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.
Roborat
I have spotted some of the Chickweed stuff, failed to notice the Worth stuff.
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?
Norah
No, it’s the cat. His creator went to Ball State.
Durandal_1707
Count me among those who were expecting James A. Garfield.
Clif
If I chimed in with the little known fact that President Garfield also attended Ball State, I wonder how many people would check.
Lestin
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.
Clif
Hey, it’s a college. There are a lot of morning courses where people drag their dead corpses to class.
Keulen
I thought for sure it was gonna be the president, until I checked where Jim Davis went to school.
Devin
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.
Chronos
Indirectly speaking, it still is. Garfield was named for his creator’s grandfather, who was, in turn, named for the president.
GeekRyuu
This is why someone needs to make a competing comic strip called Guiteau.
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
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
Jmacq1
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.
Spencer
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.
thejeff
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.
@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. 😛
Spencer
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.
King Daniel
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).
Thag Simmons
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
King Daniel
Fax appeared in two back-to-back in his last appearance.
– 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
Pieces of Garfield phones have been washing ashore in France since the 80s, and in 2019 environmentalists finally found the lost shipping container that’s been dispensing them.
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.
161 thoughts on “Garfield”
Ana Chronistic
Next: introducing the amazing new webcomic
Ball State Minus Garfield
True Survivor
I’d read it.
MIB4u
I’ve read it.
♥♥♥
13/10, would recommend.
Doctor_Who
Look, I improved yesterday’s Mary Worth.
BigDogLittleCat
You did indeed.
Clif
Though, to be fair, Dina improves everything.
Roborat
I didn’t know that comic was still running.
Devin
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.
Roborat
I have spotted some of the Chickweed stuff, failed to notice the Worth stuff.
BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
I didn’t know it came in color
Sirksome
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.
Doctor_Who
Oh, the cat. I figured they were big fans of The Amazing Spider-Man movies.
Jamie
I was thinking “…the President?”
Sirksome
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?
Norah
No, it’s the cat. His creator went to Ball State.
Durandal_1707
Count me among those who were expecting James A. Garfield.
Clif
If I chimed in with the little known fact that President Garfield also attended Ball State, I wonder how many people would check.
Lestin
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.
Clif
Hey, it’s a college. There are a lot of morning courses where people drag their dead corpses to class.
Keulen
I thought for sure it was gonna be the president, until I checked where Jim Davis went to school.
Devin
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.
Chronos
Indirectly speaking, it still is. Garfield was named for his creator’s grandfather, who was, in turn, named for the president.
GeekRyuu
This is why someone needs to make a competing comic strip called Guiteau.
And then have them fight.
BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
Hands my favorite number in Assassins.
Reltzik
It would explain why Liz didn’t want to be back here on Monday.
Kyrik Michalowski
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
zaratustra
This quickly? Even at this level of time decompression, they won’t be in that car forever.
Kyrik Michalowski
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.
Devin
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).
Thag Simmons
Yeah that sounds about right
RassilonTDavros
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
Doctor_Who
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.
Delicious Taffy
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.
Needfuldoer
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!
zee
I was just thinking about him when i read this strip
BigDogLittleCat
I knew Willis wouldn’t just make up something like that, but I still had to look it up. AAK!
Doctor_Who
The AAK! makes me wonder if there’s a parallel universe where Ball State is dotted with statues of Cathy.
Opus the Poet
Or statues of David Letterman.
I still like the work he did with The Electric Company in the 1980s.
Clif
I had no idea Garfield worked with the electric company.
Delicious Taffy
Yeah, Spider-Man was a regular guest on that show.
carl320
AAK!
-Bill the Cat
elebenty
I thought the trail part was a joke.
https://www.visitmuncie.org/garfield-trail-delaware-county/
Stephen Bierce
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.
The Wellerman
Hello Mr. Bierce!
I noticed that you haven’t played on the Hacked Muzak in quite a while. Any particular reason?
Stephen Bierce
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.
Shitbird
Yay! Liz is back at Ball State! Good-bye forever!!
Thag Simmons
I wouldn’t be so hasty if I were you
Spencer
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.
Jmacq1
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.
Spencer
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.
thejeff
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.
King Daniel
@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. 😛
Spencer
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.
King Daniel
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).
Thag Simmons
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
King Daniel
Fax appeared in two back-to-back in his last appearance.
pixarfan9510
Don’t forget the kiddie ride at the Visitor’s Center!
pixarfan9510
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
Needfuldoer
Pieces of Garfield phones have been washing ashore in France since the 80s, and in 2019 environmentalists finally found the lost shipping container that’s been dispensing them.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47732553
AbelUndercity
(Googles to see the Garfield/James Dean statue, is immediately overcome with remorse.)
True Survivor
The single best Garfield comic, I’ve ever seen:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-06-16
Schpoonman
…Jesus Christ.
Kyrik Michalowski
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.
Clif
Eat at Arbies.
Needfuldoer
I read the whole thing in Lorenzo Music’s voice.
Shadowsnail
Then why aren’t you voicing the new Garfield movie instead of Worst Chris?
Needfuldoer
Because the Lorenzo Music voice in my head is far more accurate than my actual impression. :\
Thag Simmons
fuck i forgot about that
Keulen
I forgot about that one. And I though Garfield Minus Garfield was dark at times.
Arian
I did not initially recognise that metallic rectangle as a lasagna tray.
I thought it was a litter box.
Ana Chronistic