Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here
Some background on this comic:
Transcript:
I submitted this for publication several years before it actually ran. My editor worried about its impact on some readers, although he personally loved it so much he kept the original on his office wall.
And then one day there was a mix-up over the number of backlogged cartoons, producing a shortage, and this one had to be pulled off the wall and used.
Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=958
Strip by: DanielBT
SFX: scratch scratch scratch
Caption: When they opened the door on that wild winter night,
Caption: They expected no one - and was met with a sight
Caption: In front of them stood a creature seething with smarm
Caption: Whose peculiar appearance gave them cause for alarm.
SFX: Zoom!
Garfield: I'm one of the few mammals who can breathe under food.
Caption: All at once it leapt inside in search of a goal,
Caption: Where it chose to bury its nose in a bowl.
Jon: Why don't you ever listen to me?
Garfield: Huh?
Off-screen: Z
Garfield: Z
Caption: It was seemingly deaf to whatever was said,
Caption: So at last they gave up, and went back to bed.
Jon: Where's the pan?
Garfield: Resting not so comfortably.
Caption: The next morning it presently devoured
Caption: Two dozen meals in the course of an hour.
SFX: Rip
SFX: Crash
Caption: It wrenched off the channel knob from the TV,
Caption: And could not be persuaded to leave it be.
Garfield: I do not!
Jon: What the?
SFX: slosh
Caption: It denied a great liking for peering down flues,
Caption: And for pouring coffee inside running shoes.
SFX: shake shake shake
SFX: kachink-kachink-kachink-
Caption: At times it would censor whole chapters from books,
Caption: Or put rooms full of pictures askew on their hooks.
Jon: Arrrrgh!
Caption: Every Sunday it slept and lay on the floor,
Caption: Inconveniently close to the front-room door.
Jon: Garfield!
Caption: Now and then it would simply disappear for lunch,
Caption: But alas, be found swimming inside the punch.
Jon: Garfield!
Caption: It was subject to fits of bewildering jest,
Caption: During which it would take all the paper from the toilet.
Garfield: zzz
Garfield: zzz
Caption: In the day through the house it would purposefully lumber,
Caption: Despite not be convincing of being aslumber.
Garfield: This isn't junk. This is my stuff.
SFX: Kong!
Caption: It would carry around objects it greatly liked,
Caption: And save them by throwing them into the dike.
Garfield: Maybe a tad long, though.
Garfield: I'm still here.
Caption: It came forty-three years ago - and ever since then
Caption: It has shown no intention of leaving again.
The author writes:
I originally wanted to replace Gorey's illustrations of the intrusive guest with images of Opus the Penguin since there were several poses where he would've fit perfectly. Sadly, due to my lack of Photoshop skills, it simply never got started. As a compromise, I settled for satirising The Doubtful Guest with Garfield instead.
Like many satires, it's funnier if you're already familiar with the original version.
Original strips: 1978-11-25, 1979-09-16, 1980-12-31, 1983-10-02, 1983-10-23, 1984-09-23, 1984-12-23, 1986-03-23, 1987-06-07, 1987-10-03, 1987-12-19, 1988-03-04, 1988-07-19, 1989-11-18, 1990-02-09, 1991-12-08, 1993-06-01, 1993-10-04, 2000-08-30, 2002-01-01, 2002-10-06, 2006-06-02.
Caption:
In Saddam Husseinβs war room
Alt text:
Yo! Is this the place that ordered the Mother of all Pizzas? Larry
Title text
counterclockwise feels better than clockwise
Author comment:
this is also how dinosaurs prepare for bedtime
Transcript:
Garfield: There it is! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR MAKER, SLUDGE MONSTER!
Jon: Why did you mangle that liver, Garfield?
Garfield: In the interest of national security, sir.
I hope your weekend is girthy too π
If you're wondering about the term itself, wiktionary has some background:
Not known with certainty. Two long-held hypotheses are as follows: One describes combat soldiers wistfully wishing to go back home, buy a farm, and live peacefully there; later, after they had been killed in combat, their fellow soldiers would say that they had bought the farm (compare the established metaphor pattern of having gone to that big [whatever sort of nice place] in the sky). Another links the phrase to the idea that governments compensate farmers whose land is damaged by a military aircraft crash; a deceased pilot was thus said to have bought the farm, and the term eventually entered wider use.
(idiomatic, US, informal, euphemistic) To die; generally, to die in battle or in a plane crash.
This idiom is most often found in its past tense and past participle form bought the farm.
Listening to #3 from Selected Ambient Works Volume II by Aphex Twin as I scrolled past this post, which I think really fits with this screen
It just got "sharpened" a few weeks ago! There was a whole event for it:
I WANT TO BELIEVE
ENHANCE
Neat, looks like the author got a publishing deal and has a new version of it coming out later this year:
Here's the author's blurb about it, if it piques anyone else's interest that hasn't read it yet:
An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.
Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you tried: complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams...
But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war?
Welcome to the Antimemetics Division.
No, this is not your first day.
Good catch, thanks! It looks like the GoComics site has the wrong B&W comic up. I don't have a better source for it, so here's a rather pixelated version:
The first sketch vs final version of this comic:
Transcript (sketch):
Primitive humor
The clouds really decided "fuck you in particular" in the middle panel
This is one of the newer comics that he drew digitally, for posting on the site. I see what you're saying with the edits, but not sure what's going in since it wasn't intended for printing in newspapers π€·