Cow Tools is a cartoon from Gary Larson’s The Far Side, published in October of 1982. It depicts a cow standing in front of a table of bizarre, misshapen implements with the caption “Cow tools.” The cartoon confused many readers, who wrote or phoned in seeking an explanation of the joke. In response to the controversy, Larson issued a press release clarifying that the thrust of the cartoon was simply that, if a cow were to make tools, they would “lack something in sophistication.” It has been described as “arguably the most loathed Far Side strip ever.