A Sad Truth About Garfield

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-03-20 03:57am

The comic would be so much funnier if Garfield didn't talk.

It's a long article (with pictures with examples, hence no quotation), but it's scarily accurate.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2006-03-20 07:52am

It works to an extent, but some of the examples posted just plain don't work.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-03-20 08:30am

A funniness increase of .002% isn't all that significant.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-03-20 08:52am

There are some really great examples of that at http://www.tailsteak.com/arbuckle/

Tailsteak - the same guy who did One over Zero, for anyone who read that - started a site for "Arbuckle" strips, as he calls 'em.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-03-20 10:44am

How about randomized Garfield strips:

That these even work shows just how monotonous these things are, but somehow the randomness makes them a mite funnier.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-03-20 11:35am

DPDarkPrimus wrote:The comic would be so much funnier if Garfield didn't talk.

It's a long article (with pictures with examples, hence no quotation), but it's scarily accurate.

My god, that's a stroke of genius. It makes the comic something like 500 times better, and almost into the realm of post-modernism.

EDIT: Anti-humour. That's the word I was looking for.

Although the strips in the older years were funny, so annother question might be "at what point should Garfield stop talking..."

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-03-20 01:47pm

Theres a massive thread over on the SA forums about this very topic, and some of the entries have been fucking hilarious.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-03-20 02:08pm

Oh my God, I'm only now going through the rest of that Truth and Beauty Bombs thread, and these are absolutely hysterical. This is truly what the comic should be!

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-03-20 02:25pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:It's a long article (with pictures with examples, hence no quotation), but it's scarily accurate.

Stolen from SA>

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-03-20 03:08pm

You sure? MackJ at Truth and Beauty Bombs started it on 30 January, who admits himself that it probably isn't an original idea (which it wasn't; seems it used to be done years ago on CastleZZT).

How old is the Something Awful deal?

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-03-20 04:32pm

A couple examples I whipped up last night. They were mediocre at best to begin with, and yet, with only Jon speaking...

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2006-03-20 04:38pm

Some work.

But some rely on Garfield being able to speak.

If they made Garfield more 'cute' and childlike, they could play on a father-child relationship here it would work better, imo.

Kind of like Baby Blues.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2006-03-20 06:18pm

I'm a diehard Garfield fan, always have been since I first started reading the books and comic circa 1981, but over the years it seemed Garfield got less and less funny. I'm of the opinion that Jim Davies needs to let Garfield go, and end the strip in 2008. 30 years is not a bad run for a comic.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-03-20 06:24pm

Deathstalker wrote:I'm a diehard Garfield fan, always have been since I first started reading the books and comic circa 1981, but over the years it seemed Garfield got less and less funny. I'm of the opinion that Jim Davies needs to let Garfield go, and end the strip in 2008. 30 years is not a bad run for a comic.

He should have let it go when it was 20 years old.

He won't let it go.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-03-20 07:17pm

Why should he stop making money off a profitable franchise?

Garfield has for many years now - if not since the beginning - been designed to be the way it is. I mean, shit, Jim Davis doesn't even draw the strip any more, he basically just manages his franchise.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2006-03-20 07:35pm

This is why Calvin and Hobbes is the work of a genius.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2006-03-20 07:39pm

wolveraptor wrote:This is why Calvin and Hobbes is the work of a genius.

Watterson's decision to stop making strips of C&H didn't have to do with the quality of his humuor though.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-03-20 07:52pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:Some work.

But some rely on Garfield being able to speak.

I think most of them work this way, frankly, but occasionally on completely different levels.

Sometimes it's just as simple as removing unnecessary buildup or punchlines, like in the following:

Other times the removal of Garfield's dialogue gives the strip a completely different spin, making it into a object of surrealism and anti-humour, and occasionally even elevating the strip into self-introspection:

Finally, and this is actually one of my favourite parts about Silent Garfield, is that it occasionally puts a mean and cruel twist on the strip, turning Jon and Garfield into major assholes, as well as magnifying how pathetic Jon's life is:

If they made Garfield more 'cute' and childlike, they could play on a father-child relationship here it would work better, imo.

Kind of like Baby Blues.

Than just read Baby Blues. Garfield was never "cute and childlike," he wasn't supposed to be. He was always supposed to be an older, lazy, acerbic-witted cat with an everyman-type of owner, with both of them more or less on the same level. Garfield was cutting edge when it debuted in 1978, going against long-running tripe like Blondie and, to use the "cute" line you provided, Family Circus. You can't just change a comic strip in such a way that goes against its very nature of origin.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-03-20 07:55pm

This is really interesting... I like the "crazy" Jon. It's so twisted...!

Silver Jedi · Post by **Silver Jedi** » 2006-03-20 08:32pm

Um... I had always assumed that Jon couldn't hear the animals talk, that that was part of the joke, or at least that it was supposed to be ambiguous, kinda like Stewie on family guy. I thought that was one of the few things they got right in ther movie.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-03-20 08:36pm

The thing is, though, that Jon often reacts as if he can hear what Garfield is thinking.

Then again, that's not at all the purpose of the experiment, which is to show that overall, the comic strip is funnier when Garfield's thoughts are completely silenced.

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2006-03-20 11:34pm

My god this is awesome

I can't stop laughing at some of them, it works so well

SAMAS · Post by **SAMAS** » 2006-03-25 02:47pm

Some of them do certainly work without Garfield talking. Others... not so much. Particularly those where Garfield's words are the punchline.

Some of the "Arbuckle" strips also fall flat because they remove the anthopomorphic expressions that would otherwise have made the silence funny. Although some of that is becuase of the artists.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-03-25 04:47pm

It's funny because John looks like a certifiable lunatic, yelling at his cat.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-03-25 11:54pm

SAMAS wrote:Some of them do certainly work without Garfield talking. Others... not so much. Particularly those where Garfield's words are the punchline.

Three-quarters of the time, we could get the punchline without Garfield shoving it down our throat.

Some of the "Arbuckle" strips also fall flat because they remove the anthopomorphic expressions that would otherwise have made the silence funny. Although some of that is becuase of the artists.

How does removing thought bubbles change Garfield's physical state? He's still anthromorphised.

It's funny because John looks like a certifiable lunatic, yelling at his cat.

Ever since Lyman went off and became a detective down in Florida, Jon hasn't had any friends. Not even at work.

...Oh my god, what does Jon do for a living? Does he even work at all? You never see him getting ready/coming back from his job or anything.

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