Garfield Minus Garfield (reviewed by Kristian Williams)
Absent Protagonist
Garfield Minus Garfield
reviewed by Kristian Williams
It turns out that the problem with Garfield is Garfield. Take away the cat and suddenly one of the most banal strips on the comics page becomes a meditation on loneliness, tedium, and existential despair. With Garfield gone, the dialogue becomes monologue. Jon talks, not to his pets, but to himself -- or to no one, or to us. (Disturbingly, these all come to the same thing.) The strip stops being boring and inane and becomes instead a commentary on boredom and inanity. As often as not, the punch line is silence, stasis, or an empty frame. The pervasive sense of anti-climax, the sheer pointlessness of it all, is at once tragic and hilarious.
posted by MindBuck @ 8:10 AM
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