Sunday, September 10, 2006

Jon Candy 2.0


Title Panel: When Hippie Garfield hallucinates, he sees letters spelling out his own name and built of his own flesh. He is so self-involved that while pursuing enlightened states, he ends up deeper inside a maze of his own identity so encompassing it threatens to edge his physical form out of the frame.

The Journey of the Candy Bar: An allegory about the pleasure of anticipation, the power of guilt, and the eternal cycles that leave no hunger satisfied and no behavior rewarded. Though if we think about the individual characters, it is unlikely Odie has the power to guilt-trip Garfield into relinquishing the chocolate bar, Garfield sometimes (frequently on Sundays) asks the cast to enact jokes with full awareness of their own archetypes. The strip plays on the dynamic that Garfield will shamelessly steal Jon's food, and that Jon is so used to defeat in all things that he gives up without a fight. It also sets up an endless loop; these three have been through the scenario so many times, it's hardly about getting to enjoy the candy anymore. Nobody ever will; it's a Milk Chocolate Maltese Falcon. The power isn't with you because you have the material goods, and it's not in the McGuffin itself. It's in knowing you can wrest the chocolate from Jon at any time.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, the theobromine in chocolate makes it equally poisonous to cats. Then again, the bar is just labeled "CANDY", so it's not necessarily chocolate.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately for dogs, they don't realize chocolate is poisonous. They eat it anyway because it is so sweet.

Cats don't have much of a sweet tooth, although Garfield is certainly an exception.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Garfield must be some sort of mutant freak to enjoy candy like he does. Normal cats actually have no sense of sweet taste, thanks to a faulty sweet receptor gene.

Anonymous said...

I enjoy the symbolism of the candy bar as Death.

Presumably chocolate, such a bar would present a potent neurotoxic risk for both cats and dogs.

Perhaps this explains the trippy first panel?

Anonymous said...

I'm impressed that for once the sunday joke actully took up the whole 7 panles (well anyway, but that's close)rather then the usel streched 3 panel joke