1998: 20th Birthday Special: Unexpected Celebrations
20th Birthday Special: Unexpected Celebrations |
![]() Made by: Riley |
Explanation[edit | edit source]
The top line of this strip is the primary content of this strip, as the bottom line is an unedited bonus strip as explained in the author's notes. In the top line, the dialogue has been completely reworded so that Garfield appears to be anticipating the events of the strip on the bottom line, only for Jon and Odie emerge to celebrate Square Root of Minus Garfield reaching 1998 strips, with Garfield acting accordingly. It is known that Garfield has a production lead time, hence it is plausible (but not outright confirmed) that the strip on the bottom line was originally designed for the newspapers but ultimately switched for the one that ultimately ran, presumably to retain consistency involving a change in inkers.
As this strip was created for the "birthday series" that officially spanned between strips #1978 and #2014, this strip was indeed part of the celebration of the then-impending milestone of Square Root of Minus Garfield reaching 2000 strips, which officially happened two strips later.
The author writes:[edit | edit source]
The bottom comic is taken, unedited, from my copy of 20 Years and Still Kicking, Garfield's 20th anniversary collection. It lists all of Garfield's birthday comics from 1978 to 1997, and then shows this one for 1998. The book came out several months before Garfield's 20th birthday comic, and the art style looks more like the ones from the years prior (the comic's inker was replaced sometime in 1997), which leads me to believe that this was created much earlier than normally, specifically for this book.
Original strip: 1998-06-19.
Transcript[edit | edit source]
Garfield: Let me see...despite the abnormally large cake...
Garfield: ...and the high number of burning candles...
{Zoom out to see Jon and Odie wearing party hats; Jon is carrying a cake matching Garfield's description}
Jon: Happy 1,998th comic, SRoMG!
Garfield: ...this isn't the celebration I was expecting.
{a second strip, in black and white:}
Jon: Happy birthday, Garfield!
Jon: What would you like for your birthday?
Garfield: A fork and a bucket of coffee!
{Garfield now has a fork, with which he is eating his cake, and a steaming bucket of coffee.}
Garfield: At my age, if I don't indulge myself, nobody will.