Garfield Minus Garfield
256 comments
·April 10, 2025jf
omoikane
See also "What Jim Davis thinks of G-G" (linked from the bottom of the page):
https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/private/61669516/fSymsOGXO...
nunez
Careful; the Dan walsh hyperlink goes straight to porn!
trashburger
Pathological case for link rot.
wileydragonfly
Sweet, thanks for letting me know!
sirbranedamuj
Welp wish I had read that before clicking on it.
blitzar
Ah, I See You're a Man of Culture As Well
mock-possum
Worse, it’s not even interesting porn, just banal straight Asian stuff
zombot
Did you have to mention that? Now my trousers are messed up.
jf
This is the link that I had in mind when I was writing my comment, thanks so much for posting it here!
m463
Also makes me wonder if people talk to their cats...
krige
IME while clear two-way communication might be impossible [1], talking to your pet, cat or dog or any other mammal [2] does deepen the mutual bond and provides some communication framework - not saying that your cat will definitely understand what does it mean when you say "Garfield, fetch me that yellow slipper", let alone actually obey, but it will, over time, learn to recognize tone, sounds, and even context, and will also try to vocalize back, which may turn into patterns you start to recognize. So yes, it pays to talk directly to your pet.
Though that's not as strange as talking to your plants that seems to help the plants somehow.
[1] let's call it super rare because one in a trillion trillion is still not zero
[2] smarter birds too, can't say much about reptiles beyond a pond turtle really bonded with my brother
kerkeslager
Wait, is there anyone who doesn't talk to cats? I had no idea.
saghm
Not only do I really l talk to my cats, but they talk to me too! We're about equal in our abilities to understand each other; sometimes one of my cats might just run around for a bit yell-meowing and it's not clear why, but I'm sure they feel the same way when I occasionally get upset at things. Other times, like when one of them starts whine-meowing when I'm putting their wet food into a bowl, I know _exactly_ what's she's saying even if it doesn't actually cause me to get it done any faster.
nunez
I 100% talk to mine!
Iwan-Zotow
Frankly, people not talking to their cat(s) should be registered as certified sociopath
OnionBlender
How does Jim Davis feel about the Garfield Lovecraft stuff?
vintermann
I don't think he's said, but he has written some shockingly creepy stories himself, like the Halloween special which suggests Jon died or moved out ages ago and Garfield is just hallucinating due to starvation and despair. He claimed he wrote it after a market survey indicating that loneliness is what people fear the most (this is a pattern with Davis - he always cheerfully claims he's just in it for the money whenever someone suggests he has any kind of artistic vision).
Or the one in "Garfield: his 9 lives" where a different incarnation of Garfield goes suddenly feral and kills the elderly woman owning him. Jim Davis didn't draw it, but he did script it!
xivzgrev
Jim created Garfield for money[1]. It's not surprising that he likes anything that can make him more money, he isn't personally tied to the character.
[1] Garfield was originally created by Davis with the intention to come up with a 'good, marketable character' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield
npteljes
The conclusion doesn't follow the premise. In fact, precisely the opposite arises from it. People who make things for money tend to be controlling about their thing, as it's the thing that makes them money. Others controlling the thing is a potential threat against the money-making capability of the thing, so they usually try to quell it. To not just let a remix be, but actively endorse it, is a notable and unusual event.
vintermann
He always cheerfully said this whenever someone suggests he had any kind of artistic vision.
I'd say there are things which suggest he's not entirely sincere about that.
forgotoldacc
Is "man works for money" something that should surprise anyone?
Newspaper comic artists aren't working for free. They all want money. That's why they work.
acomjean
It doesn’t really surprise me, but I’m not sure it changes how I feel about it.
My family were huge Garfield fans growing up and had a bunch of the books (one in German). The side characters were fun Odie, Lyman, the overly adorable kitten (Nermal), some relatives that came from a farm or something.
The “worst” thing was at some point it did seem like Davis was cranking them out for the newspaper without some of the care (though it might be I overdosed and became kind of sick of them). The other characters disappeared or became infrequent.
I don’t begrudge him though.
KerrAvon
It's still notable that Jim Davis has that level of chill about it. Someone with a mercenary capitalist attitude toward their work can be just as much a control freak as Bill Watterson. (Not being judgmental; Watterson's position is completely valid too.)
cogman10
It honestly seems a little silly to worry about the purity of the intent of an artist.
That Davis did it for the money is just "meh". Most people work for money.
dimal
Remember when the internet was all goofy shit like this instead of algorithmically optimized social media angst?
npteljes
The internet was never all goofy shit like this. The launch date of G-G is "February 13, 2008", and we already had the creepy Facebook, deplorable shit like jailbait was in full swing, gore was not just popular, it was old news. Internet advertising was already very toxic for many years, and its surveillance capabilities were also ever-increasing. Not to mention, the Eternal September lasted for 15 years now.
My point is, it changed, yes, but "The Internet" was always shit, and you can also always find good fun, as always. You can turn off the doom, and enjoy a good never-ending scroll of a myriad of fantastic hobbies and people sharing their human experience. It takes effort, just like it did back then.
berkes
Indeed.
We had "Altavista" and for a very short time it was OK, but then quickly decended into a ad-ridden "portal" This was 1997 or so.
The web was full of popups, and then popunders. It was not uncommon to close your browser in the computer-room, then have to close 20 popups that kept coming back. Some of which showing straight out porn. At least scams like viagra, "buy gold online" or "download more memory" malware.
Before Google, it was merely undoable to find anything useful between all the banners, gifs, "only readable in netscape" search-engines.
Before Mozilla/Firefox, popups made it almost impossible to browse the web for longer than half an hour before the browser crashed or the computer locked up.
Chat was insecure, scammers, groomers, malware injection, mitm was everywhere. There was no privacy.
Forums, BBSes and NNTP were full of "trolls" before this term was even known. Flamewars, flamebait, and again, scammers, groomers and malware everywhere.
I do have fond memories of this time. But also know these memories are distorted. It was a dark forest already.
The main difference, I believe, was that the majority of internet users back then were smart - mostly western - educated or young people. I.e. the "tech literate" folks. Those who know how to deal with malware, scams, groomers, privacy, hackers. Those who know how to navigate around popup-bombs, redirect-loops, illegal-content and criminals. But the bad stuff was there from the early days. Today, the "bad stuff" has shifted, from criminals into monopolized big-tech tapping our attention and data, but it has always been there, this dark side.
wholinator2
> It takes effort, just like it did back then.
I think this is a sentiment missing from lots of the rose glasses back watching. It took effort to find all these fun things, it still takes effort to find fun things. The only difference is that now the effort floor is in the icy pits of hell and its so easy to slide all the way down there. Things were different but you still had to work for it. Sites were smaller and there were less people, those things still exist, probably more so, there's just an ocean now. We have to learn how to swim maybe but we can still cross.
npteljes
And also, very different things exist. So yes, it's hard to find the "same" things or "similar" things, but if one adapts a bit to more up to date trends, the horizon broadens a lot. For example, there is much less life on traditional forums now, but much more life on YouTube.
asddubs
we had facebook, but things weren't centralized to only 5 websites yet. You are right though, there's a lot about the old internet that was better, but there was also stuff that was worse. It was more untamed perhaps. I certainly don't miss rotten.com or goatse or the absolute cesspit reddit was at the time (as you mention). We tend to forget about this and just think about the good, like individual weird blogs hosted on their own quirky websites actually being able to find an audience (which still exist to some extent but not to the same degree at all). Still, I think "the internet was always shit" is too cynical of a take. Some parts of the internet were always shit. Some of it changed for the better, some for the worse.
itsoktocry
>the absolute cesspit reddit was at the time (as you mention)
You prefer the corporate, censored, ad-ridden site that reddit is now? That is bizarre.
The internet of old was better, in my opinion. It took work to be there; now it takes work to not be there.
dyauspitr
What you described in your first paragraph is still the old internet and it was way better than the post-truth/bot/AI hellscape of today. I’ll take “creepy” stuff over a complete separation from reality any day.
heavyset_go
Garfield Minus Garfield is an iteration of a trend on SA and FYAD of editing Garfield comics by re-ordering panels, removing panels, removing characters/dialogue/etc, and shuffling panels from other Garfield strips to make humorous and/or unsettling mashups.
That is to say the trend predates the 2008 launch of the site.
dimal
Ok, maybe a more accurate statement would be that the ratio of goofy shit to angst-generating bullshit was much higher in 2008. Maybe it was 70/30 in favor of goofy shit and now it's 1/99 in favor of bullshit. We had Facebook and Twitter back then, but neither had been weaponized against us yet. Both had a very different flavor than they have today.
eestrada
I miss the old internet. I'm pretty sure anyone old enough to have experienced it misses it.
nunez
I was there. Nope.
Waiting ages for basic serif pages to load over your 56k (or 128k connection if you were rich and had ISDN)? Nope.
Downloading tracks from KaZaa/WinMX/Limewire/Napster for a million hours only for them to be some warped shit that the studios planted? Nope.
Getting malware just for existing? Early software firewalls that burned CPU cycles/crashed your PC? That were the only option because hardware firewalls were stupid expensive and not at all practical for residential use? Nope.
Norton Antivirus? ABSOLUTELY NOPE.
Blue screens when you looked at IE or Navigator the wrong way? Nope.
Flash? Lol, nope.
WAP? The 2004 kind? Lol, hell nope.
"This page is best viewed on Internet Explorer", i.e. IE4/5/6 or it's basically unusable? Nope.
Having to actually go seven or eight o's into the Gooooooooooooooooooooooogle footer to find what you were looking for? Def nope.
Almost everything about using the Internet is better today IMO. Faster, prettier, more secure and more cross-platform.
You have to work hard to get hit with a virus these days, especially on iOS/macOS or Linux, though it's much harder on Android these days too. Also, I loved wasting my life on /., but Reddit is so much better, even after the API-pocalyse.
I definitely miss open messaging platforms though. AIM for life.
jltsiren
The old internet had something today's internet lacks: a justified belief that the future would be better. Things were new and exciting, and you saw opportunities and rapid improvements everywhere. Today it's just governments and megacorporations, and bureaucracy upon endless bureaucracy.
heavyset_go
Old internet was something different socially for subcultures, especially DIY subcultures and communities.
You just don't connect with people the same way on giant message boards or platforms like Reddit where you're one user out of a billion.
It was just... Smaller and personal, I guess?
It feels like everything today is optimized for monetization, ads, tracking, etc.
I guess I could summarize it as saying the internet went mainstream and changed its audience and charm.
agiacalone
I was there too.
Napster was good because it was new. And the music was yours when you got it.
Never used NAV. Never cared to. Linux didn't need it.
Hated Flash too, and never used it. Internet was still great without it.
WAP was new, too. But Ethernet existed, and we wired our house.
Used Firefox/Netscape Navigator. Avoided IE pages like the plague.
I do malware research. You're grossly underestimating how common malware is today. Ever hear of ransomware?
Not everything on the Internet is better today. Some things are, but many are not.
And don't even get me started on the cesspool that Reddit is.
itsboring
Hmm, when I think “old Internet” I don’t think Napster, IE, WAP… I think usenet, gopher, telnet MUDs, IRC netsplits and FTP warez.
blitzar
All of that was terrible. It was still better than tiktoks and facebooks.
smash like and subscribe, code blitz50 for 0.5% off sea of legends
thowawatp302
> Waiting ages for basic serif pages to load over your 56k (or 128k connection if you were rich and had ISDN)? Nope.
> Downloading tracks from KaZaa/WinMX/Limewire/Napster for a million hours only for them to be some warped shit that the studios planted? Nope.
I was there too, and realized that these sort of reductions in speed made one far more mindful of what one was doing
> Almost everything about using the Internet is better today IMO. Faster, prettier, more secure and more cross-platform
This too is particularly debatable. Applications are thin wrappers around web browsers, there are constant annoyances (want to receive notifications for this webpage? Not now? We’ll ask you later.) I bet if I pulled someone from 2005 they’d look at a lot of things on a current website and see malware. And is it really more cross platform when we’ve achieved that by having less platforms?
itsoktocry
I'm not sure anything on your list is even about "the internet", as opposed to other tech around it. Do you know what people mean when they say "the internet?".
rvba
Flash brought a lot of good stuff...
Loughla
And the people who were there before the old Internet missed that too. Something something eternal September.
mhink
Absolutely. I remember being about 14 or 15 years old, reading old .txt files about, like- how to build blue boxes and experiment with the phone system, C programming tutorials for MUDs that had peaked in the late 90s, IRC archives (even though IRC was still around, I had no way of finding my way to good channels), and getting this distinct sense that I had just missed something really cool, and was stuck with an Internet that had already passed its prime.
DeathArrow
>Remember when the internet was all goofy shit like this instead of algorithmically optimized social media angst?
I first accessed the internet in 1998 through school. I still like it more how it was in those days. Most people didn't care about the Internet so the people lurking the Internet had a particular interest in it or were technically inclined.
Once some guys discovered they can make tons of money through the Internet, those good times are over.
It's like you travel to a beautiful place which is not popular. Once it starts becoming a major tourist attraction, it will be ruined for good in 20 years.
standyro
there was still angst then, it just was more targeted in single directions, not like now where the angst is aimlessly directed at society, sponsored by squarespace
weard_beard
Sounds like a cologne.
Angst, by Squarespace
dclowd9901
If you had to encapsulate the vibe, it would be "people just post shit to see if other people are as weird as they are."
It was a whole era, folks. And I don't mean "does anyone else" Reddit crap that is absurdly naive. This was way more before and way more naive than that. You didn't have any expectation that you were normal (even if you were weird). You just did it to gauge how fucking weird you were.
lanfeust6
All the big social media platforms were around when this started. The dominance wasn't in full swing yet but it only took a few years for vbulletin and everything else to dwindle.
nunez
It still is; it's just different
jsheard
Garfield Minus Garfield is good, but Lasagna Cat is on another level.
MrDrMcCoy
There's a great YouTube documentary that ties all the Garfield subculture together, and it's absolutely worth your time: What The Internet Did To Garfield
alabastervlog
Guy's monologue after the initial opener reminds me of the Log Lady from Twin Peaks. The content and delivery, both.
Wololooo
May I present you Garfeld, the musical? https://youtube.com/watch?v=x4-lNQHxSfI
It is surprisingly good.
darepublic
I regularly have this on in the background while working. The music is good and I can tune in and out of it without losing focus
z0r
I'm not the only one sometimes does this... Now where could my pipe be?
pcthrowaway
Also Garfield Gameboy'd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDqUDt3K5Mk
fullshark
Can't believe those first videos are 17 years old...I remember them...man
jsheard
They posted the original series all at once 17 years ago, and the second series all at once 8 years ago. Maybe they're due to come back...
distances
And in the second series there's a video of Garfield and Odie making a home video. They created YouTube channels for the in-video characters with actual character relevant content, including that home video, 5 years before the second series was posted. Absolutely amazing work, hats off!
bitwize
I'm sorry Jon
noman-land
Since I'm too lazy to do this myself, I'm putting it out there for the world to make for me.
I want to see Rogan Minus Rogan and Lex Minus Lex podcasts where all the host's speaking parts are cut out and you only hear the guest's replies.
Thanks in advance.
eej71
You might enjoy Charlie Rose interviews Charlie Rose.
btucker
And then, The Charlie Rose Paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqW9sexNdZg
randomtoast
There was at least one podcast featuring both Rogan and Lex. This would result in an hours-long podcast of pure silence.
9dev
Now that sounds like the kind of show where both of them finally have something good to contribute!
kridsdale3
Jamie would still pop in once in a while. I like Jamie.
rzzzt
Angry John Cage noises
abeppu
I think Lex also has recycled some questions / topics across several guests. I'd enjoy a virtual panel supercut where we see only all the guests' responses to the same prompt.
fossuser
Lex minus lex would be really great
circles_for-day
Tim Ferriss minus Tim has long been a dream of mine
After discovering Dwarkesh, Lex and Rogan have struck me as tragic waste. At worst a laundromat for psychopathic distortions, and at best a lazy unguided exhibition of the guest’s choosing.
itishappy
What about Rogan vs Lex where it's just them shooting probing questions back and forth and exchanging vaguely related anecdotes?
banana_giraffe
The timings are a bit off, but here's one attempt at it:
https://qlymwesmrj.s3.amazonaws.com/temp/joe_without_joe.mp3
almosthere
I want to see Lex replaced with Rogan and Rogan replaced with Lex
kridsdale3
Well that's easy since they talk to a lot of the same people.
yoyohello13
I love how this turns the comic into psychological horror.
Super Eyepatch Wolf actually did a really interesting analysis about how Garfield entered the horror genera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2C5R3FOWdE. I click on the video randomly out of curiosity, but I got really sucked in.
dfxm12
Maybe the Jan 27 entry, but the Nov 03 entry reads much the same if Garfield is present or not. What I mean is, the strips that focus on Jon talking to Garfield always had this element.
Remember, Jon is already talking to a cat who he assumes can't understand him & knows can't talk back. He might as well be talking into the abyss. Only we can read Garfield's inner monologue. Jon's actions are sometimes presupposed by Garfield's whims. This premise is already the basis of some horror or otherwise unsetting fiction.
If Garfield is there or not, if we focus on Jon as the main character of the strip, we might have to do some introspection, whether it's about expecting to have a conversation with cat as if he were your son, that our lives are as boring as his, etc. These are scary thoughts! Garfield's presence serves as a humorous distraction and allows us to forget these thoughts and laugh at Jon, even if briefly. In the same way, Freddy Krueger delivers funny one liners to break up the dread of realizing we're in some sort of living nightmare like people of Elm Street...
null
louwrentius
Thanks that was wild
qingcharles
Also good:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GarfieldMinusJon/
And if you want to get weird:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AlzheimersGroup/top/?t=year
Full list:
https://www.reddit.com/r/garfieldminusgarfield/comments/gxl2...
nickvec
> Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.
Did not think I would be relating to Jon on a Thursday morning.
erk__
Its also pretty interesting given that the original title for the comic that would become Garfield was simply "Jon"
There was a small YouTube documentary about finding the old comics in libraries and scanning them in. I the description of the video there is links to scans of all the ones they were able to find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxiwjaUSYJM
gwern
Google Docs PDF mirrored at https://gwern.net/doc/anime/2020-hoover-theevolutionofjimdav...
system2
I was about to bash before I read this. Now I feel depressed.
m463
Now it makes me wonder what would happen if you did something like removing all the superheroes from a movie.
or took soem movies and made all the villains super-attractive and the heroes ugly and dressed in black.
minikomi
One of my favorite additions by subtraction:
https://youtu.be/jKS3MGriZcs?si=RRlSVL0jwi5sDl3f
Removing the laugh track from the big bang theory
mathgeek
This is the first thing that came to mind for me as well. Have always loved how mean everyone seems without the canned laughter to tell us "hey, this is funny!"
Agentlien
I've never really enjoyed this show but I found myself liking this clean version much more.
It feels slower and more natural. It also helps because I wouldn't have laughed at any of those spots with it without laugh track.
plorg
You won't find me defending The Big Bang Theory, but it's worth noting a lot of actually funny television would have this kind of dead energy if you removed the laugh track, because it's both written for that environment and paced and acted for the audience reaction breaks.
dfxm12
I don't think this came about by randomly deciding to take a character out of a strip. The creators of G-G recognized that Jon is a depressing character who has these one way discussions with Garfield. Garfield's inner monologue (that Jon is not aware of) provides all the humor, mostly at Jon's expense. Take the humor out of the comic, and you're left with the depression. It goes straight from a comedy to a tragedy.
This is what's interesting about G-G. The tragedy was always there. We kinda knew the tragedy was always there, but we'd rather laugh at Jon with Garfield than commiserate with Jon.
Taking superheroes out of a random movie would lead to silliness, yes, but nothing poignant.
Henchman21
I’m reminded of Star Wars minus Williams, which removes John Williams amazing soundtrack from an amazing movie! The absurdity is top notch!
null
throwme0827349
Love GMG, glad to see it at number one here. It's really quite amazing how much funnier and yet more profound it is without Garfield. If you like this, you might also enjoy Nietzsche Family Circus: https://www.nietzschefamilycircus.com/
I used to have one stuck to the door of my doom room. No one laughed. :(
rikthevik
I'd like to submit Time is a Flat Circus as well
wholinator2
This is amazing. One of the better dark-naive mashups I've ever seen. It seems to hit 3/4 for me. I Definitely would've laughed
childintime
Try Jesus without Jesus and see.
npteljes
The derivative I also like, and don't see it here is the markov chain garfield - from back when markov chains were the bee's knees in text generation. The generator is fed by existing garfield comic text, and the generated text is superimposed to a template of existing comics. It might take a few refreshes, but I always manage to amuse myself with the absurdity that it spits out.
stonogo
I'll join your derivatives thread with the garfield randomizers. here's one: https://www.bgreco.net/garfield/
and an example I just made with the 'hold' feature: https://www.bgreco.net/garfield/?panel0=1984840901&panel1=19...
npteljes
Your example is great! Thanks for sharing.
classichasclass
I laughed until I cried. Thank you.
AdmiralAsshat
What's missed from the popular take on GMG is that it's not always depressing. Sometimes Jon finds joy in mundane things that Garfield isn't there to damper.
jonathaneunice
Way, *way* darker than I imagined.
alabastervlog
I think the most surprising thing about it is that it's good. Not just good as a curiosity, but actually good, in ways and to a degree that would be pretty hard to replicate if you set out to create it from scratch, without existing Garfield strips to lean on.
rconti
did you follow the "20 darkest" link?
kayge
I did! And it started to make me wonder whether the same shenanigans could be applied to make any interesting Calvin minus Hobbes strips ... but my guess is it wouldn't turn out quite so dark
https://screenrant.com/15-dark-garfield-minus-strips-jon-dep...
whartung
Heck, after reading that thing, I'M trying not to jump.
Something that I find delightful about this project is that Jim Davis approves of it!
From Wikipedia: "Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, approved of the project, and an official Garfield book (also called Garfield Minus Garfield) was published by his company. It was mainly edited comics by Walsh, with some comics contributed by Davis."