So, I loved Garfield as a child. Obviously. (Just look at my tag cloud over there.) It used to be groundbreaking and creative. The TV specials had a lot of charm, too, thanks to Lorenzo Music and his spot-on delivery of Garfield’s snark.
However, the daily Garfield strips haven’t been funny since probably 1989. Don’t deny it. You know it in your heart, and your inner 80s kid knows it too, and weeps at the knowledge.
But thanks to the magic of the internet and people who have a lot of time on their hands, Garfield is making me laugh again.
First, let’s look at Silent Garfield, AKA the removal of Garfield’s dialogue. It turns the strip from lame to amusing and, I daresay, somewhat relatable.
See? It’s much funnier if Garfield keeps his mouth shut. Also, isn’t it disturbing to think that if you were to visit Jon’s house, this is the sort of thing you would see, since humans can’t hear Garfield talk?
I have no idea what’s going on in this last one, and that’s what makes it so amusing.
You can see more Silent Garfield here and here.
The modification of Garfield strips has also been taken to another level, Garfield Minus Garfield. When you remove all traces of Garfield from the strips, you often get comedy gold, like this:
Which is more pathetic? Jon talking to his mute cat, or Jon talking to nobody at all?
Personally, I vote that talking to nobody at all is more pathetic. At least the cat can still interact with him. Also, when I recall the “Garfield is dead” theory, it starts to get creepy and depressing.
Anyway, another great way to get laughs out of Garfield strips is the Garfield Randomizer. You can easily burn through an hour of your life playing with this thing. Of course, it’ll do you no good if you don’t like surreal, absurd, non-sequitur, dada-ist humor– which, fortunately, I do.
Here are some of the ones I “made”:
And an honorable mention before I close this post: Garfield: Lost in Translation. It’s Garfield strips with the dialogue translated into Japanese and then back into English. Much more work involved, but it sometimes yields some good results:
wow. I knew of Garfield minus Garfield, but I had no idea there were other Garfield interpretations out there. Thank you for enlightening me.
Oh my god, this is the best laugh I’ve had in awhile. Especially at the flower one, for some reason that cracked my shit right up. Thanks for sharing this madness XD
Oh, I love it! The only one here I was familiar with was Garfield Minus Garfield, but the Japanese translation one just made my day. That cracked me up.