Friday, April 11, 2008

Loneliness

Our conversation yesterday about John Nash’s imaginary friends reminded me of “Garfield minus Garfield,” a blog that removes America’s favorite cat from his eponymous comic strip in order to focus on Jon Arbuckle,

an isolated young everyman[,] as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Some of the images from the blog reminded me how behaviors that seem perfectly normal when you are, say, having a conversation a friend, seem really, really sad and crazy when it becomes clear that that friend is a cat, because cats can’t, in fact, carry on conversations.

Here’s some recent strips:

Garfield minus Garfield - Jon wants to shoot himself

Garfield minus Garfield - changing bulbs

Garfield minus Garfield - I'm a lonely guy

4 comments:

Miguel said...

Aw man, so does this mean I'm crazy for talking to my cats? At least I don't do it with plants, I've never understood that one.

John Jones said...

Miguel,

I would never, ever compare you to Jon Arbuckle. :)

Crista Beck - Dating Coach and Matchmaker said...

This is hilarious! I still can't stop laughing.

Ian B said...

I dont know if you guys read Garfield currently but Jon Arbuckle has got himself a little hottie. I dont know why they decided that he had been single for too long, but they did. I think garfield himself is a little conflicted about her, but she definitely is a "good guy" type of character that is never the butt end of bad jokes. strange.