My Favorite Garfield Comic Strips

Just when I thought there were no anniversaries to celebrate this year, I remembered a big fast orange lazy one!

I love Garfield, but one area I haven’t really discussed is the comics. Of course that’s where he started back in June of 1978, and where I first got exposed to him. Yeah the TV specials are all fine and good but its the comics where we get the real Garfield. And yes I know not all love him. Some don’t think he’s funny, some think Garfield is way to commercialized, and we’re supposed to hate the strips now because creator Jim Davis no longer personally draws them. But, whatever. These strips have been giving me joy for as long as I can remember. Ok maybe they’re not as clever as they used to be but there’s still forty years of great material out there. And as I explained in another article, I NEVER had Peanuts in my house growing up and by the time I was finally exposed to it I just didn’t appreciate it. For me, it’s all about Garfield.

Here is the first strip ever from 1978 :

Here are my favorites that made me laugh. These aren’t starting all the way back when Garfield started because I was only three when the strip first appeared. And the first few years weren’t great, it took them awhile to get the look and personality down. I’ll discuss that more another time. And these seem small on the page but if you click on the image you can see the strip in full detail.








Let’s go all the way back to 1984 with a classic. This is a great strip because rather than just be what the strip often does, setup a joke and then punchline, there’s a little plot here. And we see Odie may not be as dumb we all thought!!

As cliche as it is, the amnesia plot device is a favorite of mine. And when Garfield does it, I love it. Not sure if they still do it but for a long time the Garfield strip would do entire story arc’s which would last a couple weeks to even months! This one is simple with Pooky even shedding a tear in that last panel.






Garfield hates Monday’s, because bad things always happen to him. I love this for a very obvious reason. And that reason is the great cameo in the mirror.

And who can't relate to this feeling???

And for you Peanuts lovers out there, here is the beautifully simple dedication to Charles Schultz after he passed away:





This one is quintessential Garfield. There’s just no other way to describe it.

Garfield & Friends would take a lot of the old strips and animate them, they were the “Garfield Quickies” between episodes, and this was one of them. And I recognized almost of them by the way. Did I mention I’ve owned a ton of the collected books and read them a million times? It was great to hear Lorenzo Music’s voice over the dialogue I had read a hundred times. This one is many just like it.

Nermal is the world’s cutest kitty cat, and while most of the time Garfield is abusing the poor kitten it doesn’t happen here. I love Garfield’s line in that last panel!





Some of the running gags do get old. Garfield watching TV I usually skip, there’s the endless gag about the dog trying to eat him. Other’s like the lousy diner do get repetitive I can’t lie. The mouse gag is another which does get kind of old, but it’s not the worst running gag. I like this one because Garfield looks like a real cat in one panel, and he doesn’t get the punchline for once. Which is rare.








This one made me laugh. A lot. I ‘m not sure why I found it so funny, but I really did. It’s basically Garfield waking Jon up..to the extreme!



 Garfield hates Monday’s! What would it take for him to like a Monday? Only one thing…..









This is another one where the punch line makes me laugh. It’s just Jon being a dork, a common theme, but Garfield’s response is what makes it funny.







Here’s another simple one that made me laugh. Something about that word cupcakes…I don’t know  why but I found it funny







Telling Garfield to relax is pretty redundant. Which is probably what Jon realizes, and Garfield’s response is the kind of sarcastic response I would come up with.







What would happen if you took Garfield to a food court? He’d be in heaven! Very often in the strips Garfield is sad or unhappy, and I love it when he is smiling and cute. That is why I love this one. You gotta also love those big, excited eyes he has.







The basic idea for Garfield was that he was a person in a cat suit. So he hated things people hated, did things people did, etc etc. In this one we see Garfield sounding very much like a person would who has a bit to much going on in his life. Of course when it’s a cat…..







This is a great one for a couple reason. I like how Garfield keeps up with the times. He went from watching a normal TV to a flat screen, and many strips have gags about email and social networking.  And I can’t lie, when I first got a cell phone I sorta felt the way Jon does in this one!







There are tons of Christmas one’s, they do a month of them every year, and to include those would have made this article go on forever. I picked this one because, well, who doesn’t want to do this at the end of the holidays??


This made me laugh. What else can I say?










 Finally, just wanted to end with a more recent one.

 

 
Course there are tons more, a strip a day for forty years produces lots of content. You may have noticed I didn’t restrict this to a number, because there was no way I could limit it to ten. It’s a miracle it’s under 20. But those are the one’s I like. True none had Liz in them, and I never had a problem with her dating Jon it opened the door up for new ideas. Yes I’ve read Garfield Minus Garfield, it’s fascinating. Garfield officially turns 40 in June and I’ll be back then for a more complete tribute.