I have always been a fan of comics, as in the funny papers, and have always read them whenever I have had the good fortune to have a newspaper in hand. I usually read the entire funny papers but tend to consistently read my favorites, Dilbert and Pearls Before Swine, which have the most consistent good humor. Sometimes there are others that have some funny spots but one of the comics in the funnies has hardly ever had a single punch line I could laugh at.
That comic is Garfield.
I always read Garfield hoping for something, I don’t know if it is because I like the character design or possibly the fact that it features a cat that loves lasagna (the best non-sequitur of the entire comic). Within the past year though, Garfield has given me some of the most hysterical laughing fits I have ever had. It all started with one of the greatest parodies I have ever seen: Lasagna Cat. Lasagna Cat simply consists of making a live action version of the comic, using timing and the comic’s lack of humor to bring about its humor, and then a music video made up of the clips and closing with a weird picture of Jim Davis.
After this, Garfield became a parody of itself and the comics became extremely funny because of its unfunniness (if that is even a word). While flipping channels one night I stumbled upon a CGI Garfield movie. The plot of which was so ironic, I had a hard time believing it. The movie consisted of Garfield going on a quest with Odie to figure out the secret to being funny.
A little while passed and I discovered Garfield Minus Garfield, revealed to me via Facebook through the always informative Mr. Barnhart. Garfield Minus Garfield is simply a website dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips. This in turn reveals the existential angst of Jon Arbunkle. Some of them end up being quite creepy due to the fact that in the conversations in the comic Jon is talking to a cat.
After this I discovered a news article about Garfield Minus Garfield, and Jim Davis himself has actually read Garfield Minus Garfield. Here are some interesting things from the article:
“Jim Davis, the cartoonist who created ‘Garfield,’ calls himself an occasional reader of the site, which he calls ‘fascinating.’ He says he is flattered rather than peeved by the imitation.
Mr. Davis, who has been drawing Garfield for 30 years, said that ‘Garfield Minus Garfield’ has actually prompted him to take a different look at his own work. He compared Mr. Walsh’s efforts to the cerebral approach of Pogo, the comic strip by Walt Kelly.
"I think it’s the body of work that makes me laugh — the more you read of these strips, the funnier it gets," Mr. Davis said. As for Garfield himself, "this makes a compelling argument that maybe he doesn’t need to be there. Less is more.”
This made me in turn gain a bit more respect for Jim Davis, who up until this point I simply thought was a bumbling old man who thought punch lines were in essence the same as Italian food. I have actually come to like the man and his work now.
But wait! There is more. I recently discovered Garkov, a website based on Markov Chains, which is a probabilistic math model which can synthesize semi-coherent text, and Garfield comics. The result is a random, very random, yet somewhat coherent funny comic strip usually just as good as the original.
There are even more parodies which I will let you discover for yourself. The main reason I wrote this post was to hopefully get people who have not discovered the wonderful world of Garfield parodies to gain some similar joy I have gained from it. A list of links below will lead you to all your Garfield needs. I hope you enjoy, my friends.
http://www.garfieldminusgarfield.net/
http://www.joshmillard.com/garkov
http://permanent-monday.blogspot.com
http://www.tailsteak.com/arbuckle
- A.J. Young
Our props to A.J. for this insightful and deliriously amusing post!
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