Garfield without Garfield

[the shutdown man]

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Letâ??s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Link: http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">The descent.....

[TordelBack]

I've been laughing myself sick over this stuff for a while now.  Talk about deceptively simple - some of the strips are either profoundly depressing or totally hilarious, I can't quite decide.  Makes me want to re-edit Calvin and Hobbes so that Hobbes is always a stufed tiger.

[satchmo]

It's brilliant isn't it! I've read them all about three times but I still laughed my arse off at the link.

[the shutdown man]

I only found out about it a few days ago, and I've just been sitting in work chuckling to myself reading it. I've never been the biggest Garfield fan to begin with, so this makes a big difference.

Although, I do love Calvin and Hobbes, so I think doing something similar to that would just be heart-breaking.

[TordelBack]

Although, I do love Calvin and Hobbes, so I think doing something similar to that would just be heart-breaking.

You're right, of course.  On reflection, just thinking about it makes me feel ill.

[Jim_Campbell]

"Makes me want to re-edit Calvin and Hobbes so that Hobbes is always a stuffed tiger."

Surely the genius of Calvin & Hobbes is that Hobbes is always a stuffed tiger?

There's a moment in the strip - can't tell you which collection - where Calvin finds a baby bird (I think ... some kind of woodland animal, anyway) that's been abandoned by its parents and, after a couple of strips, it dies and Calvin's Dad has to break the news to him.

Once his dad has gone, Calvin turns to Hobbes and says "Don't ever leave", to which Hobbes replies "Don't worry."

No word of a lie - this although I can't do justice to this in words, this sequence reduces me to tears every time. I'm bloody sniffling as I write this! Right there, in three panels, is the end of childhood, the loss of innocence, as perfectly encapsulated as any writer in any medium could ever hope to achieve, but without sacrificing the magic of C&H. We, as adults, see that Hobbes will, inevitably, "leave" but the willingness with which Calvin accepts his reassurance ...

God, I'm sniffling again ...

And the real genius of Watterson is that I don't think he ever even attempted anything like that again. That one little moment sits embedded in all the other fine things that C&H represents ... I don't even know if it affected anyone else like that.

I'll shut up now!

Cheers

Jim

[satchmo]

Amen, Jim. I'm with you mate.

[JOE SOAP]

http://www.rayb.com/cartoons/calvin.jpg">

[Radbacker]

god damn it Jim, that description is making me mist up, damn you i look like a fool nearly weeping at my comp at work.
Calvin And Hobbes is brill though.

Garfeildless garfield works supprisingly well in a sick way.

CU Radbacker

[SuperSurfer]

Might as well get the rest of 'em blubbing.

Link: http://progressiveboink.com/archive/calvinhobbes.htm" target="_blank">Calvin and Hobbes

http://progressiveboink.com/ch/cal_hobb-raccoon1.jpg">

[TordelBack]

Surely the genius of Calvin & Hobbes is that Hobbes is always a stuffed tiger?

Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutp.  How could you even think such a thing? ; >

The baby raccoon story has haunted me for years.  With the missus working in an animal shelter, our house has a constant parade of sick and abandoned fluffies that need hand-feeding at odd hours of the night.   Inevitably, you get attached to some of them, little balls of warm scrabbling shitty fur no bigger than your hand in the small hours, and equally inevitably  many of them die, almost universally taking a chunk of your soul with them.  Everytime I pick one up and find it's cold, I think of Calvin's Dad from the raccoon strip: "At least he died safe and warm".

Incidentally, Calvin's Dad is my role model in my own family life, in particular the bizarre and confident explanations of the universe which I spend idle minutes developing.  The good woman's role model  is, perhaps unfortunately, Lois from Malcolm in the Middle.

By the way Jim, I liked the way you fixed my misspelling of 'stufed'.  Now that's service!

[Bolt-01]

Tord- I'm with you there. Calvins Dad is a genius at making sure the kids never trust a single thing he says.

Calvin & Hobbes is wonderful, just wonderful.

Bolt-01

[the shutdown man]

"A man's home is his castle, but it shouldn't have to be a fortress."

Long live Calvin's Dad.

[Roger Godpleton]

The doctor fantasy is my favourite, but it's worrying as I have conversations like that all the time

[TordelBack]

Sarcasm (aka lowest form of wit - but still a personal fave!) abounds at the link.

Link: http://www.progressiveruin.com/2008_03_23_archive.html#490297842283646136" target="_blank">One step beyond...