Forget-Meow-Not

I know it's serving a necessary expository function, but it's funny that Jon feels comfortable bringing up Ellen's amnesia every third sentence. Especially when coupled with his icky half-lidded sneering "smooth-talker" face, it's classic Arbuckle: he not only lacks the social graces, but violates them as flirtation. Jon's blindness to appropriate behavior is an inspirational message to us all.

From these symptoms it sounds like Ellen's not only suffering amnesia but full-blown and frightening aphasia. The uneasiness today is underlined by a slow camera pullback as the severity of the situation becomes clear. Given that Jon is still keeping Garfield abreast of every piece of new information and knows he should cover the mouthpiece when talking to his cat, I'm not sure who's mental illness is more serious.

Jon had a date at least as recently as June 10, so I don't know what Garfield's being so snide about... Oh, wait, that's his only mode of expression.

Jon's Horoscope: Day Two

Your power to bore the world is diminishing. Someday, Dear Leo, you'll be noticed. Be sure you're wearing pants. Today's lucky number: 542

The bulk of the horoscope seems to confirm the obvious guess that Ellen's going to show some romantic interest in Jon. I doubt very much that Jon's minor, temporary success with Ellen will make him interesting to the entire planet. Yes, instead of scouring the horoscopes for clues, I am second-guessing them. The horoscope is prudish enough to think a great date requires you to keep your trousers on. That, or Davis is implying something unsavory about Jon's junk.

More interesting to me is that the horoscope includes a listing of "Famous Leos", among them Jim Davis. This leads us to believe that Jon shares a July 28 birthday with our favorite asthmatic cartoonist.

Still no idea about the lucky numbers. Wikipedia tells us that a plague responsible for killing millions broke out in Constantinople in the year 542, but I doubt the story is headed in that direction.

Frankly, it doesn't seem like the story is headed in any direction. Normally I relish the glacial pacing, but we're on a ten-day schedule, people. This leaves only eight strips for Garfield's world to be shattered.

As Jon Lay Dying

Progressively wrinklier shirt: it adds visual stimulation, and enhances the sickening pathos of this gag about a man feigning terminal illness in failed exchange for affection! It's days like today that should be archived to remind the world that Garfield is the blackest thing on the American comics page. Take that, Boondocks!

It is very sweet that Garfield wants to tell Jon he sympathizes. It is typical Garfield that he just sprawls on the table like an undemonstrative orange blob, even while knowing Jon cannot hear the cat say he sympathizes. Thanks Garfield, because you know, this situation wasn't bleak enough.

Beyond the Pooky Principle

Jon's progress: mild anger -> rougishness -> tired. So tired. It is, however, awesome that Jon is admitting to himself (and his cat) that he is trying to trick a woman into going out with him.

Points to Paw-nder:

-This is the first time we've "heard" Ellen's voice through the reciever. I hope you are as excited as I am.

-Jon's shirt has that new automatic-rumpling feature to make you look extra-pathetic at a moment's notice.

-I hope Garfield's last thought is in an Austrian accent.

-Three people are talking in the third panel, making it as visually crowded as any Garfield panel in years.

An Arbuckle's Chance in Hell

This is going to go on for months, isn't it? Behold the only strip in the world that dares show us a man talking on the phone, next to his drowsing cat, for weeks on end.

I like when Garfield shifts the focus to Jon, but for the sake of a dozen blackout gags with the same punchline? Yes!

Panel 1: Jon's way of expressing slyness is to curl the corners of his mouth up between his eye and ear. Even pulling with my fingers, I can only get the corner of my mouth just up under my nose. It doesn't look like Jon's expression at all.

Panel 2: So has Ellen run out of her house without even taking time to hang up the phone? Or have Jon's "chances," as Garfield will explain, become anthropomorphized flesh, and evacuated? One is comedy, the other is Neil Gaimanesque fantasy-horror.

Panel 3: The slight pan right is to accommodate Garfield's thought bubble, but looks like it's a reveal of his butt, which is arguably a funnier joke.

For Lasagna or Money

Come again?

I think I "don't get this."

Does Garfield mean "If 'money can't buy happiness,' then do you, Jon, rent happiness? Because you are clearly a happy man." Or does Garfield mean "If money can't buy happiness, then do humans in general rent happiness, because I see an obvious link between money and happiness."

Either way, I am not sure why Garfield is acting like he's never heard this platitude before, and even less sure if the panic in his eyes is the proper reaction.

I like to think Jon gave Ellen this speech with no prompting but his own insecurity. This strip also raises questions about Jon's income level and professional success as a cartoonist which are better left un-pondered. Believe me. I've pondered them.

V.C. Arbuckle's Flowers in the Cattic

Wooooah! Check out that zoom between panels 1 and 2! Who directed this, Mario Bava?

I like how this joke is not a simple reveal, but a puzzle we must figure out, including understanding where the characters are in figuring out the situation. Even if you have figured out that Ellen is allergic to the flowers (funny), you still have to figure out that Jon doesn't understand this, even though his own "bless you"s are our only clues (funnier), and that Garfield has pieced this together and is smarter than Jon (funniest).

Oh, and by the by, I guess Ellen is going to be like Mrs. Columbo, or Diane on Twin Peaks. The Ellen mystique will be that we don't get to meet her. She's a interesting character anyway, since she likes Jon enough to speak on the phone every day for weeks, but not enough to go out with him.

These Friends of... I mean "Ellen"

Sorrow! Rage! Jon looks like he wants to punch that bitch... for not loving him! I'd really like to see Jon and Ellen go to the next level, too, because as far as I can tell, they've only spoken on the phone, and I can't wait to see her. She must like him though, because he's called every day this week... Hmm... Actually, maybe they are at the "next level," if not the final level to which all romances must aspire: it always ends with Ellen in silence, and Jon in despair or anger.

And God, it's great that Garfield chooses to insult Jon not for the topic of today's joke - which is Jon's failure at romance - but because in addition to being lonely, Jon looks like an idiot. Bonus cruelty at no extra cost. That's the Garfield promise.

The Ellen Quadrilogy

Jon's sudden turn to defeat in the last panel is so fast that it has to mean in the prior panels he is putting on a brave face. I do love the joke in which a man is mired in a situation going badly, and he grins and denies the pleasure cruise is sinking into an octopus pit.

Garfield, more than perhaps any other strip, does not make any pretense of a fourth wall. Here, Garfield does not even try to aim his rude thought for the day at Jon. It is for us. This is eerie in today's strip, because all the communication in this cartoon is not reaching its expected audience. Jon is blathering to Ellen falls only on his cat's ears, and Garfield doesn't even care to share his snottiness with Jon. Three characters are not talking to each other. The fourth, the reader, can only bear mute witness to this scene.

The Jon of Living Dangerously

I can safely say I've never seen Jon make the expression in the second panel before.

I am in great suspense to see this "Ellen" woman. I can only asssume that unless she is put off by Jon's phone, which has Hulked-out and turned green since yesterday, this plot will continue until Ellen's will is worn down and she goes on a patented Disastrous Arbuckle Date. Sometime I should make an index of every time Jon's gone on a date. I think we would learn a lot, and it would be a productive use of free time.

Jokes about running with scissors are officially on the same list as tearing the tags off mattresses, and boxes of Fruit Loops with butcher knives in them captioned "cereal killer." They must be put down by Gregory Peck with a shotgun, before they infect other jokes.

The Ballad of Jon and Ellen

Hooray for continuity! Jon calls Ellen again, last heard from on April 23.

It's kind of cool that we can't be sure if Ellen is lying, or Jon is so horrid that he causes instantaneous migraines. Either way, this time Jon "gets" what's going on. His wilting enthusiasm is funny, but these episodes are so much harder to take when Jon ends up angry, sad, and self-loathing. It doesn't help that he's shown concern for someone's well-being in panel 2.

Garfield is also harder to take when he takes special pleasure in Jon's defeat. Certainly the reader doesn't need Garfield to explain the joke, and the awful cat is just rubbing it in.

And this time Jon's back-fat is utterly out of control.