More Comic-Related Internet Tomfoolery

At some point in time, we've probably all read at least one Garfield comic strip. Chances are it probably wasn't funny. Thanks to our old friend, the internet, Garfield has found a new niche in the hearts of the public, nestled somewhere between a fondness for anything ironic and flat out goofy shit.

I wouldn't say the image above is he nexus of this meme, but I'm under the impression it's the most recognizable. There are countless variations of the googly eyes theme readily available via encyclopedia dramatica, along with examples of any other manipulation of Garfield you probably never cared to know about before. Like anything else on the internet, people were bound to take things too far, and a lot of what you'll find is either too forced to be funny or maybe requires too great a knowledge of the dregs of the internet to be appreciated by everyone. Of course, this is totally subjective and it's probably pretty likely that a large percent of anyone reading this thinks I'm full of shit for being entertained by any of this, but that's cool too.

Beyond the occasional MS Paint-altered picture is Garfield Minus Garfield, a daily updated site which is pretty much exactly what you'd think, given the title. The site is "dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle." The first time I saw these I thought they were pretty good, but it gets old quick if you're going back and looking through the archives. It's not funny when the original joke of the strip is Jon's loneliness because the absence of Garfield doesn't add any sort of absurd or realistic level, and we get it, Jon is lonely a lot. Here's a couple of gems from the past month or so, made so only because that's the kind of shit that's just real.





And then there's Lasagna Cat, which are videos of live action Garfield strips, followed by (in this case) a musical montage reminiscent of the same sorts of things that were funny on the internet in 2001.



For a more articulate discussion on what makes this sort of garbage actually funny versus actually just garbage, there's a good article on The Comic Strip Doctor, which is part of Wondermark by David Malki. You should check out his comics as well, especially if you're already in the mindset of humor through recontextualized images.