| Feb262008 | Garfield Minus Garfield |
I’ve actually been a huge Garfield fan all my life. I would read through his books feverishly, his would be the first comic I would read out of the newspaper and I even tuned into the Garfield and Friends tv show.
One of the internet links floating around at the moment is Garfield Minus Garfield. As the name implies, it is the same comic strips but with the cat photoshopped out. It’s funny and surreal at first but eventually this unnerving loneliness shines through. Although Jon and Garfield appear to converse, the idea really is that Jon has no idea what Garfield is truly thinking. He’s just a single, middle-aged guy living alone and talking to his cat. When you forcibly remove the cat then it’s just a really, really lonely guy. I’m sad and a little scared at the same time.
Bonus link: Garfield is Dead (warning: link has music). Details a bunch of actual comic strips released around Halloween 1989 where Jim Davis, the author, tries to scare the shit out of people by making Garfield stare loneliness and abandonment in the eye.
It really makes me think. Sure, it’s a sad stereotype of people living alone with their cats but Garfield the comic really does deal a lot with the issue of loneliness.
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