3935: Quickest Temper (or, Really Unprovoked); or, Negative Provocation (or, Senseless Domestic Animal Abuse); or, No Rhyme or Reason

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Quickest Temper (or, Really Unprovoked); or, Negative Provocation (or, Senseless Domestic Animal Abuse); or, No Rhyme or Reason

Made by: Henry Morel, Camwoodstock & Tori, Redgreen

Explanation

As the editor's note states, the page this strip runs on is an amalgamation of three different submissions attempting to create a logical ending to a running gag involving gradual shortenings of the original strip; in this case, only the panel of Garfield getting thrown out of a window is shown. All three of the original titles combined to form the final strip's title, the result of which is reminiscent of the titles given to The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle segments at the end of a previous segment in the story arc; Redgreen's submission was titled "Quickest Temper (or, Really Unprovoked)", Henry Morel's submission was titled "Negative Provocation (or, Senseless Domestic Animal Abuse)", and Camwoodstock's submission (presumably not involving Tori based on the editor's note) was titled "No Rhyme or Reason". All three submissions' author's notes were also preserved, with Redgreen's coming between the editor's note and the first set of asterisks, Henry Morel's between the two sets of asterisks, and Camwoodstock's between the second set of asterisks and the original strip credit.

The author writes:

[Three submissions all aimed to close the book on the Defenestration of Muncie in the same way. The authors' notes are provided below, first Redgreen's, then Henry Morel's, then Camwoodstock's, which is the same order as the titles. -Ed]

There. You can all start your applause now.

* * *

Don't do this at home, kids, or a man with a badge will take you to a scary home with scary boys who hit you when you're alone, when you're asleep, when you're showering, when you're eating and when you're having a walk.

* * *

Sometimes, the world's just unfair and you get spit on like that. Here, Garfield learns this bleak, depression-invoking lesson the hard way...

And in the process, I finally destroy this running gag by giving it no more room to allow Jon to throw Garfield out even quicker than before. So, uh, we gotta move on to other edits for this strip. Or maybe someone'll find a way to make it even faster and I'm just an idiot. Either one sounds plausible.

Original strip: 1981-03-29.

Transcript

{Jon throws Garfield out of a closed window}