Garfield Minus Garfield

[Hildred Castaigne]

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

Maybe I'm coming to the party late on this one. It wouldn't be the first time. In any case, these are created by a guy from Dublin who's actually received praise for his efforts by Jim Davis himself.

[MadsPLP]

I've known about this for about a month, and I like the strip very much. I now see why I liked Garfield so much when I was a kid.

Maybe the book "SPUK (Thesen gegen den Frühling)" by Niklaus Rüegg will be of interest. Here is his version of Carl Bark's Donald Duck, but without any charcters:

[actualwolf]

I too enjoyed Garfield as a child but it's been retreading the same gags for the past 15 years or so. It's actually remarkable that it was ever good given that it's always been cranked out by committee (the copyright owner is not Jim Davis but PAWS INC).

Nice to see something interesting done with (or without) that cat.

[unknown]

I've seen this posted on another message board, and I love it. some of them are rather bleak or existential

[Hildred Castaigne]

I'm glad others appreciate Garfield Minus Garfield. What I've found interesting is how others not of The Network share a similar history with the original strip. They too mentioned how the original characters somehow got them through awkward, if not traumatic episodes in their past.
For me G-G is luckily discovered for its unvarnished exposure of the abiding, hollow desolation that is Jon Arbuckle. Here is a man defined solely by the utter futility of his existence. Without daily confirmation of his abject fecklessness, Jon would no doubt finally succumb his ever-deepening ennui. It is this ennui that I personally envision as having somehow replaced Garfield like a malignant Chesire Cat, a "cat" whose trade mark grin manifests only in the reader's tragic recognition and empathy with Jon's plight.

[TheForgotton]

I forget the name of it, but there was a similar strip I has saw beforehand that kept Garfield but removed his thought bubbles. I think it was much more depressing.

[Sam]

This may have been posted here before, but it is too good not to share... The blog Laughing Squid reminded me of this singular series of original Garfield strips today. As a compliment to the excellent G-G, here is a meditation on loneliness and delusion from Jim Davis himself. Pretty heavy for mainstream funny papers.

[Brendan Moody]

In the same vein as Garfield Minus Garfield is 3eanuts, in which the final panel of a Peanuts strip is removed to produce something bleak or despairing.