Gary Larson's The Far Side is easily the wittiest comic strip of all time, with the creator's love of language shining through in every caption. However, not every Far Side needs a caption - or even dialogue - to hit you square in the funny bone.

Across Far Side's 1980-1995 run, Larson occasionally treated fans to genius gags that go completely without words - all the more impressive due to Far Side almost exclusively using single images.

Here are the ten funniest wordless Far Side comics of all time, plus a significant helping of runners-up for the title. The top ten aren't ranked, but vote in our end-of-article poll to see what other readers consider the #1.

Goldfish | Published May 9, 1985

This comic strip plays off the common comedic trope of kids playing baseball and accidentally smashing a window. However, when those kids are goldfish, the accident becomes a little more serious.

Larson is the master of depicting the aftermath and letting readers figure out what happened right before it, adding to their mirth after the micro-pause needed to put things together. However, this strip manages to be particularly brilliant for depicting the moment IMMEDIATELY after the glass smashes. Despite the likely fatal consequences, the fish aren't panicking yet, serving up a perfect under-reaction.

Eggs | Published January 2, 1982

In this goofy 'reversal' gag, a woman who has just taken a bunch of eggs from chickens is shocked to see them spiriting away her baby. Larson's habit of having his characters under-react is on show again - this woman is NOT upset enough to see her baby being kidnapped. While cows get all the attention, chickens are The Far Side's undersung stars.

Fire | Published March 31, 1981

In one of his best comic concepts of all time, Larson depicts a woman jumping out of a flaming building, only to be bounced directly into the adjacent, also fiery structure. It's a perfect physical gag, but one that could only really work in a cartoon universe.

Flower | Published November 27, 1981

Larson's comic instincts often lean into the surreal, absurd and morbid, but every so often he serves up a pitch perfect observation of human nature. In this strip, a guy mowing his lawn is elated to spot a single flower standing tall.

It's difficult to describe the emotional experience of being presented with this kind of perfect target, but pretty much everyone reading this comic knows exactly how the guy feels without any dialogue being needed.

Window | May 15, 1980

When Larson started The Far Side, his editors advised him to include recurring characters that readers would come back to see again and again. Larson refused, since he wanted characters who could be 'crunched, speared, shot, beheaded, eaten, stuffed, poisoned, and run over about twice a week' without alienating readers.

This comic strip where an old lady accidentally kills a window washer by throwing her windows wide open proves Larson made the right decision.

Boat | Published November 20, 1981

Not every Far Side comic is a single panel. This strip plays a perspective trick that hits even harder in Larson's minimalist style, showing one of his iconic desert island exiles seeing what he thinks is a ship coming to rescue him, only to realize it's a toy once it gets closer. As funny as this comic is, it's hard to believe that Larson of all people couldn't have boiled it down to a single panel if he'd had the idea later in his cartoonist career.

Alien | Published June 12, 1988

Across The Far Side, Larson never settled on a singular design for his aliens, despite quickly establishing repeating stock characters like the nerdy kid and the woman in horn-rimmed glasses. That turned out to be a fantastic decision, since it opens up gags like this - one where massive changes in form and scale allow for neat reversals, like an extraterrestrial who sees a lunar module as trash.

Frog | Published August 14, 1984

As mentioned, Far Side's characters often under-react to extreme situations, so it's nice every so often to see one of them absolutely freaking out. In this strip, a frog spots an airplane and mistakes it for a gigantic fly - a gag Larson recreated elsewhere with a spider spinning a web across a kids' slide and a fisherman attempting to catch a submarine. Impressively, this isn't Larson's only fantastic 'silent' comic starring a frog.

It was hard picking between these amphibian gags, but ultimately the former is a better example of that micro-pause before the reader understands the context.

Car | August 8, 1981

Larson LOVES the theme of cavemen being responsible for goofy inventions. In this case, he reverses the concept of the invention of the wheel, suggesting that one caveman came up with every other part of the car first, with the resulting disappointment motivating him to finally think up the missing ingredient.

Honorable Mentions

A brief pause in our list for the 'honorable mentions' which almost made it onto our list. Indeed, the comic showing two bears 'mugging' a human was only bumped at the last minute by the strip depicting the unfortunate demise of a window washer.

Other serious contenders include a salmon shamefully taking the easy route up the river, misguided aliens trying to carry a car full of humans back to their home planet and that submarine comic that's basically the same gag as our frog vs airplane entry. There are also several gags that swap humans and animals - two horses driving home their pet human and a fish with tiny humans all over its bathroom wallpaper.