Garfield Minus Garfield

For my first real blog post I’m going to talk briefly about comics. Now, I’ve been interested in comics ever since I was a little boy. I used to love reading the comics everyday in the paper and especially on Sundays. But as you get older, your eye for quality changes. There are things about business you begin to understand too. Syndicates are already making fat wads of cash off terrible comics like the Family Circus and Hagar the (ironcically titled) Horrible, why would they want to take a chance on newer, more interesting comics? I just picked up a Sunday paper this weekend and read the comics. I live in Seattle and so I get two whole sections of comics (yay!) and as I was reading them I was pleasntly surprised by the overall content. There were far few fewer “Marmaduke” type comics then “Get Fuzzy”s so perhaps we’re in for a comic shift.

The internet has become a great medium for comics too. I’ve been drawing A Rusty Life for 5 years and There and In Between for almost as long (just not continuously) and without the internet as a way of putting my material out there, I would have probably gotten bored and just throw in the towel. I know that my material is not what syndicates would be looking for. Nor, without quiting my day job, do I feel like I could keep up with a 365 day per year deadline. That’s why I love being able to do things based on my schedule. Another great thing about the internet as a medium, is that there are thousands and thousands of webcomics out there. There’s something for everyone. But anyway, I’m starting to veer away from the topic I planned on writing about. So back to it.

I am not a very big fan of “Garfield.” It’s probably one of the mostly mindless comics in print. About a year ago a came up with the idea of taking the jokes in Garfield and redrawing them with different subjects just to see what would happen. I never really fully thought out the details of the plan and inevitbaly just forgot about it and moved on. However, someone out there had an even better idea. He took Garfield straight out of the comics. The result is pretty good. This is the excerpt taken straight from his site:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the
Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about
schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern
life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a
journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he
fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Here’s a quick sample:

Garfield Minus Garfield

It’s actually really interesting and I find it to be at LEAST equally as funny as the real thing. Anyway, there is a ton more and it’s gets really good if you go back through the older archives at the bottom of the page.

Garfield Minus Garfield

Enjoy.

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