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1209: The Sad, Lonely Journey of a Garfield Comic Strip

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The Sad, Lonely Journey of a Garfield Comic Strip
1209.png
Made by: Midnight Strike


Explanation[edit | edit source]

This strip pokes fun at the perceived quality of the Garfield strip circa time of submission by taking the original Pearls Before Swine strip and making a few element substitutions; the switching of "Pearls" for "Garfield" in the first panel (the result of which also became this strip's official SRoMG title), the in-universe representation of Stephan Pastis was replaced with Jon (also doubling as a reference to Jon stating his profession as being a cartoonist in earlier strips; although this is not brought up in recent strips, said recent strips also do not contradict this detail), the in-universe representation of Stephan Pastis's wife was replaced with Liz (partially inaccurate to Garfield lore; while Jon and Liz were already a dating couple by that point, they were then as now not married), the in-panel references to United Feature Syndicate (Pearls's syndicate at the time of the original strip) replaced with Universal Uclick (Garfield's syndicate at time of submission), and the in-universe Pearls strip replaced with three identical panels of Garfield lying on his back with the third accompanied by an "I hate Mondays" thought bubble. As stated in the author's notes, this strip implies that the then-current state of Garfield involved failed attempts at invoking the Getting Crap Past the Radar trope.

The author writes:[edit | edit source]

Another Garfield/Pearls crossover. I decided to make fun of Garfield's declining quality by stating that the creator made failed attempts to get crap past the radar.

Original Pearls Before Swine strip: 2004-07-11.

Original strips: 1996-11-06, 2007-05-08, 2007-12-02.

Transcript[edit | edit source]

Title: The Sad, Lonely Journey of a Garfield Comic Strip
Comic strip: That's me.
Caption: The Cartoonist
Jon: Hahaha... this one is really edgy and funny... people will love it... hahaha...
Caption: The Wife
Liz: It's funny, babe. But you've got to change that one word... you know Universal's not gonna allow it.
Jon: Yeah... you're probably right. Okay, I'll change it.
Caption: The Editors at Universal Uclick
Editor 1: It's nice, Jon, but we just can't show that one image in the third panel.
Jon {on the telephone}: Fine, Jake... I'll delete it.
Editor 2: And tell him to watch his grammar.
Editor 3: ...and his punctuation.
Caption: The Newspaper Editor
Newspaper Editor: ...Listen, we simply cannot allow you to make a reference to that topic, because if we do, four grandmothers in Provo will complain and we will have no choice but to drop your strip and replace it with "Mary Worth."
Jon {on the telephone}: Okay, okay.
Jon: *sigh*
{Jon draws a different comic strip}
{Jon blankly stares at finished comic}
{Garfield lays down}
{Garfield lays down}
Garfield: I hate Mondays.
Man: Man, are the comics today lame....
Woman: It's these cartoonists. They've got nooooooo creativity.

Trivia[edit | edit source]

Due to a rework of GoComics, the Pearls Before Swine strip credit links now lead to a paywalled page. It has been archived here.