4083: Centigrodie & Fahrenfield

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Centigrodie & Fahrenfield

Made by: Nyperold

Explanation

In the original, Odie emitted an "Rrr" and Garfield replied with a "Ft". The author explains that he was originally going to interpret the "ft" as the imperial measure of "feet", and change Odie's dialogue into "m", short for the metric unit of "meters". This was discarded in favor of "C" and "F", short for "Celsius" or "Centigrade" and "Fahrenheit", respectively. As those are units of temperature rather than length and distance, they were favored in a comic about the heat.

The additional idea was to have Odie and Garfield give the high in Muncie on this comic's date in Celsius and Fahrenheit, again, respectively. But as numbers are somewhat rare in dialogue, he'd be looking a long time for them. The alternative, using the font, is something the author doesn't like doing much.

The author writes:

My original idea was to have Odie say "M" and leave Garfield's original line as it was, but felt this would be better.

I could've had Odie said 29 and Garfield say 84, but that would mean tracking down numbers. Or using the font.

Original strip: 1985-07-28.

Transcript

{Jon, Garfield, and Odie suffer from the heat, Jon in his chair, and Garfield and Odie on the floor by the window. None leave or change position throughout the strip}
Jon: Hot, hot, hot. It's hot out there
Jon: It's too hot to move. It's too hot to think. It's just too hot
{beat}
Odie: C
Garfield: F
Jon: Garfield! Odie!
Jon: Stop fighting