The Comics Curmudgeon

47 responses to “Garfield: Lazy. Garfield’s creators: Much, much lazier.”

1. Flasshe
   April 27th, 2005 at 10:06 pm [Reply]

   Actually, the Jim Davis surrogate was supposed to put a moose in the middle panel, but forgot. Ten lashes, cartoonist mule!

   Hey Josh, I think you should take over Garfield. Couldn’t hurt.

2. formerCatholicAltarboy
   April 27th, 2005 at 10:18 pm [Reply]

   Hey I love that joke!

3. formerCatholicAltarboy
   April 27th, 2005 at 10:21 pm [Reply]

   And definitely agree re: taking over Garfield – you would be so much more interesting for sure

4. Jowdygirl
   April 27th, 2005 at 10:24 pm [Reply]

   that is definitely a classic! love it Josh !

5. Jowdygirl
   April 27th, 2005 at 10:27 pm [Reply]

   Day-umm, scary thought, ya think Michael Jackson ever posed as a Priest? could be..

6. Maxim Gorky
   April 27th, 2005 at 10:27 pm [Reply]

   Was there some sort of contest to come up with Garfield strips? Did I miss that one? What a hoot!

7. rozencrantz
   April 28th, 2005 at 12:10 am [Reply]

   That “you ate all the food” comic is completely indistinguishable from a regular garfield strip. I don’t think it’s possible to exaggerate the soullessness of something that soulless.

8. Jay Nickola
   April 28th, 2005 at 12:55 am [Reply]

   rosencrantz — As Andy Warhol said, “The highest form of parody is the thing itself.”

9. Kleenexwoman
   April 28th, 2005 at 2:46 am [Reply]

   CastleZZT.net is still doing Garfield parodies. And has, in my opinion, gone downhill.

10. Jack masters
    April 28th, 2005 at 5:25 am [Reply]

    The last batch are leftovers from previous ones, so you’re quite astute to think so.

11. Joe
    April 28th, 2005 at 6:47 am [Reply]

    It didn’t used to be like this in my day, gentlemen….no, it didn’t used to be like this at all. In my day, cartoon cats played cartoon ukeleles and dropped bowling balls on cartoon mice. And cartoon dogs would run cartoon cats through washing machine wringers, after which said cartoon dog would iron the cartoon cat like he was a lacy pillowcase.

    But the marketing people have taken over. Now it is more profitable to have a cartoon cat scratch himself for three panels. Well, I have had just about enough. Time for some blowback. We need to start a coordinated smear campaign to build on the one Josh has already started. Who’s with me?

12. Hysterical Woman
    April 28th, 2005 at 6:50 am [Reply]

    I confess, I used to read the Garfield collections at the library extensively. But I also read Tintin to make up for that.

13. Lassie
    April 28th, 2005 at 7:03 am [Reply]

    Ah-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! A Two-fer! Child- molesting priests AND Garfield, two unfunny things made funny! Great!!!

14. Monkeys Uncle
    April 28th, 2005 at 7:38 am [Reply]

    This comic reminds me of a poem I read once…

    I think Garfield sucks
    Sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks
    You too Jim Davis

    (with apologies to Fuzzmaster…)

15. Smitty Smedlap
    April 28th, 2005 at 8:08 am [Reply]

    A few years back, our local amusement park (Kennywood Park in suburban Pittsburgh) developed some sort of tie-in with the Garfield corporation.

    As part of the deal, they made over the oldest ride in the park (the Old Mill, a tunnel of love-style boat ride) into “Garfield’s Nightmare.” I’m sure it’s as tedious as an ordinary Garfield strip, only longer.

16. johncomic
    April 28th, 2005 at 8:22 am [Reply]

    “Is there something about the repetition of identical images that’s supposed to tell us something about the passage of time, about comic iconography?”

    Well actually, yes.

    Multiple panels do create a different sense of time and timing than one long panel containing all the same “info”. [I sensed this years before I read about it in Understanding Comics.] It’s related to the idea of using a silent panel to create a pause or beat in a strip. It’s a perfectly valid technical device.

    Whether this strip is worth using such “advanced technique” on, is another question entirely….

17. Islamorada Girl
    April 28th, 2005 at 8:58 am [Reply]

    Happy Crossover thought for today:
    Fence Post Frank, moonlighting as Fay Begler’s hearse driver, “accidentally” runs over Garfield on the way to Shady Rest Garden of Memorial Peace.
    The Romano family, coming the other way in their Lincoln Navigator, are instantly killed in a head-on collision when FPF tries to swerve to hit Garfield yet again.

    There is not a fiction writer in this world who has not, at some middle point in a book, wanted to write “And they all got hit by a truck and died. The end.”

18. Sir H C
    April 28th, 2005 at 9:20 am [Reply]

    Years back the director David Lynch had a comic called “The Angriest Dog in the World”. Every week it was the exact same three panels with different words in the balloons. My favorite one (it was always inane) was “Cheese is made from milk”. If Garfield could hit those heights, I would read it.

19. Cynthesizer
    April 28th, 2005 at 9:24 am [Reply]

    Speaking of the exact same panels repeated ad infinitum with different words each day, please avail yourselves of the brilliance that is http://www.qwantz.com

20. Dennis Jimenez
    April 28th, 2005 at 10:00 am [Reply]

    This reminds me of how much I miss disfunctional family circus….

21. So-Called "Austin Mayor"
    April 28th, 2005 at 10:14 am [Reply]

    In the original strip, Garfield is talking about food so I presume that his mouth is full of said food.

    What is in Garfield’s mouth in the “Truly Tasteless Jokes” strip?

22. Jedzz
    April 28th, 2005 at 11:08 am [Reply]

    Where is The Boondocks in this conversation? Did you see today’s, among others?

23. daChipster
    April 28th, 2005 at 11:27 am [Reply]

    This is the face of Garfield when he actually looks like the guy who provided his cartoon voice (the late, great Lorenzo Music a.k.a. Carlton the Doorman) sounded.

    Rather than using Bill Murray as Garfield’s voice in last year’s movie, they should have used comic Steven Wright. But wait, they couldn’t because he said : “Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.”

    Either way, Garfield’s monologue in these three motionless panels evokes Music or Wright.

    Suddenly, and without warning, I find I’ve invested waaaay too much thought into Garfield. NURSE! Can I have my Thorazine now? HURRY!

24. Mooncity
    April 28th, 2005 at 11:40 am [Reply]

    I don’t think Jim Davis even bothers with Photoshop. That’s too high tech for this strip. No, I think he uses woodcuts or rubber stamps.

25. bll
    April 28th, 2005 at 11:47 am [Reply]

    I offer partiallyclips.com has the high art of the repeating panel.

    http://www.partiallyclips.com/pages/archive.php?id=1320

26. "-"
    April 28th, 2005 at 12:45 pm [Reply]

    I’ll defend to your death your right to say it, but I don’t agree one hundred percent.

    Yes, I, too, don’t really like Garfield. If you look at the books over a long long time, it’s just a set of the same jokes, over and over, etc.

    But somebody pointed out the timing thing. Now if you had put together those three panels with an old Jack Benny joke suitably modified, like say:

    Allright cat! That sandwich or yer life!
    I said, that food or yer life!
    Take it, John’s got another just like it.

    Well, that doesn’t seem to work so well, but you get the idea. It’s ticka-ticka-tocka timing.

    But, yeah, Garfield sucks.

    And besides, isn’t it really just a rip off of something else?

27. PizzaBagel
    April 28th, 2005 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

    You want repetitious comic-strip art – but really good stuff, with excellent, really off-beat humor? See
    Red Meat. The same images are used not only in several panels of a given strip (sometimes with subtle variations), but throughout the course of this strip from week to week. Click on “fresh meat” for the current strip, then click on “previous” to see the prior week’s strip.

28. Other_Sally
    April 28th, 2005 at 3:35 pm [Reply]

    Johncomc–completely agree with you, except I wouldn’t say that it’s an “advanced technique”… it’s really one of the most basic building blocks of comics.

29. dimestore lipstick
    April 28th, 2005 at 4:00 pm [Reply]

    Repeating Panel? Three words: Lore Brand Comics.

    http://www.lorebrandcomics.com/newpope.html

30. Mibbitmaker
    April 29th, 2005 at 5:29 am [Reply]

    Yes, indeed, this Garfield was lazy and stupid. Oddly enough, Doonesbury did the same-image panels back in the day; Doonesbury was actually better back then, and Garfield is worse now.

    Hmmm……..

31. laska
    April 29th, 2005 at 7:33 am [Reply]

    PizzaBagel- Thank you so much for thinking of Red Meat! I, too, thought about the strip, but it’s been almost 10 years since I read it, and forgot what it was called. Now I can go and get my Milkman Dan fix again.

32. Anon
    April 29th, 2005 at 8:44 am [Reply]

    The joke was offensive to me as a Catholic – you’re off my Bloglines list. It probably doesn’t matter to you, but I don’t waste my time with bigots.

33. daChipster
    April 29th, 2005 at 9:28 am [Reply]

    Being a Catholic in America has meant developing a little bit of a thick skin and a sense of humor. On the one hand, we’re often targeted for our “popery” – indeed, the KKK is virulently anti-Catholic along with being anti-Jew and anti-black, and an entire political party, the “Know Nothing” party, came into being esxpressly to be anti-Catholic.

    Add to that the unfortunate trends in recent years for all of these priestly abuses.

    What emerges is a culture that believes Catholics to be less than American.

    On the other hand, the hierarchy of our Church remains firmly mired in the 19th century, with Vatican I being the gold standard and Vatican II being gutted. And although we can now eat meat on Fridays (hooray?) it’s still theoretically possible for me as a male to be elected Pope, but someone like Mother Theresa not. That’s wrong on oh! so many levels.

    Our relaxed attitudes towards contraception, our support of a married clergy, our belief in the FULL equality of women all cause our Holy Mother Church to view Americans to be less than Catholic.

    Thus, caught between the Rock of Peter and the hard hearts of our fellow Americans, we need to be able to recognize our flaws, yes, even laugh about them, and stand up to ourselves, our Church and our detractors.

    All that having been said, the poster who is now walking away from this board because of that joke only contributes to the problem. Put another way, with a nod to the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka “Lighten up, St. Francis!”

    On the other hand I would have held a certain amount of grudging admiration for someone who stood by the courage of their convictions, if only he or she hadn’t done it ANONYMOUSLY!

    To be an American Catholic is to be a walking oxymoron – I guess we see where the “moron” part comes from.

34. sally
    April 29th, 2005 at 10:11 am [Reply]

    daChipster, you are a wise man.

    For those of you unfamiliar with Red Meat, I remember it having a pretty high “ew” factor so if you are sensitive, beware.

35. Lassie
    April 29th, 2005 at 11:42 am [Reply]

    So long, offended-Catholic “anon.” Don’t let the doorknob swing back and hit you in the ass on your way out the door to go to confession. You might enjoy it.

36. Hysterical Woman
    April 29th, 2005 at 5:37 pm [Reply]

    I’d be offended if a joke from a book of tasteless jokes didn’t offend me or anyone else.

37. ComicsFan
    April 29th, 2005 at 6:31 pm [Reply]

    “I hate you, Milkman Dan!”

    Same denoument and pictures in every Red Meat strip, nearly, but consistently funny in a warped way few have been able to mimic. Be sure to watch for bug-eyed Earl’s slight smile in panel 3 of this week’s strip (it may be last week’s by now)

38. ComicsFan
    April 29th, 2005 at 6:32 pm [Reply]

    “I hate you, Milkman Dan!”

    Same denoument and pictures in every Red Meat strip, nearly, but consistently funny in a warped way few have been able to mimic. Be sure to watch for bug-eyed Earl’s slight smile in panel 3 of this week’s strip (it may be last week’s by now)

39. Jowdygirl
    April 30th, 2005 at 9:50 pm [Reply]

    no room for hate here Dude, chill

40. Jacob Haller
    April 30th, 2005 at 11:49 pm [Reply]

    Garfield? Red Meat?

    http://kontext-away.com/comics/garfield.gif

41. PizzaBagel
    May 1st, 2005 at 1:28 am [Reply]

    Jacob, very gewd! All that it lacked was the cleverly cryptic title. Perhaps: “cranial liposuction for the pet set”

42. craig
    May 1st, 2005 at 9:32 pm [Reply]

    I found some Lynch strips here:
    http://www.davidlynch.de/angry.html

43. GilmoreGuy
    May 2nd, 2005 at 5:18 pm [Reply]

    I’m trying to respect the fact that someone might be offended by the “priest” strip, but as a homosexual it’s hard for me to buy into the whole “Catholics under attack” thing.

44. Garth Wallace
    May 3rd, 2005 at 5:47 pm [Reply]

    There is actually movement in this strip. If you look closely, you’ll notice that Garfield’s cheeks are ever so slightly bigger in the third panel than in the preceding two.

45. ericl
    February 11th, 2006 at 10:44 am [Reply]

    The problem is that Davis does his own strips. He’s gotten tired. In decades past, some of the stuff was really good. He was a bit of a punker back in the ’70s.

46. TomSFox
    February 26th, 2007 at 1:19 pm [Reply]

    You know, the panel isn’t actually copied.
    Every panel was redrawn manually.
    If you copy one panel on the other undo/redo, you’ll see it.

47. jhu
    February 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm [Reply]

    fgfg

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