I don’t know how I missed this in the midst of all our Comic-Con coverage (hey, did you notice we covered Comic-Con?), but one of my favorite websites, Garfield Minus Garfield, scored a book deal! Every day, the site’s creator, Dan Walsh, simply removes Garfield from the comic strip. That’s it. But it’s enough — alongside the fat cat, Jon Arbuckle used to be just a boring guy; now he’s like some sort of existential antihero. If the image at left hasn’t moved you to tears and made you question life, love, and why you wore that janky top this morning, you’re probably not looking hard enough. I love the part where Jon widens his eyes. It is so powerful.
Anyway, Garfield creator Jim Davis approves of the project and the upcoming book. "I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield," he says."Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left thatout.’ It would have been funnier." Yeah, that’s probably the understatement of the century. That, or "Sometimes Tyra likes to talk about herself." You make the call.
That’s a clever idea… definitely adds a different dimension. And even better that Jim Davis is cool with it.
I love that website. The book would be a great add to coffee tables around the world.
Wow… I think this site just made my own personal Must List. Amazing.
I love it! On the 4/9 strip, he even mentions shooting himself. I never knew “Garfield” ever went that far. I was shocked.
very clever and funny, but my personal favorite has to be marmadukeexplained .blogspot .com
I’ve known about this for a while. It’s pretty fascinating that omitting Garfield from the picture adds unintentional hilarity to the comic strip. It’s probably better this way, since I haven’t found much humor in recent Garfield strips over the years, despite collecting a few compilations overtime. It’s nice to know that Jim Davis appreciates it as well.
I’ve been hearing about this for awhile; thanks for providing the impetus to check out the site, Annie. However, I for one would like to argue that saying it’s “funnier without Garfield” is horribly misleading: try “America’s Favorite Cat-less bachelor, now replete with depression, solitude and psychological issues!”
I think it’s funnier than the original comics, but it wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t an edited version of an already existing comic. In other words, the original needed to come first, or these edited ones wouldn’t be funny at all. They would just be sad and morbid. Some would probably make me cry. At least when I read the edited versions, I know that Garfield should actually be present, otherwise I’d be gravely worried for Jon.
love that website! thanks for introducing it to us
The next logical step…
“An Arbuckle Christmas” aka a Garfield without Garfield Holiday Special. Watch it until the end.
with Jim’s approval, this is a rad idea
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