Why Do We All Love This Orange Cat So Much?

An Origin Story

Garfield is a comic strip written and illustrated by Jim Davis. It premiered in 1978 and has captivated us ever since. But that’s not the whole story. Intrinsically, Garfield as a comic strip doesn’t have much to say. It’s a repetitive, if humorous, story of a cat and a sad man. The commercialization of Garfield into nearly every possible avenue is where it really shines. From towels to cookbooks to the Macy’s Day Parade, Garfield is everywhere you look. But where it gets really interesting is in the viewer’s interpretation and subsequent reimagining and remixing of Garfield. Let’s take a look.

Garfield Minus Garfield

An ingenious remix of Garfield, and perhaps the most famous, is Garfield Minus Garfield: a comic strip created by erasing every character except Garfield’s owner, John Arbuckle, leaving him sad and alone in an empty void.

Realfield

In this remix of the strip, Garfield is replaced by a more realistic orange tabby who never speaks, once again leaving John alone.

Garfield Shuffle

Not quite a comic strip, per-se, but an activity. This program allows the user to create a remixed version of the comic by picking randomly generated panels from past strips. You can view an implementation of it here.

Live, Laugh, Lasaga

When I made this shirt, I thought someone else had probably already done it. But, according to a cursory Google search, no one else has! So here it is—the newest work in the never-ending Garfield parody-stream—the Live, Laugh, Lasaga shirt, exclusively from Alley Cat.

Sources/further reading:

• https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

• https://www.facebook.com/TheRealfield/

• https://www.halloweencostumes.com/blog/p-1155-the-history-of-garfield.aspx

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield_Minus_Garfield