Wednesday, May 24, 2006

I Think That I Shall Never See/ A Poem as Lovely as Pooky


Panel One: Jon's pen is as long as a human forearm, and possibly, if no foreshortening is at work, longer.

Panel Two: I can put no price on the pregnant pause of this panel.

Panel Three: I can only assume Jon is writing a poem to Mystique to hand-deliver on opening day of X-Men 3. J/K you guys, LOL! The joke is that "wolverine" is inherently inappropriate to use in a romantic poem. I say "Not so!" and offer Jon a few rhyming words: latrine, sardine, spleen, benzene, vaccine, obscene, gangrene. J/K again! Those are all inappropriate also. Some pretty words that rhyme with wolverine: green, ravine, phosphene... we might go on for 10 minutes like this. Seriously, "wolverine" has a very common ending syllable, so maybe the joke is that Jon is an idiot after all.

Jon asks his cat a question which requires both verbal response and intimate familiarity with the English language. Does he expect an answer, or is he thinking aloud? These are the mysteries of Garfield.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've noticed an emerging trend where Jon consults Garfield for advice on an almost daily basis. It seems as though he cannot pick out his own clothes, much less his own words without his cat's input.
Soon, he may no longer be able to longer function as a member of society altogether. Not that this would come as much of a surprise to anyone...

Anonymous said...

i was wondering how tall jon is. garfield seems to be standing on the floor and resting his arms on the table next to jon. then in some strips he is standing on the table and is about the same height as jon. am i to conclude that jon's lower body is in fact only as tall as garfeild's chest height, making him only a head taller than garfeild? is jon a midget? or is garfeild some sort of shape shifter? (evidence in the fat blob in one of the next comics and variable arm, foot length in general.)
if garfeild is a shape shifter, why does he hang out with jon? is that why he eats so much? to support his energy needs for shape shifting? is jon the only source garfeild can find to support his eating habits?

i have gotten off the point.

Chris Stangl said...

I'm concerned about the relative heights as well. I noted in this April strip that Garfield seems to be fully half of Jon's height when standing on his hind legs, so I think Garfy is just huge, while Jon seems to be the same size as other humans. I think the table may be a bad indicator, as there seem to be several of these tables in the house, which come up to different heights on Jon. Now, all the tables in my house come up 2 inches above my knee, but Jon's rise to mid-arm. I presume Garfield sits on a stool or something when he's leaning his arm on the surface.

But yes, even Garfield's relative size seems to change depending on the needs of the day. If he has "powers," or not, I do know why he hangs out with Jon: deep down, Garfield and Jon love each other.

Anonymous said...

At first glance, I thought Jon was wearing a tie.

Anonymous said...

Jon's pen may have come from the same store as his giant bow tie. I think Jon just can't tell what a normal size is for anything (yes I know where that's leading. Is that the pen Jon uses for his cartooning? No wonder in the movies he has a powerful right hook!
And if Garfield IS a shape-shifter then maybe it's not Garfield at all -- maybe it IS Mystique and Jon is subtly telling her that he realizes who she is by using the name of her enemy, Wolverine! So Jim Davis (or someone at PAWS) put the changing sizes in DELIBERATELY to hint at this hidden layer of X-Meaning. Brilliant!

ps - Jon's poem might be:

I'm deeply touched now that I've seen
A mutant stabbed by Wolverine
And now she poses as my cat
Just what should I think of that?

Firebird said...

OH ITS LATE TO MAKE THE SCIENE,ON A DATE WITH WOLVERINE,AND BY THE THE BOOK AND THE LAWS,LOOK OUT FOR THE ALTALUIM CLAWS