Few things go right for the denizens of Gary Larson's world, but some Far Side characters are responsible for their own suffering. Whether it's forgetting something vital or making a bad situation worse, the people, animals and aliens in these strips made major mistakes.

In these 12 comics, Gary Larson serves up some of his best jokes, all on the theme of people who have one big regret. From marooned aliens to the world's greatest escape artist, these Far Side characters might have been fine if they'd just done one thing differently.

12 Magazine

This Far Side Character Could Have Made the Afterlife Bearable

Starting off gentle, the worst has already happened to this Far Side character, sending him to his eternal reward. The only problem is that it turns out Heaven is pretty boring, with little to do other than chill out in the clouds. This character's regret is that he didn't grab a magazine on his way to the Pearly Gates - a minor distraction that might have made eternal bliss just that little bit more exciting.

11 One Lousy Little Bee

Far Side's Aliens Aren't Much Smarter Than Its Humans

We've all overreacted to a minor problem and made it way worse, but not as badly as this strip's alien characters, who have ended up crash landing on Earth all for the sake of a single bee. Larson draws the aliens in a pose of perfect dejection, as on the horizon a group of humans arrive to initiate a truly unfortunate form of first .

Aliens appear throughout The Far Side, with Larson never settling on a single design for his otherworldly characters. This allows him to use them both as human-esque stand-ins and as surprising visual gags, from giant aliens accidentally crushing Earth to a bizarre extraterrestrial falling in love with a landing craft.

10 The First Drop of Rain

A Lot of Far Side's Mistakes Leave No Survivors

In this strip, a trio of prisoners dig their way to freedom, with Far Side depicting them at the moment before they emerge... right into a gigantic body of water. At best, these prisoners will be washed right back into captivity, and at worst they'll be food for the fishes. Far Side's dark sense of humor means that Larson has plenty of comics where one mistake has a major body count. Larson is a master of finding the exact right moment to sell his jokes best - in this case, the lead prisoner just felt the first splash of water on his face, celebrating what he assumes is rainfall.

9 Firefighters

Far Side Doesn't Need a Caption to Make You Laugh

Some of Larson's best gags don't need words to land, and that's definitely the case in this all-time classic. In this strip, a group of firefighters use a life safety net to help a woman jump to safety from a burning building. Unfortunately, the tool ends up acting more like a trampoline, bouncing her straight into the building across the street... which is also on fire. The mistake leaves everyone back where they started, but this time with slightly less time to make a new plan.

8 Let Me Drive!

Far Side Is All About Road Safety

Everyone has made the mistake of taking a wrong turn, but few people have made such a wrong turn that they end up on the Moon. There's a deserved belly laugh in the idea that not only did these Far Side characters somehow accidentally travel through space, but we encounter them at a time when they've been driving around the Moon for a while, trying to figure out how to get back. Open the image gallery below for more Far Side comics about cars.

Far Side has a bunch of comics about the dangers that can befall drivers, but typical of Gary Larson's humor, they're not so much about traffic accidents as being mugged by bears and encountering the Creature from the Black Lagoon. However, in amongst the truly bizarre are some 'slice of life' jokes, such as a bird preparing to befoul an innocent driver's car with guano.

7 Houdini's Final Undoing

The World's Greatest Escape Artist Couldn't Survive The Far Side

In this strip, the iconic escape artist Houdini has fallen afoul of a simple joke store finger trap, apparently wasting away due to his inability to free himself from the children's toy. The strip is given an extra note of dark humor by the fact that many believe Houdini indeed died from a trick gone wrong. Houdini died from a ruptured appendix, which many put down to him being punched in the stomach by a fan who was trying to recreate Houdini's on-stage trick of taking a shot direct to the gut - tragically, without giving the performer time to actually brace himself.

Surprisingly for such a simple premise, this was one of the most stressful comics for Gary Larson to draw. In The Complete Far Side​​​​​​​, Larson describes drawing this strip as "my long day in hell," explaining that no matter what he tried, he couldn't capture the right mix of 'grisly but funny' for the character's skeleton. Larson explains:

What we have here is a decomposed body, with the main focus on the head. If it's too gruesome, it doesn't work. If it's too corny, it doesn't work. The expression on that face has to simultaneously capture silliness and scariness, horror and hilarity, sadness and stupidity. For me, this meant draw, erase, draw, erase, draw, erase ... for hours. I couldn't get it, although I think in the end I got sort of close. ... If it hadn't been for my deadline, I might be sitting there to this very day, doomed to draw Houdini's skull for the rest of my life until I, too, am discovered one day looking much like this very drawing, only perhaps funnier.

6 The Anderson Brothers

Far Side's Biggest Mistake Is Messing with Nature

If there's one mistake that no-one gets away with in the world of Far Side, it's messing with nature. Gary Larson has a longstanding love of the natural world - in fact, Far Side was originally going to be titled Nature's Way. So anyone who's foolish enough to mess around with a bear cub - like the foolish brothers in this strip - is pretty much guaranteed to pay the price. This strip shows how Larson uses the foreground and background of his comics to communicate different perspectives - in a series famous for single- gags, Larson is always finding creative ways to divide up an image.

5 A New Dryer

Is This Far Side's Most Innocent Victim?

In easily this list's most forgivable mistake, the cleaning lady of a genius scientist accidentally triggers his time machine, ending up stranded in prehistory and - let's face it - becoming lunch for a Tyrannosaur. While the poor woman did press the button that sealed her fate, it's hard to blame someone for messing with technology they can't even have imagined might exist.

Far Side loves throwing humans and dinosaurs together, as well as having prehistoric predators act like regular people. In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson its he feels bad for the historical inaccuracy, but nothing says 'huge trouble' like a T-Rex bearing down on an everyday schmo.

4 Wings Fall Off

Far Side Makes It Clear We're Blaming the Wrong Person

In another Far Side strip with a guaranteed body count, poor Ted accidentally flips the switch that turns his airplane into an oversized lawn dart. While Ted is the one who directly caused this disaster, we can't help but question the wisdom of installing this option in the first place, especially if it's offered to every enger.

3 Center for the Study of Viral Pathology

"Uh-Oh" Doesn't Quite Cover It

In most of these comics, people pay the price for their own mistakes, but in the case of this strip, everyone is at risk after two scientists drop a vial of what appears to be a highly contagious virus. This comic perfectly showcases Larson's talent for comedic under-reaction, as both the scientists and the pedestrians seriously downplay the likely consequences of this virus escaping. Why the scientists were goofing around with their vial right by an open window is best left to the reader, although in the world of Far Side, this barely qualifies as incompetence.