On this edition of the Tumblr Account of the Moment, we’ll take a look at a surreal concept of comics and memes. Jim Davis’ cartoon Garfield has been running for over 30 years. It’s a cartoon that some love, and some actually loathe. The criticism of Garfield comics are that they are 1-dimensional: the same fat joke or overeating joke. A lot of critics also say that the humor is repeated:
Now what if Garfield could be read in a different way that might make those critics happy? This is where Garfield Minus Garfield comes in. These are the Garfield comic strips, completely without the Garfield character:
Taking Garfield out of the comic, changes the comic completely. Instead of being a comic about an obese cat, it’s now about a paranoid Jon Arbuckle. Some of them are just depressing, others are pretty funny, but what is odd about it is that it works as a comic (most of the time). Not all of these are gems, much like the original comic. The fun part is that all that is changed is one character, and the people who don’t like the Garfield character get their wish.
I can see how they can be funny… but… Garfield WITHOUT Garfield??!!
Would the comic still repeat itself without Garfield as the central character?