Comics are funny when you change them (sometimes)
February 26, 2008 1:36 PM   Subscribe

Garfield minus Garfield: "Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?"
posted by SpacemanStix (125 comments total) 84 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well I lol'ed.
posted by norabarnacl3 at 1:39 PM on February 26, 2008


Hate to be the guy, but it's a double, here.

Thought i thought it was good the first time around.
posted by efalk at 1:39 PM on February 26, 2008


Not the same as previously, by the way.
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:40 PM on February 26, 2008


Though I ....
posted by efalk at 1:40 PM on February 26, 2008


Sort of a double.
posted by Pastabagel at 1:40 PM on February 26, 2008


Previously. Garfield without Garfield: "I hypothesize that if you remove all the text of Garfield's speech, or thoughts, or whatever that is, that it becomes an oddly surrealist comic."
posted by languagehat at 1:41 PM on February 26, 2008


Oh! It's not removing Garfield's thought bubbles, which has been done. It's removed Garfield entirely.
posted by Pronoiac at 1:41 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


Just missed your comment. It's a bit different, but it is similar. Probably inspired by the original.
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:41 PM on February 26, 2008


I am commenting in this thread.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:41 PM on February 26, 2008 [3 favorites]


Shoulda previewed. Lots of good memories around here!
posted by languagehat at 1:42 PM on February 26, 2008


Not the same as previously, by the way.

You could have headed off a lot of gotcha by putting that in the original post. But you've probably figured that out by now.
posted by languagehat at 1:43 PM on February 26, 2008


I liked it. I hope this post stays, it's infinitely better than the crappy TortureTunes post.
posted by OmieWise at 1:44 PM on February 26, 2008


It's different. And this one is sadder.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:44 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


How about a comics page without Garfield? That might be good.
posted by never used baby shoes at 1:44 PM on February 26, 2008 [6 favorites]


Both are but a pale imitation of the Dysfunctional Family Circus.
posted by googly at 1:45 PM on February 26, 2008 [2 favorites]


Oh, wait, so it's not a double?

It is a lot better without Garfield than with, but still.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:46 PM on February 26, 2008




You could have headed off a lot of gotcha by putting that in the original post. But you've probably figured that out by now.

Yes, lesson learned. Sorry for the confusion.
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:46 PM on February 26, 2008


A little different. Just muting garfield isn't the same as shopping him out completely, the same way that someone who talks to cats isn't quite as crazy as somebody who talks to nothing. It would be pretty cool to combine these with the Garfield Randomizer and see what came out the other end.
posted by mhoye at 1:49 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


These range from nearly laugh-out-loud funny to strangely poignant and sad. Mostly the former.
posted by owtytrof at 1:49 PM on February 26, 2008


Completely without Garfield is much funnier. I am hereby replacing "meh" with "with garfield" and "LOL" with "without garfield".

Without GarfieldMFAO!
posted by pedmands at 1:49 PM on February 26, 2008 [3 favorites]


Wow, that's surprisingly good. I detest Garfield, but I like the strip a lot without him.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 1:52 PM on February 26, 2008


So the problem all along was Garfield. Color me unsurprised.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:52 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


This is beautiful. So much better than the original, it's actually funny this way.
posted by doctor_negative at 1:52 PM on February 26, 2008


I suppose the trick to Garfield is removing things, then. Well, here's my humble attempt. Kind of like Rothko meeting Lichtenstein, I'm sure you'll agree. (And it must've been done before.)
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:54 PM on February 26, 2008 [5 favorites]


"I am an empty grocery sack!"

I couldn't have found a more perfect image to describe my life.
posted by quin at 1:54 PM on February 26, 2008 [3 favorites]


Counting the moments until someone mashes this with the xkcd thing of late.
posted by cashman at 1:55 PM on February 26, 2008


This one is amazing.
posted by ORthey at 1:59 PM on February 26, 2008 [2 favorites]


this is surprisingly awesome. I think I'm going to start a totally run of the mill pet comic strip, take out the talking pets and see if it's similarly awesome.
posted by shmegegge at 2:00 PM on February 26, 2008


Totally not a double. And god damn these are charming. I'm starting to suspect that Garfield is actually a subversive effort by Jim Davis to create a kind of mainstream "found materials" archive for people to do clever things to. The aggressives Paws, Inc. legal team is just for plausible deniability.

Also, get back. My hand is ever alert.
posted by cortex at 2:05 PM on February 26, 2008 [3 favorites]


I am all over this like __________ on lasagna.
posted by Ohdemah at 2:05 PM on February 26, 2008


Huh. I wonder how the cartoon or movies would fare with this, or with silencing Garfield.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:08 PM on February 26, 2008


And you can still make your own at the NIH website.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:08 PM on February 26, 2008 [2 favorites]


These comix are the empty lasagna pans of my soul.
posted by mrmojoflying at 2:09 PM on February 26, 2008


Jeffrey Brown much?
posted by Sys Rq at 2:11 PM on February 26, 2008 [2 favorites]


Love it.
posted by agregoli at 2:11 PM on February 26, 2008


I imagine you could do this to many other comics and get a similar effect.
posted by puke & cry at 2:13 PM on February 26, 2008


That's not a knock on this btw. Just a thought.
posted by puke & cry at 2:19 PM on February 26, 2008


Holy shit. He kinda looks like me, too.
posted by LordSludge at 2:20 PM on February 26, 2008


Jon was always a sad man. You take out Garfield and he's sad and crazy.
posted by Hugonaut at 2:20 PM on February 26, 2008


This makes me want to shoot myself. And not because I hate it.
posted by aramaic at 2:25 PM on February 26, 2008


"Totally not a double."

Flagged as Nermal.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:26 PM on February 26, 2008 [6 favorites]


This is spectacular. I'm sending it around to all the people I curse on a daily basis for sending me dumb crap they found on the internet. Consistency is the lasagna of little minds.
And for the record, the first Garfield book was actually very funny. More or less downhill since there, though.
posted by haricotvert at 2:31 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


I imagine you could do this to many other comics and get a similar effect.

Yeah, I've been thinking about that for the last few minutes. Garfield is an unusually solid choice here, for a couple reasons:

- Very few characters. Removing Garfield is removing a very significant part of the strip, compared to other comics that tend toward larger casts. Not a showstopper; you could work around this by eliminating several characters, or all but one, from a given strip, or otherwise be selective about which strips qualify for editing. But still: with Garfield, it's like they cut out just about exactly half fo the strip, here.

- Extremely spartan art. I'm not sure if there's a strip out there that is more consistently minimal in its layout, and as much fun as it'd be to nuke Luann from Apartment 3-G, it'd take a lot more filling work to repair the background. Again, not a showstopper, but a lot more work than the dirt-simple "fill in wallpaper and countertop wash" thing going on here.
posted by cortex at 2:33 PM on February 26, 2008


Fucking brilliant.
posted by farishta at 2:33 PM on February 26, 2008


I wonder if they did this to free up Garfield so he could concentrate on his film career.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 2:38 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


That's pretty much what I was thinking, cortex. Also, as mentioned above, Jon was already pretty damn sad so while doing this to other comics might make the character sound nuts, it's doubly effective here.
posted by puke & cry at 2:39 PM on February 26, 2008


somebody needs to make a hardcopy version of this available. garfield sans garfield is the funniest cartoon i've read in years!
posted by saulgoodman at 2:40 PM on February 26, 2008


I didn't expect that to be as funny as it was, just as I didn't expect the live-action Garfields to be as funny as they were. It's as if Garfield is itself not humor, but merely the primordial ooze of funny waiting for a lightning strike to invigorate it.
posted by Bookhouse at 2:42 PM on February 26, 2008


I agree that Garfield is a particularly good choice precisely because of Jon was a pretty sad character to begin with.

I used to love Garfield when I was kid. Not really sure why. But even when I was 8 I felt really sad for Jon. He seemed lonely and alienated. His only friends where a dog, a cat, and a John Oates looking-dude. When not at home, he ate alone at a diner. His dates were disasters, mainly because he was so over-eager.

Maybe I read Garfield as a way to show Jon some solidarity.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 2:48 PM on February 26, 2008


I prefer Garfield Without Garfield With Garfield.
posted by anazgnos at 2:49 PM on February 26, 2008 [16 favorites]


[this is       ]
posted by Skorgu at 3:13 PM on February 26, 2008


Wow. I think I just had an Oprahstyle A-Ha moment looking at the first page alone.
posted by spec80 at 3:15 PM on February 26, 2008


Glitch in the matrix, item. Glitch in the nermalfuckin' matrix.
posted by cortex at 3:16 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


Don't forget Arbuckle comics, where garfield is a normal cat that doesn't speak (drawn by many).
posted by piratebowling at 3:21 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


John Oates looking-dude

Hah, I had all but forgotten about Lyman.
posted by porn in the woods at 3:22 PM on February 26, 2008


googly- I prefer the more unpredictable Nietzsche Family Circus.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 3:25 PM on February 26, 2008 [4 favorites]


Brilliant. Sometimes the mundane can be made extraordinary with the smallest of touches.
posted by tehloki at 3:30 PM on February 26, 2008


My god, Jim Davis is brilliant. I had no idea.

Garfield is a mechanism by which his ideas can be accepted by mainstream papers- like wearing a cell phone allows schizophrenics to talk to themselves without alarming anyone.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:35 PM on February 26, 2008 [2 favorites]


This is great, but it gets me thinking... What if someone removed Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes? Just thinking about it makes me kinda sad.
posted by slimepuppy at 3:47 PM on February 26, 2008 [3 favorites]


I can't wait for the day when we can digitally remove Woody Allen from all of his movies.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:50 PM on February 26, 2008


Simply awesome. That is all.
posted by slogger at 4:02 PM on February 26, 2008


Well, there goes my period of Comics Curmudgeon sobriety. This is awesome.
posted by Tehanu at 4:14 PM on February 26, 2008


Amazing how the world's most unfunny strip suddenly becomes either hilarious or deeply philosophical by removing the main character.

I bet my life would be fascinating without me in it.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:31 PM on February 26, 2008 [3 favorites]


A brilliant resurrection of a beloved childhood comic awash with a new profundity that speaks to the perils of our modern adult lives.
posted by MasonDixon at 4:33 PM on February 26, 2008


Think it gets funny when you remove Garfield?
I can make it even funnier
posted by seanyboy at 4:42 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


This, this is the best of the web.
posted by oddman at 4:42 PM on February 26, 2008


I think "Cathy" would have been better without Cathy. Or her Mom, or her boyfriend, or...Can we have Calvin and Hobbes back, please?
posted by misha at 4:43 PM on February 26, 2008


What if someone removed Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes? Just thinking about it makes me kinda sad.

The difference, though, is that Hobbes is already explicitly a figment of Calvin's imagination. It essentially already is Garfield sans Garfield. Perhaps Calvin & Hobbes could be re-cast as a prequel to this Garfield-free Garfield; maybe someone should do a strip about the transition from Calvin to Jon, from the whimsical imagination of a mischievous child to the psychotic ravings of a schizophrenic shut-in. I'd read that!
posted by Sys Rq at 4:44 PM on February 26, 2008 [4 favorites]


Well, there goes my period of Comics Curmudgeon sobriety. This is awesome.

Speaking of, CC links today to both this and to a Fark photoshop thread vamping off Mary Worth. A lot of the latter is actually pretty meh, but I like this one.
posted by cortex at 4:47 PM on February 26, 2008 [2 favorites]


What if someone removed Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes? Just thinking about it makes me kinda sad.

I feel like I've seen this. Not the vaunted fake Ritalin ending strip, but a series of actual strips with lively Hobbes replaced with stuffed Hobbes and his word balloons nixed. I could be imagining it, though.

The difference, though, is that Hobbes is already explicitly a figment of Calvin's imagination.

Well, yes; but the question isn't what fits the canon of the original strip; it's what the results are like when you decontextualize the damn thing and make something new out of it.
posted by cortex at 4:49 PM on February 26, 2008


....


....


THE PAIN!!!!
posted by thecaddy at 4:57 PM on February 26, 2008


I can't wait for the day when we can digitally remove Woody Allen Spike Lee from all of his movies.

I can't wait for the day when we can digitally remove Woody Allen Kevin Smith from all of his movies.

I can't wait for the day when we can digitally remove Woody Allen Quentin Tarantino from all of his movies.
posted by mrmojoflying at 5:04 PM on February 26, 2008


Hobbes is not explicitly a figment of Calvin's imagination. I'm pretty sure there are times when events in the strip would seem physically impossible without Hobbes existing. At the very least, Watterson's intention was to make it ambiguous.
posted by revfitz at 5:07 PM on February 26, 2008


a John Oates looking-dude

...who mysteriously disappeared. In the introduction to one of the Garfield treasuries (help me -- my son loves Garfield) Jim Davis says something like "Where did Lyman go? Don't ask."
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:10 PM on February 26, 2008


I just looked at the last week's worth of Get Fuzzy strips, and I don't think they would be improved by this process. Mostly because the characters actually respond to what the others say.

Of course, by that criterion, the strip would probably best be improved by removing everyone but Bucky.
posted by A dead Quaker at 5:26 PM on February 26, 2008


I don't know if any change to Calvin & Hobbes could be as successful as this one.
posted by Corduroy at 5:26 PM on February 26, 2008 [13 favorites]






This is great, but it gets me thinking... What if someone removed Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes? Just thinking about it makes me kinda sad.

Better not click this, then.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:03 PM on February 26, 2008 [6 favorites]


Speaking of, CC links today to both this and to a Fark photoshop thread vamping off Mary Worth.

Thus I learn that For Better or For Worse has begun its march to the Inevitable Marriage Plotline in earnest. Oh, my.

This is my favorite photoshopped Mary Worth.
posted by Tehanu at 6:08 PM on February 26, 2008


Excellent post, Spaceman.
posted by not_on_display at 6:26 PM on February 26, 2008


It looks like he/she also removed Jon from a few of the panels.
posted by mrgrimm at 6:54 PM on February 26, 2008


Garfield was in fact always a brilliant meditation on depression and the mundane oppression of modern life. If you look at the comics, John never talks to Garfield, the cat merely mocks his pathetic life in word balloons. Taking Garfield out of the strip makes this more clear, but the narrative does not change between the original and altered strips. I think the hate so many people have for Garfield is that they unconsciously feel the strips condemnation. Children love the strip because they empathize with Garfield and intuitively enjoy the mocking of their parents pathetic lives.
posted by afu at 7:01 PM on February 26, 2008 [16 favorites]


It looks like he/she also removed Jon from a few of the panels.

Can you side-by-side this? I was assuming those were strips where Jon just wasn't framed into every panel.
posted by cortex at 7:06 PM on February 26, 2008


Garfield is not missing, he was assassinated.
posted by Tube at 7:12 PM on February 26, 2008 [3 favorites]


This Garfield thing is going TOO FAR, I say! Realfield.
posted by Ted Maul at 7:32 PM on February 26, 2008 [6 favorites]


This reminds me of Chris Ware's bleak stuff.
posted by naju at 7:40 PM on February 26, 2008


Whoah.
posted by regicide is good for you at 7:46 PM on February 26, 2008 [1 favorite]


Garfield is not missing, he was assassinated.

Maybe, or perhaps he was catnapped?
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:04 PM on February 26, 2008


The only interesting Garfield storyline, ever.

he stole it, badly (warning - sfw, but really sad)
posted by pyramid termite at 9:03 PM on February 26, 2008


Garfield forgot my birthday too. :(
posted by mullacc at 9:28 PM on February 26, 2008


It looks like he/she also removed Jon from a few of the panels.

Can you side-by-side this? I was assuming those were strips where Jon just wasn't framed into every panel.


Well, one of the variants is moving panels around and adding or removing Jon.

This is not my lucky hat.
This is not my lucky hat.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:41 PM on February 26, 2008


This is just sad. Thanks for posting.
posted by ALongDecember at 10:03 PM on February 26, 2008


Here's some more garfield mods from a random forum.
posted by Citizen Premier at 10:14 PM on February 26, 2008


Damn, that thread appears to still be going--I think I bookmarked it a year or so ago, and it actually starts in 06.
posted by Citizen Premier at 10:17 PM on February 26, 2008


I like the jokes
posted by MNDZ at 10:32 PM on February 26, 2008


Thank you for saying that, afu. Putting aside the shrewd lucrativeness of the Paws Inc. machine, Garfield is a fucking dark comic strip. No other mainstream comic strip is as brutal toward its central (human) character. The silences, the glances at the audience, the unendingly bland setting. It's dour.

I get a kick out of the various Garfield hacks that people have made, but I really think that they only highlight the absurdity that is the Garfield universe; they're really not subverting anything.

I secretly long for the real Garfield movie to come out; the one that consists of endless repetitions and painful silences and Jon hating his life, with no resolution whatsoever.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:13 AM on February 27, 2008 [6 favorites]


sublime
posted by From Bklyn at 12:24 AM on February 27, 2008


The only interesting Garfield storyline, ever.

Yeah. That was an "interesting" period at Paws, too. Just not in a good way. Let's just say that particular storyline was the result of a self-imposed pressure to prove Garfield could be "serious", the way the artist's favorites (Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, etc) were.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:40 AM on February 27, 2008 [2 favorites]


know what i like?
posted by quonsar at 5:03 AM on February 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


Garfield still irritates me for the sheer laziness of composition. Most of the time it seems that he's just copying and pasting the same half-dozen sketches with different speech balloons.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:00 AM on February 27, 2008


My contribution.
posted by Arturus at 6:19 AM on February 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


Thorzdad, you say that like you have an inside scoop on the dirt at Paws. Moar!
posted by fleetmouse at 6:48 AM on February 27, 2008


invisible cat.
posted by iamkimiam at 6:53 AM on February 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


And you can still make your own at the NIH website.

Heh.
posted by cashman at 7:41 AM on February 27, 2008


Garfield still irritates me for the sheer laziness of composition. Most of the time it seems that he's just copying and pasting the same half-dozen sketches with different speech balloons.

Something tells me you'd just hate Dinosaur Comics and Get Your War On.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:11 AM on February 27, 2008


Yeah. That was an "interesting" period at Paws, too. Just not in a good way. Let's just say that particular storyline was the result of a self-imposed pressure to prove Garfield could be "serious", the way the artist's favorites (Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, etc) were.

That's interesting...

Christie: What about Jim Davis?
Watterson: Uh...Garfield is...(long pause)...consistent.
Christie: Ooo-kay...
Watterson: U.S. Acres I think is an abomination.
Christie: Never seen it.
Watterson: Lucky you. Jim Davis has his factory in Indiana cranking out this strip about a pig on a farm. I find it an insult to the intelligence, though it's very successful.

posted by anazgnos at 10:14 AM on February 27, 2008


I'm sad that my favorite one was tampered with a great deal. (not even just the very obvious added tears at the end, either.)
It sort of makes it lose some of what I liked so much about the idea.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 11:12 AM on February 27, 2008


Ooh, that's a bummer. And totally unnecessary -- looking at the original, I think that one would have been way funnier/trippier if they had just left Jon alone in panels 5 and 7.
posted by somanyamys at 11:42 AM on February 27, 2008


Huh. Knowing the strips were altered beyond merely removing Garfield and Garfield's thought bubbles kind of totally ruins it.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:46 AM on February 27, 2008 [2 favorites]


I did some research, a decent few are (in addition to removing Garfield) tampered with, it looks like.
That bums me out.
Lucky hat, original
Grocery sack, original
my hand, original
a tunnel, original (which I think could have stood as-is, anyway.)
growing old, original
there are probably more, I have to go to class.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 12:07 PM on February 27, 2008


Well, arfuckle.
posted by cortex at 12:11 PM on February 27, 2008 [1 favorite]


This is the Creationism of Garfield mashups. They started with a conclusion and then created evidence.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:35 PM on February 27, 2008


Is everything that seems truly awesome just a great big lie?
posted by Tehanu at 12:55 PM on February 27, 2008 [3 favorites]


roll truck roll, those "historical" Garfield comics are fakes Jim Davis placed on the internet to test your faith in the bitterness of Garfield.
posted by Tehanu at 12:55 PM on February 27, 2008 [4 favorites]


Challenge us. Go out in a blaze of Dadaist glory. There is still time.
posted by eritain at 1:46 PM on February 27, 2008 [5 favorites]


Reading these the first time, I assumed they had been constructed beyond merely removing Garfield from extant strips wholesale. They just seemed too good to be true. It doesn't really change the effect for me. If the premise is changing Garfield strips for comedic or poetic affect, there's no reason to draw a line on precisely which changes are acceptable.
posted by anazgnos at 2:13 PM on February 27, 2008


Yeah, on second look, the concept is more "What if Jon Arbuckle didn't have a cat to talk to?" than "what if we took Garfield out of the comics?"

This is clearly the drama version. I'm waiting for a horror version where a mysterious invisible spirit consumes great pans of lasagna and kicks Odie. Jon Arbuckle: Depressed and Haunted.
posted by Tehanu at 2:32 PM on February 27, 2008


Thorzdad: Well, interestingly I think, those named strips, when they're serious, also do it in the process of being funny. One of my least favorite C&H strips, now that I think about it, is the early sequence where Calvin finds, cares for, fails to save and mourns for a dying raccoon. Very little in the way of jokes, and it seems manipulative now. A totally serious Bloom County story I can't remember, and would suck anyway -- that kind of strip would be preachy without laughs.

Meanwhile, the abandoned-Garfield story is actually effective because Garfield has never, before or since, tried to be serious. And the tone is exactly right too; there are hundreds of webcomics that try the half-fully/half drama approach and are the failest fails to ever fail a fail. Fail.

Meanwhile, the Garfield story just comes completely out of left field and unnerves the hell out of the reader. There's some of that in Garfield: His 9 Lives as well, a standalone sequence of stories, only about half of which recognizably about Garfield. It is a tremendously underrated book IMO.

I guess what I'm saying is, I miss the Jim Davis that would take risks like that. It sounds very much like he was trying to push himself as a artist, was whacked soundly on the nose by whoever, syndicate, unenlightened readers, merchandisers, and became shy about ever trying something like that again. It is a real shame. IMO, of course.
posted by JHarris at 10:26 PM on February 27, 2008




Interesting. for like a minute. then kind of one-trick pony
posted by Happy Dooies at 2:34 PM on February 28, 2008


Yeah, focus groups don't work so well for art.
posted by ryanrs at 7:06 PM on March 2, 2008




I've been reading these every day, and I don't care if they're doctored, I'm enjoying them a lot.
posted by Grangousier at 3:54 PM on March 7, 2008


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