Garfield Minus Garfield - A Cat Removed, a Man Abandoned

One of the odd, if overlooked, mysteries regarding the long-running Garfield comic strip is the strange (and strained) relationship shared between its two leads, Jon and his eponymous cat. The two share an almost “odd couple” pairing, a “who owns whom” parallel and dilemma. But more than who’s master—who’s the doormat?—is a better question: Does Jon hear and understand the constant blather that barrels out Garfield’s mental mouth?

Indeed, Garfield doesn’t speak so much as he thinks, making many of the duo’s conversations together seem a little one-sided, a little surreal. In theory, Jon shouldn’t be able to discern the words always floating above the cat’s orange head, but in practice, he does—he has to—for that punchline to truly land, for the joke to truly work. And it does work, sort of, is the same sense that a “cat” walks on hind legs, eats out of the refrigerator, and slurps coffee from a mug on the Monday mornings that it inexplicably hates. But if the equation was ever so slightly adjusted to favor the “real”—the actual dimensions between man and cat—then, in an ironic sense, the strip becomes even more absurd.

Such is the joke of the once-lauded Garfield Minus Garfield, a “Garfield Defiled” sort of on-going joke that excises the feline completely from the usual equation. Rather than having the two stars trading barbs and witty banter, Jon is abandoned, speaking not to a cat, but to an empty chair. A blank space at the table. To the ceiling. Indeed, it’s just Jon…talking maybe to himself…maybe to the air…maybe going crazy, maybe just a man lost to despair. Either way, without the cat, the comic’s tone completely changes. If Jon was a little pathetic before, now he’s just sad. Maybe a little mad. And definitely a bit schizophrenic.

Garfield Minus Garfield does just that--the titular cat is removed from the equation, leaving poor Jon to suffer on his lonesome.

As shown, excising Garfield drastically alters the original strip's tone, replacing the cheeky humor with something more pained, weird, and/or existential.

The joke's always on Jon, but...somehow it's even worse when the cat's not there.

Garfield can be cruel, but life is crueler...and schizophrenia a double-whammy.

Garfield Minus Garfield, the strip and the book, was the brainchild of a certain Dan Walsh, a man who, at one point in his life, was not unlike the perpetually despondent Jon. In the book’s foreword, he writes, “In fact, my life was very, very similar to a certain Mr. Jon Arbuckle’s: Jon Arbuckle was kind of lonely, disheartened, crazy, disillusioned, and, well, just like me.” He later adds, “In fact, I discovered that if Garfield wasn’t in the strip at all, then Jon and I were like kindred spirits.”

So, inspired, Walsh began toying with the Garfield strip, removing the animal completely from the proceedings. What remains is an owner who owns no one, not even himself—a man sane on the outside but deranged within. Walsh began posting the dubious edits to his website and, as his “creations” grew in popularity, many began seeing them less as a joke and more an allegory for depression, loneliness, even bipolar disorder.

Of course, Jim Davis, Garfield’s actual creator, eventually noticed. But rather than slap Walsh with a cease-and-desist, he killed the strip by shrewdly embracing it. Yes, Jim Davis not only released a compilation of Walsh’s best strips in a book called “Garfield Minus Garfield” (credited primarily to himself), he began publishing his own “official” variants on the GoComics website. This, by consequence, slowly diminished the significance of Walsh’s more homespun iteration; today, Walsh’s output is only a scant fraction of what he once stole, er…dole out, his strip made all but irrelevant by Davis’ official version.

Dan Walsh isn’t the only Garfield diehard to vandalize the franchise, however. Others have produced their own spins on Davis’ whim, the best perhaps being “Realfield” which replaces the cartoony Garfield with a realistic, non-speaking housecat. This, in many ways, proves superior to Walsh’s experiment, for rather than manipulating the original scenario into something it wasn’t, it merely depicts what’s already there…just with more honesty. Using a real cat to bear Jon’s lamentations and self-flagellations softens the psychopathy of its Garfield Minus Garfield parent, emphasizing the lunacy over what would otherwise be, in the cat’s absence, borderline insanity.

Realfield keeps the cat but removes the toon, pairing Jon with a real--and very mute--feline frenemy. In many ways, it's a better demonstration of just how absurd Jon's relationship with Garfield, a cat, really is.

Whichever peculiar variant fans choose, there’s no denying that the Garfield universe, with its not-quite-talking mascots and a bemused Jon at its center, is easy to exploit, fun to pervert. Whether muted or removed, less cat means more man…

Does Jon need Garfield? Or does Jon just need to be acknowledged? To be seen...to be believed?--D