Garfield

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=3845

Strip by: Manyhills

Garfield {reading}: "Dear Ask a Dog,"...

Garfield {reading}: "What exactly is a beef by-product?"

Odie: Arf arf arf

Garfield: Tupac's murder

{Odie winks}

The author writes:

My admittedly ignorant reading of the consensus is that the unsolved murder of American rapper Tupac Shakur is thought to be probably unrelated to the high-profile coastal rivalry then-ongoing in the hip-hop industry. But maybe Odie knows something we don't.

Original strips: 2011-03-03, 2018-02-07, 2018-07-11.

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Transcript:

Odie falls over when playing ball

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

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Transcript:

Odie: BARK!

Garfield: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

CLOBBER!

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=42

Strip by: Leon Arnott

{A collection of large, colourful blocks of pixels}

The author writes:

Jason Rohrer's video games, Passage and Gravitation have a unique art style to them - the game area is only 100 pixels wide and about as many pixels high. The player characters of these games are only 8 pixels high and 8 pixels wide.

Within these limitations, and without the use of text to provide context, each pixel becomes vitally important in portraying detail and form.

The above Garfield strip is simply the comic image for 1982-06-07, reduced to 6.25% of its original size. It's only through the framing of this image as a Garfield strip do you instantly recognise the 12 orange and black pixels in panel 1 as Garfield the cat sitting upright, and as the mess of grey pixels above him as his thought bubble. That luxury of context isn't afforded to Rohrer's games - and it's thus quite admirable that he is able to portray his games' elements unambiguously.

Another aspect that the above Garfield strip can only hint at are the beautiful ways that Rohrer animates his games. The background pixels fluctuate and fade between various shades of colours as they transition from, say, snow to grass. The resulting effect adds a degree of vibrancy and liveliness to his games' otherwise constrained images.

Original strip: 1982-06-07.

Reworked into the 1978-08-10 strip:

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

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Transcript:

Garfield: Today is my birthday, and I hate birthdays. I'm going to get a surprise party, and I hate surprise parties.

Jon: SURPRISE, GARFIELD!

Garfield: But I LOOOOOVE the attention.

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=81

Strip by: Colin Foster

Jon: Not counting this bag...

Jon: We're completely out of potato chips.

James A. Garfield: Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis.

The author writes:

James A. Garfield was the President of the United States for four months, until a disgruntled speechwriter shot him in his torso. Thanks to the efforts of his doctors, what may have been a non-fatal shooting ended up growing into an infection, killing him eighty days later. Presumably, he enjoyed potato chips.

The portrait used of James A. Garfield here is public domain.

Original strip: 2005-09-08.

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Transcript:

Garfield: Tomorrow I'll be two years of age. That's the human equivalent of fourteen. Cats have it good. Adolescence without acne.

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=3299

Strip by: ccznen

{Garfield and Jon are built entirely with LEGO bricks}

Jon: Hi, there... I'm Jon Arbuckle. I'm a cartoonist, and this is my cat, Garfield.

Garfield: Hi, there. I'm Garfield. I'm a cat, and this is my cartoonist, Jon.

Jon: Our only thought is to entertain you.

Garfield: Feed me.

The author writes:

Original strip: 1978-06-19.

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Largely the same as the Garfield strip from 1978-08-08:

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=557

Strip by: Anonymous

{Garfield is in his bed, with his eyeballs skewed.}

{Garfield sits on Jon's bed.}

Jon: Garfield, go back to bed.

{Garfield merely sits there with eyes skewed.}

{Jon's eyes go skewy too.}

The author writes:

Another strip rescued off an Internet forum somewhere and sent in for posterity.

Original strip: 2004-12-22

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Transcript:

Garfield: In two days I'll be two years old...that's fourteen years in human terms. I can't wait. In another four months I'll be old enough to drive.

Largely the same as the Garfield strip from 1978-08-07:

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=9

Strip by: David McLeish

The author writes:

This is the result of averaging the colour values at each pixel for every regular (non-Sunday) Garfield strip from 2007. Buried in the blur you can notice some interesting features:

• The absolutely static 3-panel structure with a borderless panel in the middle.
• Jon tends to stand on the left and Garfield on the right.
• The dialogue is always lined up exactly in the same vertical location.

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Transcript:

Jon: What would you like for your birthday, Garfield?

Garfield: Another nine lives.

Jon: How about a ball of yarn?

Garfield: How about not?

Jon: What if I keep you in kitty sweaters?

Garfield: What if I keep you in stitches?

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Transcript:

Garfield: I'm hungry.

Jon: Garfield, you know how I hate it when you poke me.

Garfield: Then feed me.

Jon: How would you like it if I poked you?!

Lyman: It's things like that, that make me glad I'm a dog owner.

Odie: I'm hungry.

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