5339: Garf Disney
| Garf Disney |
 Made by: garftools |
Explanation[edit | edit source]
This strip makes reference to public domain laws in the United States, with a particular focus on the Walt Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie (the first released cartoon starring Mickey Mouse). The date of Steamboat Willle's transition into the American public domain, January 1, 2024, has been well understood for a number of recent years and as such this strip is known to have gone up the day before the event in most of the world. The exact timing of the event (namely, whether it happens at a fixed point throughout all United States territory or if the point of the event varies by time zone), however, is not well known, so it is unknown exactly how many hours before the event this strip went up on; using the United States's Eastern Time Zone (UTC -5 during the standard time which was applicable on January 1, 2024) as a reference point (new strips of mezzacotta features typically go live at 4:10 AM EST, which is 9:10 AM UTC; mezzacotta features' upload timings do not apply any form of daylight saving time) and assuming the event happened at local midnight in either that time zone or each American time zone in turn, the strip went live 19 hours and 50 minutes prior to the event in at least the Eastern Time Zone. (If the event is applied to local midnight as some interpretations might assume, the strip went up with as little as 4 hours 50 minutes left to go in the Chamorro Time Zone of Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands [UTC +10] and as much as 25 hours 50 minutes left to go in the Samoa Time Zone of American Samoa [UTC -11].)
The author's notes make a note that Steamboat Willle's public domain transition may have happened by the time visitors first saw this strip, a reference to the size of the large queue which typically sees Square Root of Minus Garfield strips take months, if not years, after submission to reach the reader, and suggests the author may not have known for sure when the strip would run as is true for most strips; the statement revealing the strip was made in the early parts of 2023 is also in reference to normal queue behavior. The December 23, 2023 publication date of the article linked to in the author's notes, however, suggests that this strip may have either been given a late edit to the author's notes to add a link to said article or even been given an accelerated run through the queue specifically to reference the date of the event in question; it is unknown for sure which of those is true without knowing the exact date of submission.
The author writes:[edit | edit source]
This strip was made in early 2023. Steamboat Willie will go into public domain in 2024, possibly by the time site visitors read this.
Original strip: 2012-04-04.
Transcript[edit | edit source]
{Garfield points at Odie, off-panel}
Garfield: Hey!
{Odie stands next to Garfield, whistling, in black and white}
{Garfield frowns}
Garfield: Steamboat Willie isn't in public domain yet
