281: Breaking the 4th Wall

|< < Prev Comic #281 (February 24, 2010) Next > >|

Breaking the 4th Wall

Made by: Quaternion

Explanation

In the second panel, the background of Jon's house breaks away for a bit to reveal the HTML code for Square Root of Minus Garfield proper; hence, breaking the fourth wall. Garfield's final comment implies that Jon is living in the Matrix, a simulated reality from the film franchise of the same name. "Mr. Anderson" is the name of the main character Neo, who discovers the nature of the Matrix. The only person to refer to him by that name is Agent Smith, the person who leads him out of the Matrix in the first place.

The author writes:

This one is really dependent on the medium :)

Original: 1998-10-01

Transcript

Jon: I'm contemplating my place in the universe.

{The background of the panel flickers briefly into a display showing a page of HTML code.}

Garfield: You didn't see anything, Mr. Anderson.