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.
8 comments:
I was quitre struck, when I read this strip. For the first time in I don't know how long, Jon gets to act like a grownup, without his cat undercutting him to his face.
Granted, his cat is undercutting him back at Jon's house, but still.
That old sunday strip is my all time favorite Garfield strip. I remember reading that as a kid and laughing so hard I fell over. Thank you!
(btw, Permanent Monday is a wonderful daily addiction!)
I am disturbed by Liz's zonked eyes in the first panel. Rohypnol?
One of the interesting things about Garfield is how the phones are always drawn at that crazy angle. I don't believe I've ever seen a phone drawn from the perspective of its back corner apart from this strip. Apparently Davis was doing it from the earliest days, too. Strange.
That phone is huge. Or else the tv and the sofa are really small. WHich would be cool, I guess. If my cat watched tv all day sitting in a recliner, I'd get him a scaled down tv and chair. It would freak out visitors if nothing else.
As another indication of Jon's use of rohypnol on Liz, notice that her lower lip hangs below the level of her chin. Perhaps some sort of flacid semi-paralysis?
I'm looking at this strip from an entirely different angle. The normal reaction of a family animal when its family leaves is to be upset. As a vet, Liz knows and expects this, and Jon knows she is a vet. Even though Garfield is not upset, and Jon certainly knows this, he is telling Liz what she wants to hear. We all know guys like this: the sleazy saccharine-sweet guy who knows exactly what to say to build up a fake image of who he is in a woman's mind. It's obvious Jon has spent a lot of time working on his moves since the early days of the comic. Back then, instead of telling her what she wanted to hear, he would tell her what sitcoms tell us women want to hear, which we all know is far far from the truth.
Dont sweat it Garfield im sure their going to be having their phones ringing off hr hooks from everybody who were also watching
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