240: Jon - The Prisoner

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Jon - The Prisoner
0240.png
Made by: tudza


Explanation[edit | edit source]

In the original, Jon was sawing with Garfield observing, when Jon made some sort of mistake. Jon's expressed hope that "that" can be sewn back on led Garfield to believe that Jon had severed part of himself, and fainted, whereupon Jon revealed that he'd lost a button. This edit uses the Garfield Minus Garfield version, and turns it into a reference to The Prisoner.

The Prisoner is a spy fiction series from the United Kingdom in which its main character, an unnamed agent, resigns from his job, but is knocked out and abducted while preparing to leave the country. He wakes up and finds himself in a strange, pseudo-idyllic village run by some unknown group that wants to know, among other things, why he resigned.

Two lines from the intro to the show are used, put in the speech bubble in the replicated second panel of the comic. First, "I am not a number. I am a free man!" This refers to the in-series practice of assigning everyone a number and using "Number (whatever)" instead of their name; the main character, assigned "Six", resists this practice. Second, "We want information", one of the lines spoken by that episode's Number Two.

Despite the idyllic appearance of the village, it is, after all, a prison; if a prisoner gets too close to escaping, the Rovers, large white balloons capable of capturing, killing, and transporting people, are sent after them. This is probably the inspiration behind adding quotes from The Prisoner in the first place, though the transcript simply refers to the white section of the panel as "an empty space". These white spaces were present in the original strip, as well, highlighting Garfield's presence in the original first panel as well as the third for some reason.

The author writes:[edit | edit source]

Garfield Minus Garfield yields an unexpected sub-text. Jon's plight becomes more desperate.

Original Comic - 2000-04-21

Garfield Minus Garfield - 2009-11-06

Transcript[edit | edit source]

Off-panel voice: I am not a number. I am a free man!
Off-panel voice: We want information.
{Jon appears, looking at an empty space.}