Yep, they do appear to be pulling a Scooby there.
Which one was funny?
Jim Davis writes his comic strips a year in advance. Even if he retired, there’d still be 365 more Garfields around to haunt us.
And a Garfield movie sounds kind of fun actually. Especially if they do it Rocky And Bullwinkle style. Plus, they did an excellent job of casting Jon Arbuckle 
It’s interesting how the movie is written by a Joel Cohen. I suppose one letter can make a world of a difference…
Personally? I rather like Garfield. But maybe that’s because I haven’t really read that much of it, and I may by some force greater than myself have only read the funny ones. But some of them certainly send me rolling out of my chair.
I looked him up and turns out he helped write Toy Story. Maybe there’s some potential here after all, I can totally see Garfield sounding a bit like groundskeeper Carl Spackler.
Not that Joel Cohen had anything to do with Caddyshack.
Good Ghod, that sounds almost as bad as the upcoming Mike Myers Cat in the Hat movie!
While Garfield was never one of my favorite strips by any means, I’ve never understood why it inspires such hatred. Yes, it often repeats itself, but so do most daily strips. I thought today’s episode (“tuna steward”) was reasonably funny. And sometimes the humor and the artwork take a bizarre turn that verges on the grotesque, as in yesterday’s strip with Odie’s tongue protruding from the coffee pot.
It is funny how well whoever actually draws the strip for Davis has the Garfield template down. In those strips where he’s in exactly the same position in every panel you have to look at fine details of his stripes to be sure he wasn’t Xeroxed from one panel to the next, with only the eyes and mouth changed.
I haven’t heard much about this movie so I went over to Entertainment Zone to see the trailer. I’d think even a live-action Garfield movie could be anywhere near as bad as that. The Cat getting excited by a picture of The Mom? How in the hell did that get in there?
Damn, caught that too late. Make that “I don’t think…”
Not a difficult feat, is it? 
But you’re right, the random strips are more amusing than the regular one.
(Okay, the “flashback” series two weeks ago was kewl, but that just means Garfield will have to suck more for the rest of the year to compensate)
A live-action Garfield movie? boggle
Garfield does get a bit tiresome. Although the Sunday strip I saw a few weeks ago was pretty funny–Garfield ran into his 1970’s self digging through the refrigerator.
Funny? I didn’t say it was funny. Just interesting.
Jim Davis hasn’t drawn Garfield in a long, long time. As someone else mentioned, there is a team of people that just manufacture the strips.
Really, that’s all they are. Manufactured.
Oh, come on now. Just about EVERY comic strip is repetitive in the stuff it uses for gags. Sure, Garfield is lazy and complains a lot, and Jon is a dork; that’s easy enough to pick on. But even the sacred cows of the comics page, past and present, can be reduced similarly:
Calvin and Hobbes: Boy is philosophical, tiger is funny and fuzzy. Occasionally, boy rides down hill on sled or throws snowballs at a girl.
The Far Side: Animals secretly live lives very much like humans; isn’t that amusing?
Dilbert: Working in an office is bad. Bosses are sneaky.
Bloom County: The cat is wired.
Doonesbury: Aren’t politicians and their words wacky?
All oversimplifications, of course. But the strips are still great (well, to some people, anyway).
I say, keep on being your lazy old self, Garfield. There is no need for you to be taken in a “weird and twisted new direction.” There’s something to be said for familiarity as well.
Garfield used to be my favorite strip. I also loved Garfield and Friends, and the television specials. While I still like the strip, I admit that it is very repetitive.
However, IMHO, Garfield is still number one for visual gags, something rare in comic strips. Whoever draws it is actually able to communicate well without words, and do it funnily. (Random example I found in the archives.) Gary Larson, for instance, never struck me as a good artist. Bill Watterson seemed able but unwilling ever to go for a good, silly picture.
I wish I could find the picture of Jon showing Garfield the ugly fish.
I am so grateful to my paper for getting rid of Garfield last year. Now I don’t have to read it every day and wonder why it’s still going. Garfield has less variety than Beetle Bailey, for Pete’s sake.
(No, I can’t just skip a comic. They all get read, no matter how awful. I can’t help it.)
No matter how repetive Garfield gets, I’ll always love him. I think it’s the narcissist in me since I’ve always identified with him.
Yes. Blasphemer.