Garfield

161 Replies to “Garfield”

      1. I’m a little surprised you haven’t caught a glimpse of it in Willis’ twitter feed on the side of this page, he’s been giving both Mary Worth and 9 Chickweed Lane the MST3K treatment every day for months at this point.

  1. Meh, Garfield’s okay I guess. I mean hating Monday’s isn’t really worth being famous for but he got away with it I guess.

        1. Honestly don’t know which Garfield they’re talking about either. Never been to Ball state or even Indiana. Maybe the President makes more sense?

              1. If I chimed in with the little known fact that President Garfield also attended Ball State, I wonder how many people would check.

                1. Hey, he hadn’t even been dead for forty years when Ball State was established, there might have been enough of his corpse left to drag to classes.

                2. Hey, it’s a college. There are a lot of morning courses where people drag their dead corpses to class.

                1. I thought it was the president until the tourist trail got mentioned, and then I assumed it was the cat. I am not prepared to believe that enough people care that much about President James A Garfield to have a tourist trail of statues of him at a college. Much more prepared to believe that about the cartoon cat.

        2. Indirectly speaking, it still is. Garfield was named for his creator’s grandfather, who was, in turn, named for the president.

  2. Well, I should have expected that we would cut away to give Becky and Dina their alone time. However, I did not expect to get back to Sarah and Liz this quickly.

    Inb4 Sarah finds out Liz has been expelled or something of a similar caliber

      1. I just meant I thought it might cut away from Becky and Dina, then go to Joyce or Walky. I wasn’t expecting to cut to Sarah and Liz. I’m not complaining or criticizing, just wasn’t expecting it.

    1. I kind of assumed as soon as the Slipshine was announced that was the last time we’d see Dina and Becky for a while (how long potentially depending on whether or not you have a Slipshine account).

  3. This is making me want to rewatch QuintonReviews’ “Garfield Vacation” documentary, which is a bit of a problem since I still haven’t finished his eight-hour “Victorious” video yet

    1. Makes me want to rewatch Super Eyepatch Wolf’s “What the Internet Did to Garfield”, but it’s late and that video is 80 minutes long.

    2. Ah, a fellow connoisseur, I see. I’m too intimidated to even start that new video, especially after how in-depth his last few have been. Kinda hoping he goes back to videos that don’t last an entire work shift.

    3. It really is a great documentary on the prehistory of Garfield, and it was possibly the most interesting Garfield-related thing to come out in years!

      On top of that, he unearthed all the prototype material he could possibly track down and shared it with the world.

      I hope there’s a The Pipe Strip reference in this chapter!

  4. I’d make a reference to Knights of the Dinner Table but I doubt that matters because it’s fiction in the Walkyverse…I think.

      1. 1) That is a patently untrue statement as I alluded to The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life” only a couple days ago.
        2) Somebody’s been consistantly beating me to the draw.
        3) I’m not as engaged of late. It’s not you, it’s me.

      1. I too expect this character who has been in the series for six months and wearing big neon signs proclaiming Drama Happening to be returned home with no question after she rolled in, had a terrible sexual encounter due to her Christian upbringing, express that she is experiencing the exact same problems as the series’ main character, and then her older sister with a terminal case of not giving a shit drags her back home by not only failing to attempt to understand her problems but to outright dismiss them as fraudulent, and then that’s a wrap.

        1. Man that’s weird, I was expecting that the older sister is going to run across some of that character’s toxically Christian “friends” and have a rare moment of give a shit and drag her right back into semiregular circulation in the strip with her.

          1. How dare you imply that Sarah needs to be held to the slightest standard of emotional decency.

            She’s introverted and bad with people so that means asking her to engage with the slightest warmth to another human being outside of a crisis means you don’t understand.

          2. Sarah might get more sympathetic and give Liz some emotional support, but she can’t really switch her from Ball to IU on the spur of the moment. Fundamentally, Sarah’s right. Liz needs to find a way to deal with being at Ball – different friends, staying closeted, coming out and taking the consequences, whatever.
            In theory, she could come up to IU on weekends, which means we’d see her again in a bit less than a year, but that would probably be bad for her on a regular basis.

      2. @Thag Simmons: I’d only not disagree with you because “forever” is a long, long time. But even assuming that Liz gets elevated to the same status of Semi-Recurrent Off-Campus Sibling of IU Student that we already have with three other characters (Faz, Howard, and Jocelyne)…well, let’s look at their appearances:

        Faz: Last appeared two years ago, last non-consecutive appearance before that four years ago
        Howard: Last appeared five years ago, last non-consecutive appearance before that almost nine years ago
        Jocelyne: Last appeared three years ago, last non-consecutive appearance before that six years ago

        Hence, even if Liz isn’t written out of the storyline forever and becomes a semi-recurrent character analogous to one of the above, barring some completely-out-of-left-field development I’d be honestly very surprised if we see her again for at least another couple of years after this storyline ends.

        Anyways, apologies for the much-longer post than normal. 😛

        1. None of them really have as immediately dramatic stakes as Liz has been depicted as having, let alone the lack of resolution to them or that Liz has been here six sequential months now. She showed up presenting herself as a different person, and then we find out she’s Not Joyce, her performative Christianity is causing her pain at college because her friends treat her like Joyce’s do, and also that Christian upbringing hurt her enough that she has a paralyzing fear of sexuality. There’s a bit of meat to chew on still.

          Like Howard’s life sucks because he lives with an emotionally abusive granddad and gets hung over Ruth’s head so she can know how she is a bad daughter, but Howard’s life sucks all the time, that’s just his status quo.

          Jocelyne, meanwhile, is probably coming back soon given that she’s trying to get a hold of Joyce.

          Between a year and two sounds like a good guess, since that’d be enough time for next Saturday to start.

          1. Oh yeah, I’m for sure not arguing that we’ll never see Liz again, just trying to show that statistically-speaking Liz ain’t gonna become, like, a Main Cast Member or anything like I’ve seen a few people saying (fer chrissakes, even Jocelyne doesn’t have her own entry on the Cast Page!). 😛 I could definitely see her popping up every couple years though, like Jocelyne does every three years (2013-2016-2019-2022?, if the general hunch about her is right).

        2. None of those characters appeared in three chapters back to back and I would genuinely be surprised if Liz’s story was resolved by the end of this chapter

    1. More fun Jim Davis/Garfield facts:

      – Jim was born in the same town (Fairmount) as James Dean, so the Fairmount Historical Society has a statue of Garfield as James Dean outside

      – There’s actually two separate Garfield trails: one in Muncie and one in Grant County, the county Fairmount is in.

      – The kiddie ride I mentioned above was previously in the Muncie Mall before being moved to the Delaware County Visitor Center

      – When PAWS, Inc. closed after being bought by Nick, the Visitors Center got a bunch of random crap donated to them, so if you want Garfield books printed in German, I know just the place

    1. You would think it would be less weird and dark the fourth or fifth time you see it but it is still one that leaves me feeling weird every time I see it.

    1. I was there for my ’99-00 year of college, and I don’t remember seeing those. I either didn’t get out enough, or they were erected after I returned home.

  5. I went to Ball State and I don’t recall any Garfield art, tho I was assigned a Garfield themed project. But that first panel really flashed me back.

            1. Eh, never much of a fan of Garfield except for those movies I watched as a kid. In fact I think I’ve seen all of them. Including the one where the gang became superheroes.

              Dammit now I want lasagna. But all I have is cheese.

          1. If I had a nickel for everytime I saw a sexy Garfield. I would have 2 nickels. Which is not a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.

  6. You know, I know next to nothing about Ball State, so when Sarah said Garfield I thought she was talking about the former president. Like, maybe he had put up money for the school’s founding or something. The fact that it’s the comic Garfield is so much stupider.

    1. Particularly since in the wake of his assassination, there was an understandable trend of naming things after him. I know that this is the case for Garfield Park in Chicago, for example—it was originally just named Central Park before the unfortunate event.

    2. Not even American and yeah I thought it was the President. Granted I did watch a YouTube video on his assassination (or rather about the wild life of the guy who killed him) not that long ago.

  7. https://www.visitmuncie.org/garfield-trail-delaware-county/

    … Huh.

    I remember that decorated statues around a region trend! But the ones I saw were like. Cows and stuff. *Googles* Yeah apparently they started with cows specifically and everyone else thought the Cow Parade guy had a cool idea and did their own spin. From this brief research, the Garfields were not a copycat project. People just want to capitalize on being the Garfield County.

    That sure is information I have in my brain now.

    1. Great to see you around here Regalli!

      Speaking of brains, how have your spoons been? I sure hope both of us have enough to enjoy the upcoming Slipshine!

    2. They did herons in my city (La Crosse, WI) about fifteen years.  Some of them are still on display.

      https://explorelacrosse.com/project/herons-of-la-crosse-sculptures/

      Minneapolisl, which was the hometown of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, did a series of statues over multiple years featuring Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and two different versions of Snoopy (one solo, and one on top of his doghouse which also included Woodstock).  I’ve also seen, in my travels, cow, pigs, pumpkins, and anthropomorphic ears of corn, among several others.

      1. There was a Highland Cow trail around Inverness, and then another one with squirrels for some reason. And statues of Oor Wullie (“mischevious kid” type comic strip character from the Sunday Post) all around Scotland.

        1. The one I really wanted to see, but never did, was the Barons’ Charter Trail they did around Salisbury for the aniversary of Magna Carta. Because one of them was painted by Paul Kidby to resemble late Salisbury resident Sir Terry Pratchett.

    3. I had no idea this was a regular thing. My area has bunnies and I never thought too deeply about the random bunny statues all over the area but it just occurred to me it’s because we’re in the Conejo Valley and Conejo is rabbit in Spanish.

    4. There was once big fiberglass pig statues all over Cincinnati — my school made one, in fact. And the suburb of Glendale has squirrel statues everywhere.

    5. Several years ago where I live there were a bunch of decorated statues of the old couple from Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting. Most of them are gone now, but I think at least one business in my town still has one of those statues.

  8. Turns out the whole “Liz staying at IU for days on end” plot was just an excuse for Willis to drop this information on us

  9. I really love Garfield by the way. The cat I mean. One of the first comic strips I really got into. It doesn’t make me laugh out loud like I used to but it puts a smile on my face.

    1. Yeah, I still have a couple of the early books, watched the first TV special and a few episodes of the cartoon… it’s been years, though.

    2. The two comic strips I first got into were Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. Which is kinda funny because Jim Davis let everyone make tons of merch and movies and stuff from his comic, while Bill Watterson absolutely refused to approve any merch of Calvin and Hobbes.

    1. It had a rep as a “party school” when Willis went to IU, and was depicted in Roomies! with that in mind.

      So yes?

      1. With a name like “Ball State”, it almost HAD to become a party school – or at least the logical home for the Kinsey Institute.

        (yes, I know it’s named after the Ball family of home canning glass jar fame, but the gag was too good to pass up)

    1. At Marshall University there was very little honoring John Marshall. I think there was a bust in front of Old Main.

  10. I wasn’t sure if I was having a fever dream or a stroke, so I actually went to the bother of checking Wikipedia and there is real page titled “Garfield Statues”.

    I hope non-US readers of this webcomic find this as useful as I just have.

  11. Neither Garfield nor Jim Davis and even Ball State really scream Muncie and v/v, but alas.

    From bed race to… Bed Race?

  12. It’s a little known fact at BSU that if you say “I hate mondays” you are immediately dropped into the campus leopard pit.

  13. Sorry if I’m off topic, but there was a slipshine yesterday and although I don’t normally look for this kind of stuff I’d like to know what adorable Dina and Becky did! I don’t know how that website works so can someone tell me: is there no way to buy just this one slipshine and not have to subscribe to the whole $30 for the entire site? 🙁

    1. From the “about” page:

      tl;dr: no, you cannot buy my Slipshine comics separate from a Slipshine subscription.

      1. Thanks 🙁 Usually I don’t care for those “side” comics since they’re just bonus, but I kinda feel like I’ll be missing a big part of Dina and Becky’s story here. Oh well.

  14. Yeah it’s just a subscription.

    Though unless Patreon is lying to me, starting today there’s a sale for the sub at $10 for the rest of the month.

  15. Like everyone else I too thought she was refering to the president. Had no idea that Jim went to Ball State (or that it was named after the canning company founders).

    So:
    Mental Note: Muncie, Indiana is a Garfield the cat tourist trap town.

    What I love is that some of the places that have Garfield statues are closed on Mondays. *lmao*

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