, this panel is a keen example of Larson’s style of observational humor: first, observe something, in this case that Igor is commonly associated with having a hump, and then find a way to invert it, here by taking the animal kingdom’s most recognizable humpbacked animals and imagining that their version of Igor would have a valley on its back, rather than a peak.
3
Back To Basics For This Far Side Igor Appearance
First Published: February 11, 1988
This Far Side Igor cartoon goes back to the well, but it does so in order to deliver a high-caliber version of a familiar joke. Here, Dr. Frankenstein once again chastises Igor for costly mistakes in the laboratory. “First there’s that screw up with the wrong brain business” the scientist laments, then goes on to say, “and now you’ve let this head go through the wash in your pants’ pocket” as he holds a tiny version of the monster’s head in the palm of his hand.
Compositionally, this is a nigh-perfect Far Side comic. From the bolt of lightning through the window at the top of the frame, to the hue of the panel – which evokes a classic black-and-white film – to the look on Igor’s face, everything about this cartoon adds up to a joke that is effective at every stage of its set-up and execution.
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The Far Side Features Igor’s Origin Story
First Published: August 2, 1988
“A young Igor starts on his road to crime“ in this Far Side cartoon, as the slippery slope toward helping a mad scientist reanimate the dead using pilfered body parts starts with an impressionable Igor being convinced to go “graveborrowing.” The panel hilariously depicts Igor’s “friends” standing over a grave as he excavates it, laughing and drinking.
Though this is certainly funny, it also carries a strong note of sympathy for Igor. While this has been implicit in many of his panels, it is more overt here; as the caption makes clear, Igor is misled into digging up a grave, and readers that know it will become more than just a hobby for him, but a career, are likely to empathize with the inadverant start to his path in life.
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This Far Side Flashback Depicts Igor During His Glory Days
First Published: April 29, 1993
Fittingly, Igor’s final Far Side appearance finds him in an unfamiliar position – fitting in and having fun, rather than being cast out and castigated. “Back in his college days,” the caption explains, “Igor was known as the HBOC“; the acronym traditionally stood for “Head Boy on Campus,” and here, it not-so-subtly doubles for that, as well as a reference to Igor’s physique.
However, the funniest thing in the panel, once more, is Igor’s expression, and the looks on the faces of a group of college girls who eagerly crowd around him; he is depicted holding a football as he holds court, with another male student walking nearby, looking on with envy. In effect, it is a great way for Gary Larson to have left The Far Side’s version of Igor, as fans were privy to one of the character’s funniest, and most unique, appearances in his final cartoon.
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.
