4480: Garfield minus (Garfield plus Pipe) plus Thomas plus Douglas plus Coach

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Garfield minus (Garfield plus Pipe) plus Thomas plus Douglas plus Coach
4480.png
Made by: Craig Black


Explanation[edit | edit source]

The strip's core premise is explained sufficiently in the author's notes. The author actually inserted copyright information relevant to The Railway Series--the series of books the Thomas the Tank Engine television series was originally adapted from--in the first panel with the year being that of The Twin Engines's publication year; in the third panel, the author inserted 9-15, within the publication month The Twin Engines had in 1960 (it is unknown the exact date of publication within that month), as well as something resembling a signature attributed to the Rev. W Awdry, the original author of The Railway Series; both the first and third panel stylistic touches mimicked that of the original Garfield strip.

The story Break Van also originated in the same book The Missing Coach did--Break Van being the third story of its book, The Missing Coach being the second story of the book. The [sic] indicates the context imples "break" should have been spelled "brake".

The author writes:[edit | edit source]

To provide a bit of context: The Missing Coach is a pretty infamous story within the Thomas the Tank Engine fandom (and yes, such a thing does exist).

Originally released in 1960 as part of the book The Twin Engines, the story was intended to be adapted into the show's second season in 1986, and would have served as the introduction to Donald & Douglas, the Scottish twin engines. However, the episode was scrapped halfway through filming, apparently due to concerns that its plot was lacking in action, and potentially confusing for the audience. The footage was repurposed for other episodes, and the intended follow-up, Break Van [sic], was hastily rewritten to serve as the twins' introduction. In fact, the only evidence of the cancelled episode's existence is a number of stills taken during filming, of which the most famous is the one in the last panel of this strip.

I'm not the first person to combine this story with the pipe strip - there was an edit doing the rounds in the Thomas fandom a couple of years ago, which used the original book illustrations. For the sake of being different, I've used screenshots from the TV series. I'll fully admit it's rather different from what you'd normally see on this site - but just what is normal in SRoMG these days?

Original strip: 1978-07-27.

Transcript[edit | edit source]

{Thomas the Tank Engine is pulling into the station, where he hopes to add an extra coach to supplement the two he's already pulling}
{Thomas arrives at the station, only to find that the extra coach in question is not there. He looks concerned}
Thomas: Now where could my coach be?
{Douglas, the Scottish Engine, is looking worried. Behind him is a coach - more specifically, the one Thomas is currently looking for}
Thomas {off-panel}: DOUGLAS!