Cry for Jon

Two particular points of interest today. Garfield regularly trades in schadenfreude gags, wherein Garfield takes pleasure in Jon or Odie's pain. This visit to the movies provides a sweet-natured and related counterpoint. It's not Liz's sadness that gives Jon happiness, but her need for comfort, which is a natural byproduct of sadness. There's nothing insidious about taking pleasure in the ability to be there for a someone in need, but it is a minor human failing we do not usually admit. In more dire circumstances it is better known as the sin of pride. But Liz is not hurt or sad on a soul-shaking level - the reasons we attend weepy movies are the reasons the Greeks produced tragedy, and ultimately cathartic; the audience in their own way is happy because of their willful immersion in superficial sadness. Because of this we aren't concerned that Jon's exhibiting sociopathic behavior and feeling gleeful while others weep, rather there's a wistful little joke about a man unaccustomed to a social touch feeling his way in the world of interpersonal contact.

Audience Reaction Studies
Whatever the movie is about, surely a bittersweet romance, a real-life drama is happening in the theater, and goes unnoticed by all but the knowing and/or leering elderly woman. The rest of the audience is rapt, and from the neckless soda-sucker to the neck-braced popcorn-eater to the fright-wigged aerobics instructor, in true Garfield fashion, no one looks like they're enjoying themselves.

Besides Liz, who I hope is talking at normal volume during a movie only for expositional purposes, no one is communicating the emotional effects of the film so well as the redhead in the turtleneck. Cartooning crowds of ugly people without distracting from a simple joke is a tricky tightrope. Her one-handed pantomime makes her the only audience member vying for our attention in the packed frame. Also I'm pretty sure her date is one of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

So This is What Makes Life Feline...

As a Movie Guy, I admit I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with any genre, even the "chick flick". The genre formerly known as "women's pictures", with a long and illustrious history from Now Voyager to Love, Actually, may not be Jon's ideal Friday night entertainment, Davis hasn't gone out of his way to identify a specific torturous film. Jon is indeed the target audience, a young man on a date, and even if he doesn't find something to enjoy in the movie, he may make good by Liz and the genre is pretty inoffensive anyhow. We've seen Jon mention a love for children's films, and settle in for an evening with Brigette Bardot movies; while there's plenty to sustain male interest in a Bardot picture, most of them aren't Dude Movies par excellence. Choosing a date movie is tricky business anyhow, and most would agree a healthy ability to suck it up and let your date indulge their interests is a good thing. I spend this time to illustrate that it's not Jon's behavior at the heart of the joke.

Garfield witnesses one of the small compromises that happens in all relationships, and gives it a thumbs-down. Granted it is not just Jon's willingness to spend Friday night at a movie he doesn't want to see in exchange for time spent with someone he cares about that Garfield views as emasculating, but Jon's blissed-out zombie state confession that small nuisances don't bother him right now. Garfield's stubborn self-centeredness causes him to draw a hard line in all things: the cat will never do anything he does not want to do, and when his back is against the wall he will sabotage the situation (e.g.- constantly abusing Odie) or complain about it (e.g.- everything Jon does every day). Garfield cops a song title from Cinderella for his sarcastic refrain. It is a song which celebrates approximately the state in which Jon finds himself. Days like this both the guys might be right, but the thing about cynics is they think they're realists.

Jonny Crack Corn

The dreamy look in Jon's eyes and general air of being out of it tells me Jon doesn't quite realize what he's saying. He thinks he's relishing the time spent alone with Liz, but his line of reasoning has nothing to do with the company at the movies. What Jon most enjoyed was time away from Garfield. It's actually fine, good and probably healthy, for Jon to realize this. It's a poor thing to subject Liz to, however, and the ideal result in a developing human being would be to make sure future dates are not just to get away from Garfield.

Part of how Garfield asserts his authority and deeply integrates himself into the Jon's life is to force the man to ingest parts of his body. The vagary of Garfield's angry retort is part of the joke. How can Garfield make good on such a threat? By either sabotaging Jon's dates so he has to stay home and eat the tainted house supply of popcorn, or by violating the entire concession stand at the theater. Perhaps the theater the reader frequents. The heart of a gross-out joke is to ask the audience to imagine themselves with a greasy, salty, crunchy mouthful of fluffy popcorn sprinkled with white flecks of cat dander, and matted with buttery hunks of golden orange fur which stick to their shiny lips and slick fingers.

Panel Three Art Examination: Perhaps it is Garfield's massive right forearm blocking the view, but it appears the limb has become disconnected from our hero's body.

The Theater That Only Shows A Tale of Two Kitties

Even as he's in the middle of a transaction with the ticket booth attendant, Jon and Liz, can do nothing but talk about Garfield. Liz must know she's going to be entering weird psychological territory in the Arbuckle house, because neither her question nor Jon's answer are the way one would speak about a normal cat/master relationship. This feeling must be gleaned not from Jon's behavior in the office, where he is all-eyes-on-Liz, but Garfield's tendency to show up in disguise or as a third wheel on their previous dates. One can't help but wish we'd witnessed the missing scene of a crying Garfield begging Jon not to leave. If you know someone's got such a codependent relationship in their life already, why go out with them? Press one for pepperoni, folks.

While I appreciate Garfield misbehavior in Jon's absence, and Jon's clueless belief that Garfield cannot function without him, I'm not sure the cat's behavior is wild enough to justify the punchline. After all, isn't letting Garfield eat pizza something Jon does on a daily basis anyway?

Thank goodness for the innovations in interactive push-button pizza-phone technology or Garfield would be stuck in a situation like this:

Boy would he feel dumb!
Also: Either Garfield's gotten a lot bigger, or telephones have gotten a lot smaller since 1980.

Meauman's Chinese Theater

I'm going to get conceptual here for a moment.

Sometimes Garfield does gags where the premise is to describe something outlandish happening off-panel. This is most often just Garfield watching a weird movie on TV, recounting something horrible he did to the mailman, or Jon describing how his date went wrong earlier that evening. In the arts, we call this "weak" as a narrative technique, and in the case of jokes, the joke can only be as strong as your ability to write vivid and absurd images.

Since there is an animated feature called The Brave Little Toaster...
Since there are any number of singing household appliances and furniture in Academy Award winner Beauty and the Beast...
I see Jon saying he loves animation, but has he ever seen any? None of this sounds like particularly "weird" content for a cartoon.

Q: Is horror the proper reaction? Is the theater empty because the movie is bombing, or so the Paws team doesn't have to draw a crowd? Why did they leave Odie at home? Is this some kind of joke about the dancing animals in a conga line during the Garfield and Friends theme song?

I Got All My Whiskers With Me

That's really sweet... and it's Jon's guileless enthusiasm when he realizes they are a family that gets me. I'd like to think in panel two that everyone simultaneously realizes what they mean to each other. The cutest part is how Garfield has to maintain his curmudgeonly facade, but acknowledges the relationship, even if he has to couch it in sarcasm.

Except... what is Odie doing? NO! Why does he have to ruin this moment?

That drawing of Odie is so gross, and directed to no one but the reader. I'm used to this kind of sassiness on G-field T-shirts and merch, but it doesn't usually encroach on the strip this blatantly. Plus, I don't like the head-on view of Odie, because it reminds me that his tongue is wider than his head.

In other news, today the back page of the paper features a photograph of the cursive letter M.

Gojira tai Mekagarfield

Things We Learned Today

1. Garfield watches enough movies that he has highly developed taste in genres.

2. Garfield loves kaiju eiga. He is probably most excited that Toho has decided Godzilla: Final Wars is not to be the final Godzilla film after all.

3. I wonder if Jim Davis wanted the parody to be of Rowe vs. Wade, instead of Brown vs. BOE, but didn't want to confuse U.S. Acres die-hards. I guess that's not a "thing we learned."

4. Jon subscribes to a paper which publishes large 1/6th-page blank rectangles.

5. When Jon finds something "interesting," his facial expression is the same as when he is "suicidally bored."