124: Krazy minus Kat

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Krazy minus Kat

Made by: Henning Makholm

Explanation

Garfield is not the first cat to appear in comic strips; indeed, the final strip of Krazy Kat predates the first strip of Garfield by more than three decades.

In the original comic, Krazy Kat has already tried planting an acorn and a mothball, only to have them taken by a squirrel and a moth, respectively. (Though what Krazy was expecting to get from planting a mothball is uncertain.) So, his/her new idea is to plant a tomato can full of nickels, dimes, and quarters, perhaps to grow a money tree. Later that night, Officer Pupp and Ignatz race to claim it. Maybe.

This strip takes Dan Walsh's Garfield Minus Garfield idea and applies it to another comic, removing the title character from the strip to see what results. So here, Pupp and Ignatz's sympathetic words are said to seemingly no one, and their late-night rush is unexplained.

The author's fear that the comic may be too meta for inclusion, while understandable -- there are, after all, no Garfield elements used in the strip, and the only connection is processing it the same way Garfield Minus Garfield is -- seems to have been unfounded. (Though with the arrival of iToons, which archives the processing of strips other than Garfield, future ones may be sent there, instead.)

The author writes:

This one may be too meta to fly.

The original Krazy Kat strip is from 1937-08-05.

Transcript

{A Krazy Kat strip, with Kat removed}
{Officer Pupp and Ignatz walk into frame}
Officer Pupp: Too bad.
Ignatz: Too bad.
{empty frame of scenery}
{Officer Pupp and Ignatz shuffle back into frame}