For some inexplicable reason, it is fashionable on this board to sneer at Garfield. But–thankfully–he is still going strong.
I miss Lyman and Nermal.
One of two official prides of Ball State University!
Chirp Chirp!
No, no, that’s his weight.
I remember being introduced to Garfield by a friend of mine. His Grandmother would have to cut it out of the newspaper and mail it to him because Garfield hadn’t made it yet to our local newspaper. And we lived in a big city too.
My first cat was a little grey kitten, whom I named Nermal. She was indeed the world’s cutest kitten.
As Jim Davis kind of alludes to in the article, it’s not that Garfield got lamer, the world just got harsher.
I remember in the earlier years of Garfield they used to have a birthday cake with the appropriate number of candles every June 19. I don’t know if they’ve kept this up, but if they have, the cake alone must take up all three panels of the strip.
I have two copies of one of the Garfield cartoon collections. One is in English, the other is in German. It’s fun comparing the translations. They aren’t always just the same, because jokes translate poorly. But they are still fun.
Actually, the reason why people sneer at Garfield is very explicable: It’s because it just isn’t very funny.
Jon should bake one of these for Garfield’s birthday.
Evil never dies…
Some people think it’s better without Garfield. Garfield Minus Garfield.
Due to an unfortunate, almost in-law relative’s desires, when we get together at Christmas, well, Garfield is always there. I’ve never liked Garfield. But, gee, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas, without… you know.
Back in the 1980s I named my cat Garfield after a friend suggested it. My father, in all seriousness, asked how come I named him after James Garfield. The outstanding comic strip wasn’t carried by “Wall Street Journal” or “New York Times” so he wasn’t aware of it.
Happy Birthday Garfield! I will have some lasagna in your honor.
He’s wrong: the world didn’t change much in the time it took for Garfield to get repetitive.
Besides sheer repetitiveness, the other thing that Davis blew: I remember one of the early strips where Garfield says: “I love Mondays. You know why? Because I don’t have to get up and go to work.” (With each sentence in a different panel, of course.) Which was exactly the right attitude for any cat, but Garfield especially.
Sounds good, right? Then Davis switched gears and had Garfield doing “I hate Mondays” strips for years. WTF, dude? That just made no sense, and completely undercut Garfield’s persona.
Perhaps it’s because Garfield isn’t actually 40 - just 1, repeated 40 times.
Credit where it’s due: When he jumped the shark and had Jon and Liz start dating, it actually worked: For a while, the strip had fresh material again, and was actually funny. But then, that started getting repetitive, too. How many times has the punchline been Jon showing up for a date in hideous fashions?
Makes perfect sense to me. Garfield started hating Mondays for an entirely different reason: it meant something bad was imminent, usually involving a “splut”.
