Garfield without Garfield

Garfield has always been popular as a cultural icon, lazily dispensing witticisms to millions. Dispite this eazy going image Garfield has at times taken on a much darker tone. In 1989 this set of strips was published. Massive speculation circuled the internet about there origin and meaning, some people going as far as to claim that all subsequent Garfield comics were figments of his deranged mind.


Despite this a reader of BoingBoing.net working for Hallmark asked Jim Davis directly about the strip and was told it was a very elaborate Halloween play on a primal fear: the fear of being alone.

From this a new comic has recently been spawned. Garfield without Garfield is exactly what it sounds like, old Garfield strips with the titular orange cat removed. Strangely it works, somehow if you cut out Garfield the strips become bleak and disturbing. Stories about Jim having comedy arguments with his cat become a critique of his loneliness as he slowly loses touch with reality.

One wonders what was going though Jims head when making Garfield caused this nihilist subtext to appear