Over four decades after it first appeared in newspapers, Gary Larson's infamous "Cow Tools" panel is still widely considered the most inscrutable joke in the history of The Far Side. Yet it's worth exploring why readers continue to have such a visceral "What-the?" reaction to the cartoon, to this day, as well as considering whether "Cow Tools" is truly weirder than the average Far Side.

"Cow Tools" was an early Far Side comic; it can be argued that the sensational reception of the cartoon helped to push the strip, and Larson, to a new level of notoriety. In retrospect, Larson described being "haunted" by the panel, which actually outraged some readers with how seemingly impossible to understand it was.

Unlike any other Far Side cartoon even some of Gary Larson's actually controversial punchlines the uproar over "Cow Tools" and its "meaning" was so pronounced that Larson begrudgingly explained the...