Garfield Minus Garfield coming to bookstores near you.
Whether you love Garfield, loathe Garfield, or could not possibly care less about Garfield one way or another, you kinda of owe it to yourself to check out Garfield Minus Garfield. According to the site, G-G is
“dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.”
It’ll all make sense in context.
The web comic has only been around since February 2008, but its unique and hilarious mission of observing one man’s descent into loneliness and madness in the ‘Burbs by way of Jon Arbuckle has caught the attention not only millions of visitors from all around the world, but also Ballantine Books and PAWS, the companies responsible for publishing all things Garfield.
They liked it so much they decided to publish it in a full-color book format which will give readers the experience of having both the original and doctored Garfield strips together on the same page for comparison.
Ballantine has been publishing Garfield books since 1980. The release of G-G will coincide with a 30th anniversary Garfield volume entitled “Thirty Years of Laughs and Lasagna: The Life and Times of a Fat, Furry Legend”.
According to the press release on the Garfield Press Room, Garfield Minus Garfield site creator Dan Walsh is pretty stoked.
“When I looked at Jon and laughed at his crazy antics I thought ‘He’s just like me.’ As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one saw myself in him: millions of visitors from all over the world visit Garfield Minus Garfield and tell me they think the same thing. Now, thanks to the awesome generosity and humor of Jim Davis, Garfield Minus Garfield is going to become a book and I’m absolutely honored to be part of it.”
But what does Garfield creator Jim Davis think?
“I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield. Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”
It’s nice to see that even a massive publishing house can have a sense of humour about their own product. As far as I’m concerned, Garfield hasn’t been funny since about 1985. Whether that’s because that’s about the time I grew out of it or it just started getting lame is unclear, but considering the strip really hasn’t changed its core message since day 1, I’m gonna go with the former 🙂 Kudos to Dan Walsh for taking the ubiquitous strip and turning it on itself so that we not only see Garfield from a new perspective, but in a way, ourselves as well.
Great find! Re: Davis’s comments, I have always been wondering what he thinks of this strip.
Kudos to Jim Davis! I haven’t said that in a very long time, but he was even willing to admit cases where the removal of Garfield made it funnier.
Also the man is just fucking smart. G minus G actually qualifies as parody, and Dan doesn’t need Davis at *all* to publish it. But by embracing derivative works instead of fighting them, and offering to raise them up I’m willing to bet that he negotiated a hefty cut.
I mean think about it, as the creator of the original work for a derivative, you have a big leg up over anyone else attempting to capitalise on that derivative, because the artist has already shown his respect for you and will likely choose you over any other commercial partner.
This is how artists used to make money in Shakespeare’s time. ‘Hey, big-time copycat. Over there in Italy, selling quartos publically. Want me to endorse your product, as the author? Start sending me farthings. Oh and by the way, fix these errors, philistine!’