Garfield Minus Garfield

Something that I find delightful about this project is that Jim Davis approves of it!

From Wikipedia: "Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, approved of the project, and an official Garfield book (also called Garfield Minus Garfield) was published by his company. It was mainly edited comics by Walsh, with some comics contributed by Davis."

See also "What Jim Davis thinks of G-G" (linked from the bottom of the page):

https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/private/61669516/fSymsOGXO...

Jim created Garfield for money[1]. It's not surprising that he likes anything that can make him more money, he isn't personally tied to the character.

[1] Garfield was originally created by Davis with the intention to come up with a 'good, marketable character' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield

It's still notable that Jim Davis has that level of chill about it. Someone with a mercenary capitalist attitude toward their work can be just as much a control freak as Bill Watterson. (Not being judgmental; Watterson's position is completely valid too.)

It honestly seems a little silly to worry about the purity of the intent of an artist.

That Davis did it for the money is just "meh". Most people work for money.

This is the link that I had in mind when I was writing my comment, thanks so much for posting it here!

we at hacker news work for first principles instead

I don't think the concern is that Davis "did it for the money", and that's not a fair representation of why some of us mock Jim Davis.

I don't think anybody is arguing comic authors shouldn't make money out of their work.

The concern is that Garfield is the product of conscious market research and not whatever we imagine a comic artist goes through when creating their comics. You can dismiss this as some ridiculous search for "purity", but wouldn't you say most people imagine Watterson, Schultz, etc. went through a process more or less "I liked these other cartoons, and wouldn't it be cool to make something about <idea>/<childhood memories>/<something that inspired me>/<something that worries me>" vs "hey, let's make money, what kind of character would make me the most money?".

Davis is not the only one, of course.

I wish there was a hacker news minus hacker news

Art without money is madness. Money without art dies on the vine in obscurity or pays its dues in criticism through time.

99% of everything commercially produced is somewhere between these and, if made by a person, part of a cannon, a body of work that grows and changes as the person does.

Just because an artist invites us into their mind does not mean we don’t owe them the respect we’d give a stranger. At least that’s how I look at it.

Also makes me wonder if people talk to their cats...

I can give you hacker news minus hackers?

The conclusion doesn't follow the premise. In fact, precisely the opposite arises from it. People who make things for money tend to be controlling about their thing, as it's the thing that makes them money. Others controlling the thing is a potential threat against the money-making capability of the thing, so they usually try to quell it. To not just let a remix be, but actively endorse it, is a notable and unusual event.

http://n-gate.com/hackernews/ , but it sleeps

Careful; the Dan walsh hyperlink goes straight to porn!

I 100% talk to mine!

reddit.com/r/technology

Not only do I really l talk to my cats, but they talk to me too! We're about equal in our abilities to understand each other; sometimes one of my cats might just run around for a bit yell-meowing and it's not clear why, but I'm sure they feel the same way when I occasionally get upset at things. Other times, like when one of them starts whine-meowing when I'm putting their wet food into a bowl, I know _exactly_ what's she's saying even if it doesn't actually cause me to get it done any faster.

Pathological case for link rot.

We don't owe Jim Davis any kind of respect as an artist. He must earn it.

In the scale you're describing, he leans heavily towards making money and away from the art part. It's OK to feel scorn for this. It's also OK to respect it, but that's not me.

> Art without money is madness

This isn't what my comment was about, but I cannot refrain from answering: art can exist perfectly well without money. I'd say the vast majority of art humanity produces is not related to money at all. It is definitely not madness without money.

> Money without art dies on the vine in obscurity or pays its dues in criticism through time.

Sadly, I don't think the former is true, and I don't think the latter matters enough.

Sweet, thanks for letting me know!

Different pen strokes for different folks.

I used to binge read those meaningless colorful flip books to put myself to sleep.

Benadryl without the side effects.

Is it art? It felt like the smear of endless days I couldn’t escape and it was comforting. It didn’t challenge me, but I treasure it.

Like a child’s fairy tale that never ends and every day was just… ever after

Is "man works for money" something that should surprise anyone?

Newspaper comic artists aren't working for free. They all want money. That's why they work.

Quiet... Chilling... Quiet... I make certain noises as I retrieve the wet food container Meeoooooooooowwwww! races ahead to where the dish is

Wait, is there anyone who doesn't talk to cats? I had no idea.

It doesn’t really surprise me, but I’m not sure it changes how I feel about it.

My family were huge Garfield fans growing up and had a bunch of the books (one in German). The side characters were fun Odie, Lyman, the overly adorable kitten (Nermal), some relatives that came from a farm or something.

The “worst” thing was at some point it did seem like Davis was cranking them out for the newspaper without some of the care (though it might be I overdosed and became kind of sick of them). The other characters disappeared or became infrequent.

I don’t begrudge him though.

>Art without money is madness.

... wha?

... huh?

I've created so much art in my spare time, for the sheer love and joy of it. It's done for me, but I've shared it with friends and family and they've also greatly appreciated it, and sometimes participated in it with me with splendid results. Money has never entered the equation.

Am I missing something, or am I correct in my reading of that statement? If I'm correct, I don't mean to be judgemental, but that's a horribly disappointing view of art, whatever the medium, and I'm sorry that you feel that way.

Frankly, people not talking to their cat(s) should be registered as certified sociopath

How does Jim Davis feel about the Garfield Lovecraft stuff?

I don't think he's said, but he has written some shockingly creepy stories himself, like the Halloween special which suggests Jon died or moved out ages ago and Garfield is just hallucinating due to starvation and despair. He claimed he wrote it after a market survey indicating that loneliness is what people fear the most (this is a pattern with Davis - he always cheerfully claims he's just in it for the money whenever someone suggests he has any kind of artistic vision).

Or the one in "Garfield: his 9 lives" where a different incarnation of Garfield goes suddenly feral and kills the elderly woman owning him. Jim Davis didn't draw it, but he did script it!

He always cheerfully said this whenever someone suggests he had any kind of artistic vision.

I'd say there are things which suggest he's not entirely sincere about that.

Garfield always struck me as having exhausted all available novelty almost immediately. Simpsons at least was able to do 5-10 seasons (depending on your taste), but there is only so much one can do with 3 panels and a handful of characters eh?

I think he kept his slot more out of nostalgia and risk adversion from the papers than anything else.

> The concern is that Garfield is the product of conscious market research and not whatever we imagine a comic artist goes through when creating their comics.

Jim Davis has consistently said this, but really, take a look at strip #1. It's not funny, it's not cute. It's a cruel joke at his own expense - I don't think it's overanalyzing it to say that the cartoonist loser Jon is a stand-in for Jim. If this was a product of market research, it was the worst market research ever!

IME while clear two-way communication might be impossible [1], talking to your pet, cat or dog or any other mammal [2] does deepen the mutual bond and provides some communication framework - not saying that your cat will definitely understand what does it mean when you say "Garfield, fetch me that yellow slipper", let alone actually obey, but it will, over time, learn to recognize tone, sounds, and even context, and will also try to vocalize back, which may turn into patterns you start to recognize. So yes, it pays to talk directly to your pet.

Though that's not as strange as talking to your plants that seems to help the plants somehow.

[1] let's call it super rare because one in a trillion trillion is still not zero

[2] smarter birds too, can't say much about reptiles beyond a pond turtle really bonded with my brother

For the curious:

https://screenrant.com/garfield-his-9-lives-primal-self-horr...

Worse, it’s not even interesting porn, just banal straight Asian stuff

Ah, I See You're a Man of Culture As Well

Not only that, but the meows get more frantic as I'm walking towards the spot where the dish goes. She needs to be absolutely certain that there's no chance I'll change my mind two steps before getting there!

Doesn’t that impugn a whole lot of classics?

Dudes sitting in a smoky room: “Yeah, so the pig’s a big fat pig with mobility issues and get this, he stutters hahahaha gonna sell like moonshine, go tell the artists.”

Did you have to mention that? Now my trousers are messed up.

There are a million cat & dog owners out there using Talking Buttons, borrowed from nonverbal human assistive communications. Mostly to make funny Tiktok videos, to be fair. It's rarely clear what is random, what is Clever Hans training, and what is direct operant conditioning.

Would you go and dig rocks out of a mountain and refine them into pure ore just because?

We are social animals. Art is storytelling. It has many utilities, but it is primarily education and entertainment.

A modern version of the cave painting is to distill complex and uncomfortable truths about the world for those who wish to thrive in a society built on lies.

If you want to go dig shiny rocks from the mountain at great personal risk to your mental and physical health for no benefit to society you are probably sick. If it heals you, that's its utility.

But if you find you're good at it and you want to use this skill for its intended purpose, you aught to be getting paid for it.

*Your mileage may vary. Just my take.

As someone who is into producing visual and musical art for no monetary benefit, and happens to do a lot of backpacking and is very into the geology of the areas I backpack in, yes. I would absolutely find great value in something akin to trekking into remote, hard to reach areas just to see some rocks shaped by ancient glaciers.

If that all makes me "sick", then fuck yeah, proud to be mentally ill. It's truly sad that doing something for pleasure, education, love, fascination and reverence (like being fascinated about how our planet shaped itself, or learning to play the guitar because you love music and think it's fun) is viewed as "mad" or "sick" if there isn't some kind of monetary return. YMMV indeed, but money is not everything.

What's sick, in my eyes, is only being able to view things through the lens of monetary value.

Welp wish I had read that before clicking on it.

Money is just a proxy for the value your skill brings to society.

I appreciate your perspective, but I hope you appreciate that mine is just aligned with a more social view of the world.

Social impacts don't need to be tied to money.

Getting together with your friends and playing/creating music together, with/for yourselves, and for no financial gain is of tremendous value, for instance.

> Doesn’t that impugn a whole lot of classics?

I'm sure it impugns many of the classics (and later), not only Garfield! In my mind, it does impugn He-Man, G.I. Joe, etc. YMMV, of course.

> Dudes sitting in a smoky room: “Yeah, so the pig’s a big fat pig with mobility issues and get this, he stutters hahahaha gonna sell like moonshine, go tell the artists.”

There was a lot of artistry in the Looney Toons, the artists were both doing it for the money (of course) but also out of love for cartoons and they had ideas about them. It wasn't pure cold hearted market research. They didn't go "what would sell more stuffed toys, a pig or a rabbit?".

There must have been some of this too, of course, but have you read memories or articles about Tex Avery and other people involved? They truly cared about their craft. They had ideas about what they wanted to achieve, and it wasn't just "make money".

It's possible Davis overstated his claim for effect. There are definitely elements of Jon as an author stand-in.

As an aside, over here (Argentina) we have an extremely marketing-oriented and bad comics author, Nik, who "invented" a cartoon cat vaguely similar to Garfield called "Gaturro", which started as a copy of Garfield with a slightly more political bent. It's as bad and bland as Garfield, without any trace of originality.

As Fight Club would have it, "a copy of a copy of a copy...".

I'm sure some of my vitriol against Garfield is influenced by my dislike of Nik and his Gaturro.

I'm similarly appalled by weard_beard's replies as you are.

I find lots of joy in life without money entering directly into the equation (other than "without money I wouldn't be able to live").

When I start doing something I enjoy -- a hobby, an activity, a craft -- the first thought into my mind is definitely NOT "how can I monetize this?".

> Money is just a proxy for the value your skill brings to society.

It can be, but it's not the only one.

> mine is just aligned with a more social view of the world

I wouldn't say this, no. It's just a money-oriented worldview, not a more social one.

yes to all of this. i actually think my cat thinks i am dumb, because she often mimes out the thing that she wants me to do in increasingly unsubtle ways as she gets more and more frustrated as i don't get it-- like she is playing charades and i'm the useless teammate that isn't getting it (which i find absolutely hilarious every time, even if it is often something that is objectively annoying were i to forget that she is a cat and not a human). she also has an astonishing "vocabulary" of very different meow... tambres?... that it is very hard for me to think don't have _some_ purpose-- if they didn't, why wouldn't she just make the same or similar noises every time?

What you're saying about art is true of all labor and I think its villainous to single out the arts as being more or less deserving compensation.

Wow, "villanous"! Hyperbolic much?

In any case, I didn't say anything about art in my comment immediately above. I was disagreeing with your worldview.

I also didn't say anything about arts being less deserving of compensation.

Could you try addressing what other people actually say?

Good points, and to be honest I love the older, meaner cartoons. But cute Mickey and cute p-p-p-Porky differed from their originals for the same reason as the “Garfield is a lasagna” joke stopped making visual sense.