Recent events have brought something disturbing to my attention. The Internet has grown a mad fascination with trying to make Jim Davis’ curiously lasting strip, Garfield, funny. Why would the Internet care about this? I’ve no idea. I have noted three approaches which have varying degrees of success. The varying comes from how your funny bone is hooked together.
So in chronological order I present, Project: Garfield’s Funny Now or Three Different ways to put a Dress on a Pig.
1) In 2006, The Internet learned that by taking away Garfield’s speech bubbles, the strip becomes a lesson in surrealist comedy.
When Jon Arbuckle, the rather sad and pathetic cartoonist bachelor, comes home to complain about his lousy job and poor social life to his pet, Garfield thinks up witty sarcastic responses in thought balloons. Jon doesn’t hear Garfield, although often he can tell what Garfield is thinking due to body language or he responds to Garfield’s inattentiveness. (And sometimes, the strip strays off concept for a while and Jon seems to understand Garfield as though he were talking.)
Countless more live on the Truth and Beauty Bombs forum.
2) Early this year, I found The Internet had birthed this bizarre video mashup treatment called Lasgana Cat. I can only guess these are key moments in Garfield’s long history they chose to mock and destroy. It’s that or the strips that caused The Internet to have the most mental fits of anguish.
More of Lasgana Cat’s disdain(admiration?) on their You Tube.
3) Only recently, which by The Internet’s time telling ability is just hitting middle age, it learned* that by taking Garfield completely out of the picture, you get something else entirely.
Much more surreal-arity** at Garfield Minus Garfield tumblelog.
All of these findings are in the order that I learned about them. I’m wondering why The Internet cares so much about a sub-par, soft and squishy, mainstream comic strip that just won’t die. It’s been said that love and hate are flip sides of the same coin. It’s been my experience that the people who said that have too much time to think and are wholeheartedly correct.
Maybe The Internet is actually *in love* with Garfield and the only way it can express that love is through condemnation. A sort of twist on wearing a wife-beater and complaining about burnt eggs scenario.
Hmm, maybe *I* have too much time on my hands to think.
*Thanks to Coilhouse for spurring this trilogy of bad cat jokes.
**surreal-arity = “Surreal Hilarity” It’ll catch on, I promise. Just be sure to quote me as the one who coined it.
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