As a child I really loved the “Garfield” comics by Jim Davis. I owned a few Garfield books that were read so frequently that they fell apart. A few quotes from the televised Garfield holiday specials, which we watched over, and over, and over again, even made it into our family idiom. Among the most lasting were quotes from Garfield in the Rough (1984) that found wide application to our daily lives:

“Oh joy! Oh rapture! I’m so excited I could just barf!”

”…I think I’d rather stay home and pluck my nose hairs.”

However, over the years the Garfield comic has become tired (ironic isn’t it). I stopped reading Garfield a long time ago because, frankly, it isn’t all that funny anymore. Perhaps it has become a little too predictable and formulaic.

Today I ran across an interesting game that suddenly makes Garfield funny for me again. The game goes like this: You go through the online archive of Garfield comics to find strips involving only dialogue between Garfield and John. Then remove (mentally or using a paint program) all of the dialogue from Garfield so that only John is talking. Suddenly, the Garfield comic becomes a comic about a lonely, pathetic, eccentric named John who talks to his cat. Garfield becomes a mime…a fat, feline Mr. Bean whose reactions to John are deftly expressed without saying a word.

Here are a couple that made me laugh while playing this game:
Garfield 10/07/2005
Garfield 03/07/2005
Garfield 08/18/04

I first encountered the idea here

Perhaps I am just easily amused…