3595: A-A-R-D-V-A-R-K

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A-A-R-D-V-A-R-K
3595.png
Made by: MichaelSar


Explanation[edit | edit source]

The dialogue here is unaltered from the original; however, instead of Garfield, the character other than Jon is Arthur Read from the Arthur series of books, animated television series, and CG animated film.

In this series, everyone is, at least superficially, some sort of anthropomorphic animal. Arthur and his family are supposed to be aardvarks, hence his inclusion here. Additionally, the title is a reference to the season 1 episode "Arthur's Spelling Trubble", in which Arthur's class has a spelling bee to choose a representative to send to a larger competition. His practice for the class bee consisted of listening to a song that spelled "aardvark" over and over. As it turned out, Arthur was asked to spell this very word, so he spelled it to the rhythm of the song, doing a little dance as he did so.

The author points out his own failure to make Arthur the size he probably is, relative to Jon. This is not a problem unique to this strip, or, indeed, this author. Whether it's actually a problem is debatable, but at the very least, it doesn't prevent publication.

The "fourth wall" is a term from theatre stemming from the fact that sets would frequently depict the insides of buildings, with only three walls set up, as a fourth would block the audience's view. For the sake of the play, it is implied to be there, but nothing really is. On occasion, however, an actor communicates directly to the audience, with seeming awareness of their presence, thus across the "fourth wall". This concept translates to other media, even text-only. Here, the image of Arthur, rather than looking at Jon as Garfield did, looks at the reader.

The author writes:[edit | edit source]

Somebody had to do this. And yes, I know that Arthur is a tad too small here.

I also like how the whole time Jon is talking, Arthur is just staring at the fourth wall smiling.

Original strip: 2013-06-24.

Transcript[edit | edit source]

Jon: You know, Arthur...
Jon: I've made a few mistakes in my aardvark
Jon: I mean "life"
Arthur: NOooooo...