Garfield Minus Garfield (Image Heavy)

Bunny · 2012-05-03 20:11:00

Watch as an ordinary man descends into insanity

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 20:12:16

I prefer The Square Root of Minus Garfield, acually.

also, fun fact, this comic made me have an existential crisis once.

Unknown · 2012-05-03 20:13:58

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 20:15:58

It's not, honestly.

Speaking as one of maybe six genuine fans of Garfield who aren't old ladies, I find the comic funny simply because it is so old-timey and yes, repetitive at times.

But honestly, it has one of the most likable-in-spite-of-the-premise characters in any medium, and one of the most recognizable.

I love a lot of newspaper strips, but Garfield remains a favorite of mine.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 20:18:05

here's a remixed strip I find funnier than the original, though.

ProfessorGator · 2012-05-03 20:19:12

Heh. The bunny slipper diet.

From what I've seen, I prefer Square Root of Minus Garfield, too.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-03 20:19:32

Misery · 2012-05-04 11:29:50

Better than Garfield that's for sure.

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 12:44:32

Garkov is pretty good, too. Can't embed it because it's generated from a script using CSS, but it's Garfield comics reworded using a MegaHAL-ish Markov chain system.

Tre · 2012-05-04 13:09:10

Garkov is a mindfrak of epic proportions. I love it.

G-G is also pretty funny.

Viani · 2012-05-04 13:44:59

I'm too stupid to know what a Markov chain is.

G-G is incredibly morbid.

Gelzo · 2012-05-04 14:06:26

The Wikipedia article looks pretty dense, but I think it's something I remember seeing in a computational linguistics class.

Basically, you take stock of what words are most likely to come after a word in a body of text, and then you use that to generate reasonably likely sentences.

lee4hmz · 2012-05-04 14:23:01

Yeah, it's related to artificial intelligence, and making Dissociated Press and babble-bot programs using Markov chains and such was a popular pastime back when DARPA was funding a lot of AI research at MIT and Stanford.

Gelzo · 2012-05-04 14:27:52

How meta.

Viani · 2012-05-04 14:28:49

that made me laugh

Bunny · 2012-05-04 17:29:18

I've been looking at all these Garfield derivatives, and I'm afraid that my favorite is still Garfield minus Garfield.

Unknown · 2012-05-04 17:31:20

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Bunny · 2012-05-04 21:45:59

Tee hee

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 02:35:01

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 02:47:29

Yay! Ponies!

I still like Realfield.

Garfield minus Garfield makes John look sort of sad and pitiable.

Realfield makes him look completely fucking unhinged.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 02:51:41

I am so far beyond tired of the Garfield Googly-Eyes meme.

GARFIELD IS UNORIGINAL

...

....[picture of Garfield that is googly-eyed]

I'M SO MUCH FUNNIER THAN JIM DAVIS

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 02:52:55

I love Realfield, too.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 02:53:16

Realfield is amusing, though.

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 02:56:24

The Square Root of Minus Garfield is really good too, though.

I read quite a few strips and there's some entertaining and interesting stuff in there.

Plus, they link the original strip. Which can be a nice reminded that Jim Davis can actually be pretty clever.

Unknown · 2012-05-05 02:58:19

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 02:58:23

I still think that the weird humor here

is way funnier than its "remixed" form here

and the accompanying rant underneath it.

I just want to point out that this strip, to quote Garfield in the original, makes no sense at all. The purpose of a joke like this, as used in many other strips, not to mention almost ubiquitously in The Simpsons, is setting up an expectation and then humorously defying it. Jon's nonsensical statement about Garfield's "pointy elbows" sets up no expectations to defy in the third panel (and, come to think of it, my cat doesn't even have elbows). And we won't even get into the "headache."

I think this strip is funnier without the humour-siphoning "punchline," personally.

pointy elbows pointy elbows pointy elbows.

no sir

fuck you. Your funny is not funny.

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 03:02:19

I agree.

With out a punchline, the comic is nothing. It's just dada humor, or an ice cream koan.

I agree that it would be nice if Davis would break out of his three panel habit ever now and again, but that dosen't mean he can't make the occasionally funny comic in the format.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:04:53

I just don't get why Davis gets shit for three-panel only comics when so many other strip-writers do the same thing (not necessarily with the same number of panels, but still).

He could diversify, but it's not like he's the only one that does it.

There's even an entire sub-medium of comics (the Japanese 4koma) whose entire premise is "there are four panels in this strip".

Anyway, the thing about the isolated panel is that it's not even dada humor (honestly the original comes closer), it's just stupid. It's a setup for a joke that never comes.

Yeah, I think I may take this too seriously.

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 03:06:08

I liked Garfield as a kid, but since recently I've disliked it.

But I don't think that Davis can really be blamed for making comics that aren't funny. He has to do this shit daily, and I'm pretty sure that most people would run out of decent material after a while of that.

Besides that, Garfield is sort of a cultural icon now; it has popularity outside of whatever quality individual strips would have. The standards for newspaper comics are also pretty low, in my opinion. Put all that together, and you've got an environment that doesn't really demand very much quality from the artist.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:07:25

I surely cannot be the only person who finds Garfield funny? :/

I like the remixes and whatnot too (some of them, anyway), but I find that Davis usually manages to elicit at least a chuckle from me.

I even had Red Garfield as my avatar once.

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 03:09:52

(By the way, I think people are missing out on the fact that Garfield is leaning on Jon's head in the last panel on his pointy elbow. Looks like that could be the punchline, that that's what's causing the headaches.)

Some are mildly amusing, but it's not really my kind of humor. I at least enjoyed them quite a bit as a kid.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:10:53

Yeah, that is supposed to be the punchline. But it's one of those things where the setup makes no sense until the punchline is delivered. Which is why I like the standalone panel much less.

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 03:11:06

"By the way, I think people are missing out on the fact that Garfield is leaning on Jon's head in the last panel on his pointy elbow. Looks like that could be the punchline, that that's what's causing the headaches."

Yeah, we got that. :P

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:12:33

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 03:14:55

Hehe, that did make me chuckle.

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 03:17:16

I guess it's kind of silly that I thought anyone missed it. I honestly did at first...

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:18:02

Garfield's expression in the second panel is priceless, honestly.

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 03:19:24

Not to be a dick, but don't his eyes only have like, four possible states in this art style? (Discounting pupils.)

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 03:19:39

"I guess it's kind of silly that I thought anyone missed it. I honestly did at first..."

I think that's what makes it a good joke. It does require some thought and perhaps a reread to process what's going on.

"Not to be a dick, but don't his eyes only have like, four possible states in this art style?"

That could easily be on purpose. If you have to draw a comic EVERY day, you'd want to put in a few shortcuts.

I notice the default is the "eyes almost all the way shut" look for Garfield, which gets across his default mood pretty well.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:20:32

I also hate it when people rag on Davis from re-using gags if the strips in question are years apart.

Take these two;

Similar yes. But they're from 1980 and 2009, respectively. Almost 30 years apart.

Not to be a dick, but don't his eyes only have like, four possible states in this art style? (Discounting pupils.)

The eyes aren't the only part of an expression. And...no, no they don't. :/

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 03:25:34

Doesn't it take a while to find a panel where his eyes aren't all the way open, all the way shut, mostly shut, or angry?

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:27:14

I suppose. But you said "possible".

Unknown · 2012-05-05 03:27:42

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 03:28:24

I also said "like".

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:29:23

Fair enough.

I still like the strip, though.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-05-05 03:30:53

Here's another one that I find funnier than the remix.

all the remix does

is add a shitton more panels. Which, good for you, you've turned a perfectly workable short gag into Lisa's braces.

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 03:34:45

They MIGHT be trying to go meta.

Like... Garfield is getting older why trying to think of why it's better to get older.

Though, this notion didn't make the comic any better, to me...

Tachyon · 2012-05-05 03:54:34

>I surely cannot be the only person who finds Garfield funny? :/

You're not, although I guess it can be a little hit-and-miss. It amused me a lot as a kid, and I still like it now.

And I agree that it's kinda ironic to rip into Davis for lack of originality then make repetitive remix comics, although I do quite like Garfield Minus Garfield and especially Realfield, all the same.

>I just want to point out that this strip, to quote Garfield in the original, makes no sense at all.

This reminds me of "xkcd sucks" a bit - how quite often they'll be ranting about how something "makes no sense," ignoring the fact that it's a cartoon and often seemingly missing the joke.

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 04:39:39

I'm getting a real kick out of Square Root of Minus Garfield.

Justice4243 · 2012-05-05 11:22:45

They do come up with some good ones, and sometime the humor is in the commentary.

Gelzo · 2012-05-05 11:35:58

I liked the one where they did the identity function of Garfield, and said that on its own that version wasn't funny.

Garfield Minus Garfield (Image Heavy)

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories