{"id":1004,"date":"2008-07-08T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T13:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2008-07-08T09:00:26","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T13:00:26","slug":"the-cats-in-the-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=1004","title":{"rendered":"The Cat’s in the Bag."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Go,<\/a><\/p>\n

As written, the comic strip Garfield<\/em>\u2014cartoonist Jim Davis’ look at the travails of an eponymous cat and its owner\u2014is kind of like the funny pages equivalent of tourists:<\/em> In the background, not bothering anybody, always there, and quietly looked down upon by people who think they’re much smarter.<\/p>\n

So, perhaps it’s appropriate that it took a foreigner, Dan Walsh\u2014and a Dubliner yet!\u2014to turn Garfield<\/em> from wallpaper into something truly hip: a darkly ironic reflection on “schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life.” Walsh did it, not by rewriting dialogue but, via one genius move: He completely stripped the cat and his unfunny thought balloons out of every panel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Dumb<\/a><\/p>\n

The hilarious result, Garfield Minus Garfield<\/em><\/a>, leaves the feline’s patron\/sidekick, Jon, seemingly on the verge of a breakdown. With no one against which to bounce his reactions, his pinings and outbursts, now absent of context, read as though the ravings of a total lunatic.<\/p>\n

“I do find the original strip funny,” said Walsh in a Washington Post<\/em> piece<\/a>,<\/p>\n

but not as funny as Garfield Minus Garfield<\/em> (because that’s my taste). It’s a completely different comic once Garfield has been removed. It suddenly becomes more surreal and dark, more ‘Monty Python’ than ‘Dick Van Dyke,’ more ‘South Park’ than ‘The Simpsons.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What makes Walsh’s riff even more cool, though, is that, in an age where fans mashup intellectual properties on the net without pause, only to be typically threatened with a lawsuit by Faceless Mega Corporation, Davis, Garfield’s creator, totally gets it.<\/p>\n

The cartoonist calls the work “an inspired thing to do” and wishes to thank Walsh for enabling him to see another side of “Garfield.” “Some of the strips were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier,” Davis says.<\/p>\n

[snip]<\/p>\n

Davis has no plans to cut the cat but understands the beauty in what Walsh does.<\/p>\n

Bloggers such as Walsh “see the futility in making everything turn out right every day,” Davis says. But a little darkness “makes the positives even sweeter.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jim Davis, man…you’re all right! And your cat has still got to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As written, the comic strip Garfield\u2014cartoonist Jim Davis’ look at the travails of an eponymous cat and its owner\u2014is kind of like the funny pages equivalent of tourists: In the background, not bothering anybody, always there, and quietly looked down upon by people who think they’re much smarter. So, perhaps it’s appropriate that it took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[70,51,42,8,50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}