Garfield’s comeback as part of the family
When the newspaper arrives on Friday, sometimes I point to my picture on the back of the Datebook section. “Who’s that?” I ask Didi and Gege.
“Mama,” they say, but immediately they flip the page to find what compels them: Garfield. Since 1978, the plump orange cat who hates Mondays and loves lasagna has come out to play in newspapers. Both my husband and I fervently loved the comic strip when we were children, begging our parents to let us get the anthologies at school book fairs, and watching the animated specials on television. In the fourth grade, I learned how to draw Garfield from an artistic classmate — a party trick that I’ve retained ever since. And I credit the strip for teaching me about the existence of Abu Dhabi, where Garfield attempted to ship Nermal, his nemesis and the world’s cutest kitten. Even now, I can picture the box with the air holes and the fluffy kitten’s tail sticking out.
Much, much later, I traveled to Abu Dhabi on a reporting trip, and as I sipped a cappuccino showered in 24-carat gold flakes, I couldn’t help but think of Garfield. By then, my affections had long turned away from the cartoon cat. It wasn’t any single moment. Like that old saying about falling in love, it happened slowly and then all at once, as do many of our passions that fade from childhood.
Were the jokes too predictable, after the nth iteration of gluttony, Garfield’s disdain for the dog Odie and his fear of spiders? Too childish, impossible to enjoy except ironically or nostalgically? Yet Garfield — one of the world’s most widely syndicated cartoons, with a slew of lucrative merchandising — has permanently shaped many of our imaginations.
I laughed long and hard when I came upon the website Garfield Minus Garfield at www.garfieldminusgarfield.net. It lives up to its name, deleting the cat and his thoughts from the strip, so that all you see is Jon, talking to himself, alone and pathetic. It’s poignant, too, if you consider how many times Jon addresses Garfield, and the utter silence that follows, since Garfield’s thought bubbles are visible only to the reader, and not to him. Jon can’t read Garfield’s mind — or can he? Are we to believe that Jon imagines all that Garfield is thinking, and that he possesses deep empathy for his cat?
I might never have read the comic strip closely again but for our boys, who recently discovered an anthology at a lodge where we were staying. The cover was falling off, the pages tattered, but they carried it around everywhere, transfixed, and now their passion for Garfield has reached new heights. As soon as we returned home, we went to the library to check out all the collections we could find.
The latest — the 64th! — was just released in December, “Garfield Feeds His Face.” There seems to be no end of jokes about Garfield’s size and appetite to riff off for his titles.
Somehow, seeing the strips collected together makes the reading experience even more special to the boys, who marvel at the abundance. “Just one more page, Mama!”
Their ability to read has been steadily improving throughout first grade, so they’re understanding more of the jokes on their own — which is key, because nothing flattens a joke faster than if it gets paraphrased. Explaining why a pun is supposed to be funny is excruciating.
Inspired, Gege has proposed that we act out the dialogue from the comics.
In our family, we’ve established that Didi is the cat among us — finicky and particular — while Gege — a bit more rough and tumble — is our dog.
“I’m Odie,” Gege told me. “Didi is Garfield, Daddy is the Jon of the family, and you’re Liz” (Jon’s girlfriend, a veterinarian, in case you weren’t acquainted with her).
“Odie can’t talk,” my husband pointed out. “He can woof, though.”
“Woof!” Gege shouted. He thought for a moment, contemplating Odie’s range. “He can also say, ‘Yawn!’ ” Indeed. As they often have, the twins are teaching us to re-examine the old in new ways.
“Garfield says he hates Mondays, and that’s funny, because he’s a cat,” my husband said. “He doesn’t go to work, so every day is the same to him.”
“Maybe he hates Mondays because Jon goes to work, and he misses Jon,” Didi said.
My husband and I exchanged a glance, our minds blown. In this compassionate version of events, Garfield’s grumpiness stems from his deep-down love for Jon. It may not be what cartoonist Jim Davis intended, but my cynical, jaded self melts, considering this possibility.
I might never have read the comic strip closely again but for our boys, who recently discovered it.