Garfield

🔗

Transcript:

Lyman: Snicker snicker.

Jon: What are you snickering about, Lyman?

Lyman: I've solved our mouse problem.

Jon: How so?

Lyman: I've set out mousetraps baited with lasagna.

Jon: Oh no! NOT LASAGNA?!

snap! snap! snap! snap! snap! snap!

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=652

Strip by: Henning Makholm

{A pixellated portrait of Jon, which is destroyed by an incoming glider, by the rules of Conway's Game of Life.}

The author writes:

This little doodle recreates the events of strip #305 through the medium of interpretive d—, um, I mean, cellular automata.

It is perhaps unremarkable that the Game of Life differs from its real-world namesake, but still ... one of the most striking features of biological life is its resilience and ability to self-heal after damage. Patterns in Conway's game can do amazing things when run in a sterile environment, but they are incredibly unstable. If you so much as look at them funnily they'll erupt into violent all-dissolving chaos that has nothing at all to do with their original purpose.

The above likeness of Jon happens to erupt in a relatively restrained manner. I had to sift through several thousand randomly generated renderings in order to find one that would do that, rather than, say, keep bubbling for thousands of generations and spew gliders in all directions (which would make the file size somewhat excessive).

If you want to step through the reaction in a Life program of your choice, here is the starting constellation in PNG and RLE formats.

Original strip: 2005-01-15.

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

🔗

🔗

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=768

Strip by: Manyhills

Title: What is Garfield really thinking?

Title: Here we go with another ridiculous Garfield Fold-In

Title: Everyone's favourite cat may appear at first sight overly paranoid, but what are the actual thoughts of this fretful feline? To find out, fold the page as shown.

Garfield: What a strange world this is!

Garfield: Full of so many dangers... can I be blamed

Garfield: if it makes me a bit wary?

The author writes:

Obviously I would prefer it if you actually printed it out and folded it in real life. I didn't, I just used the GIMP. But still.

I've read, ooh, one issue of MAD Magazine ever? I'm not sure anywhere sells it in the UK. But it's cultural osmosis, innit.

Original strip: 2007-01-05.

This was recycled for the June 20th, 1978 strip in the syndicated version:

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

🔗

Transcript:

Dog: GRRRR.

Garfield: ROWR! One of these days this fierce routine's gonna get me creamed.

🔗

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=2

Strip by: David Morgan-Mar

Jon: Garfield, all I think about is Liz...

Jon: I can't think about anything else.

Garfields: We know what you mean...

Garfields: We can't get our minds off that ham in the fridge.

The author writes:

Original strip: 2008-11-15.

🔗

Transcript:

Garfield: That's the thing about canned salmon. It's easier to catch when it heads upstream to spawn.

This was recycled for the November 1st, 1978 strip in the syndicated version

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

🔗

Transcript:

Jon: Hey, Doc. How about another date?

Liz: I don't know. I don't feel safe around you, big fella. I might yawn myself to death.

Garfield: That put-down gets a 9.8.

🔗

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=439

Strip by: qvaak

Garfield: Sigh.

Garfield: I have no life...

Garfield: Jon has no life...

Garfield: Odie has...

[SFX]: Slurrp slurp slurp slurp slurp slurp slurp

Garfield: Veeeeeery little life left.

The author writes:

Administrator Note: This submission was too large and complex to fit into a standard SRoMG comic page. Please visit this page for the complete experience.

While Garfield laments the lifeless living he and his surroundings are leading, the strip explodes into life ... Conway's Game of Life, to be exact.

The Internet offers wonderful possibilities for panelled storytelling, but sadly such possibilities are often excessive - only artsy gimmicks providing no substantial value while seriously injuring the ease of reading. Is this value-added version better than the original? Nah. You need a wall-sized monitor to get the strip to even work properly (I use 1024×768 view and it is totally unwieldy) ... And of course the strip simply did not really need any strange introspective depths.

For a long time I've wanted to create (or should I say "deliver") a Conway's Game of Life strip for Square Root of Minus Garfield. First I thought I'd just divide a Garfield strip into two colour layers [turning RGB channels into black, white, and three shades of grey gets you 12 two-colour pictures that can be re-composed with very little loss in quality] and run them through cellular automaton transformation, but that did not seem to comment on anything on either Garfield or comics in general (or popular culture or nerd culture or... anything). However overcomplex and deconstructive that was, it was just an arbitrary effect. I think this one has a bit more idea behind it.

Original strip: 2001-10-28.

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=74

Strip by: David Morgan-Mar, Andrew Bird

Jon: Garfield, there was a pan of lasagna here.

Jon: Where's the lasagna?

Garfield: Resting comfortably.

Jon: Where's the pan?

Garfield: Resting not so comfortably.

The author writes:

jmucchiello: So what was harder, getting the size difference between a plush cat and yourself to line or spinning around like Jon does in the last panel? I imagine the last panel could have required multiple takes.

DMM: Yeah, I had to shoot multiple takes of each frame. And some of those poses were very uncomfortable and awkward. And compounding the problem is the fact that Jon isn't proportioned like a real human being.

AB: Indeed not. But, with just a little bit of work...

Original Square Root of Minus Garfield: #52 Plush Garfield.

Original strip: 1990-02-09.

Odie/Spot's design is finalized. The strip was almost completely recycled for the August 17, 1978 comic strip.

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=5481

Strip by: Josiahblaze

{A title panel is shown, featuring a glowing orange "Garfield" logo in the same font as the DOOM logo.

To the right of the logo is Garfield's skeleton, with a glowing red eye}

{In the next couple of panels, Odie is shown from a first-person perspective, running around a dark neighborhood while holding a super shotgun. At the bottom of these panels is a HUD, showing Odie's ammunition, health, weapons, etc. As Odie continues his journey, he reaches a house, which he enters, and walks through to find a floating Garfield head, edited to resemble a Cacodemon. The head is surprised at the gun being pointed at it}

SFX: POW!

{In the final panel, only a line of text is seen, reading "The cartoonist has elected not to show this panel due to its graphic nature", leaving the Cacogarf's final state to the imagination}

The author writes:

After reading through SRoMG #4378, I began thinking of instances I could use some of the panels in. The first-person perspective, specifically, was what gave me the idea for this comic.

Original strips: 1984-08-12, 1993-10-10, 2005-04-30, 2013-06-09.

🔗

Transcript:

Jon: What did you do with the chicken, Garfield? SPEAK UP! I'm sorry, Garfield. Sometimes I forget you can't talk.

Garfield: Forget this.

🔗

This strip was recycled for the July 27, 1978 strip in the syndicated version.

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here

🔗

🔗

Transcript:

Jon: You're looking a little puny, Garfield. Why don't we go see the lady vet again?

Garfield: Then why don't WE ask the lady vet out again? Then why don't WE get shot out of the saddle again?

Confused about what this strip is? See the first post here