Posted in Random Musings
Garfield Must Die
Remember when the comic strip Garfield was good? I am sorry if you were drinking a beverage at the time of reading that last statement. I sincerely hope that when you sprayed out said beverage you didn’t hit anything important. I should do a better job of warning you when I am going to write something completely ludicrous because as we all know that was a trick question. Garfield was never good.
Okay, maybe that is a little harsh. It might have been good for like the first year, month, days. What can I say I am an optimist, I am sure it was good in there somewhere (I know you will be tempted to accuse me of hitting you with another beverage spitting moment but you would be wrong. I am in fact an optimist. I think it is a job requirement for all teachers who do not drink copious amounts of alcohol).
Anyway, back to Garfield. It appears yesterday’s strip angered a few veterans by making fun of the holiday. Jim Davis assures us that he did not mean to do this. In fact, he said the strip in question had been written over a year ago and through some amazingly bad timing only just now got published on Veteran’s Day.
This tells us some very important facts about the Garfield strip. It must have a good editor in charge of it. More people read and talked about Garfield these last two days then anytime in the last say, million years (yes, I exaggerated this number. It was only 121 years. Okay fine maybe 30 years but damn that strip feels like it is prehistoric). Of course, what they were talking about was “Garfield’s still around, who knew?”
The other important fact I gleamed from this silly story is that Jim Davis seemed genuinely surprised that Garfield was still being published (that was mean but since he sold his soul to the devil to make millions of dollars on a stupid orange cat I felt justified).
Oh how I miss the days of good comic strips. Truthfully, when Calvin and Hobbes ceased to be printed a little bit of me died that day. The fact that the mind numbing Garfield is still in operation is tragic. You could take the worse cartoon strip from Calvin and Hobbes or The Far Side or Bloom County or Peanuts or almost any other famous strip and it would be better than the very best Garfield ever printed.
This is one of those stories that will be gone in a few days. A short blip on the map and people will go back to ignoring Garfield. Jim Davis will go back to counting his coins and wondering who is writing his comic strip and I will go dig out my Calvin and Hobbes to wash the Garfield from my brain. Seriously folks, I think it is long past Garfield’s expiration date. I will let you insert the exaggerated date of when this was here. I am all exaggerated out (this is of course a lie!).
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Art by some guy who works for Jim Davis
>Well, i had to dig out that strip and i don't get what the fuss is about. It's a cartoon strip. If someone finds it funny, good. If not, there are ten others in the paper. People just need an excuse/reason to get offended.N
>Maybe he published that particular strip on that particular day just to see if anyone was actually reading it? And then quickly claimed it was a coincidence? Contrivance or kismet? That was actually the first time I laughed at a Garfield strip in YEARS but not for the joke in the comic, but purely for the timing!