5340: Spot the Difference with Garfield 16: New Year's Edition

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Spot the Difference with Garfield 16: New Year's Edition
5340.png
Made by: U. N. Owen


Explanation[edit | edit source]

Contrary to the author's intent in the presentation of a reused joke run in the original strip a year apart, the final result of this strip is based on an error in the GoComics archives; the strip credited to 1996-01-01 is actually the 1997-01-01 strip colored differently, even bearing a 1997 copyright date. This error is likely due to a mistake GoComics made when remastering strips from 1996, remastering 1997-01-01 and misattributing it to 1996-01-01; GoComics has as of this writing not yet remastered strips attributed to 1997, thus 1997-01-01 on GoComics remains identical to that of the secure-domain mirror of the former "images.ucomics.com" domain. This strip's author mistook GoComics's mistake as genuine, resulting in this strip's setup; note how the strip correctly attributed to 1997-01-01 on GoComics in this SRoMG strip is blown-up in proportions to match what the author thought was 1996-01-01. GoComics made the same mistake for four days' worth of strips; the strips attributed to 1996-01-02, 1996-01-03, and 1996-01-04 are likewise each actually the following year's strip for that date (1997-01-02, 1997-01-03, and 1997-01-04), with the mistakes likely stopping at that point due to 1997-01-05 being a Sunday compared to the Friday 1996-01-05 fell on.

The Garfield wiki on Fandom has a copy of the actual 1996-01-01 strip, drawn from the former garfield.com site, here; likewise, the secure-domain mirror of the former "images.ucomics.com" domain also has a smaller copy of the correct strip for that date.

This strip's author was not the only one to fall for GoComics's gaffe. Nyperold also fell for the gaffe when attempting to report 1996-01-01 as an "erroneous credit" on 4886: Garfield gets what he deserves. to the Square Root of Minus Garfield bug/error reports thread based on GoComics's gaffe being mistaken as the genuine article for the date; #4886 makes use of material from the actual 1996-01-01 and was thus duly and correctly credited as such.

The author writes:[edit | edit source]

Ring out the old, ring in the new, eh Jim?

Original strips: 1996-01-01, 1997-01-01.

Transcript[edit | edit source]

Caption: January 1, 1996
{Garfield is chilling, holding a cup of coffee}
{A spider wearing a party hat bungee-jumps down from the ceiling}
Spider: Whoo! What a night!
Garfield: Happy new year
Caption: January 1, 1997
{Garfield is chilling, holding a cup of coffee}
{A spider wearing a party hat bungee-jumps down from the ceiling}
Spider: Whoo! What a night!
Garfield: Happy new year