When I was interested in being cool, I had two favorite comic strips” “Calvin and Hobbes” and “The Far Side.” But before I was interested in being cool, I used to read “Garfield,” one goofy book at a time. I loved Odie. I loved Garfield’s passion for lasagna and coffee. And I loved how series creator Jim Davis dotted his i‘s with an open circle. I remember wishing that there were some i‘s in Jason Boyett so I could do the same. (It never occurred to me that I had two o‘s to work with.)
Anyway, that’s just a long meaningless introduction so I can tell you to check out this site: Garfield Minus Garfield. It’s a daily collection of “Garfield” comic strips but with the titular character digitally removed. What you end up with is a really weird and occasionally disturbing comic. Primarily, it seems to chronicle poor Jon Arbuckle as he goes about life facing the challenges of some serious mental health issues. Dude talks to himself a lot, about weird stuff.
There’s a deep metaphor in here about stories and characters and changes in meaning, but I haven’t quite hit on it yet.
Read it now, before Jim Davis finds out about it and punts the blog in an Odie-like fashion.
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