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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: The descent.....

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.

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

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.

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.

"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

Amen, Jim. I'm with you mate.

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

Might as well get the rest of 'em blubbing.

Link: Calvin and Hobbes

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!

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

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

Long live Calvin's Dad.

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

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

Link: One step beyond...

Damn you for bringing up the Raccoon Story! Damn you all the way to hell!

This stuff is absolute genius....

Dear God, the humanity!

Outside the context of the full episode (and Fry's speech moments before this clip), this might not seem like much, but I'm not ashamed to admit this got me bad when I first saw it, and still chokes me up now...

Link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CZyx8p2fbos&feature=

The C&H racoon story is a tearjerker, but I'll raise you with the strip where he loses Hobbes - The panel where he calls out of his window 'whatever it is I did, I'm Sorry!' always makes me well up!

The dog episode of Futurama is an abomination.

Is that the one where Hobbes is found living it up at Susie's tea party? I love that one.

I'm so pleased to see all this board love for Calvin and Hobbes. One of the greatest achievements of our beloved medium. If you haven't read it I can't recommend it highly enough.

The dog episode of Futurama is an abomination.

You damned, green-blooded Vulcan!

The 4-leaf clover episode gets me the most.

"Named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit." Sniff!

That one should be banned as well.

Of all the Calvin and Hobbes strips, it's the pitch-perfect last episode that I find the most affecting.  Pure class, and way to go Bill - no sell out, you!

 "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy - let's go exploring!", indeed.

Then there's the link below as an poorly rendered antidote to that good feeling.  And if I see another one of those Calvin-takes-a-leak stickers/T-shirts, I'm going to do someone a mischief.

Link: http://www.goaste.cx/goaste/lasteevercalvinstrip.h

Balls, lets try that again, shall we?

Link: Fake Last Episode - NSFW site.

I fucking hate that thing! Jim pointed out above how that sentiment was done by Watterson perfectly. The end of childhood etc.

These wankers have debased it to the point where it's about nothing but a hyperactive kids support group.

You're just dead inside, aren't you?

I see it as a rather pointed comment about drugging our children up to the eyeballs for being children and that it kills imagination, and in that way, it "is" the saddest strip ever drawn. Genuine or not.

Yay!  You've just added to the store of human happiness, garageman!

Yay!  You've just added to the store of human happiness, garageman!

Oh I haven't seen that one before cool! It's like a great sequel to a shit film :)

urge to buy.....rising

Never liked Garfield, but that is genius and a tad frighting


Proud without Huff

Awesome.

It's quite disturbing that Jon is using imagined conversations with his cat to justify his clearly deranged behaviour.

This thread has now won me over to C&H!
well done chaps

Huff

Hell, I didn't know there was a full hardback C&H. I'm sorely tempted, but I already have a load of the books. Mind you, I could just give them away......

I could put it next to my similar looking Complete Far Side.

£70 for Calvin and £50 for the Far Side - them's spicy meatballs!

I liked C&H but reading the treasuries got a bit repetitive and I think the author showed a lot of class in cancelling the strip when he did.

Calvin's Mom is pretty hot, especially when her tongue is hanging out!

Amazon also think I'll be interested in the complete Peanuts, but I'm so not.

Grief!

"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. "

I remember reading that strip. I have a similar reaction to The Snowman, which doesn't pull its punches - Calvin at least will get a few more years of Hobbes and have time to grow-up, but the Boy gets one glorious day... and then childhood is over.

Regards

Robin

Calvin & Hobbes is unbeatable.

I can't remember where I first saw it, but I had an old bookmark for something very similar to that Garfield thing.

Link: Garfield without Garfiled's speech.

"Amazon also think I'll be interested in the complete Peanuts, but I'm so not."

The Complete Peanuts is an absolute joy, not least for having the strips on quality paper and discovering how good Schulz' penmanship actually was.

I always loved the C&H snowman gags. It was kind of fun discovering that Charlie Brown was doing the same thing back in the 50s.

Regards

Robin

I don't have a downer on normal Garfield like everyone else seems to, but it's amazing how funny the doctored versions are - particularly because it's hard to imagine what Garfield could be saying that could possibly improve them. You could show them to someone who's never seen the originals and they'd never think anything had been removed.

"Amazon also think I'll be interested in the complete Peanuts, but I'm so not."

That's gold. Funniest thing i've read all day.

***You're just dead inside, aren't you?***

Better than being dead on the outside.