Jul 08
31
Garfield Creator Embraces Parody of Garfield Minus Garfield
I can’t believe that I am going to say this, but here goes: Comic book artist Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, really gets it.
For the record, I am not talking about his comics. I have always found the Garfield strip obvious, insipid, and frankly boring. But the comic book artist knows something good when he sees it and in this case it was the hilarious parody Garfield Minus Garfield. I only discovered G – G a couple of months ago, but have been a big fan ever since. It is exactly what it says it is, Jim Davis’ Garfield comic with all of the visuals and dialogue of Garfield (and other characters, except the owner Jon) photoshopped out. The result is a more human and darkly insightful comic of an exceptionally lonely man – and it gives me belly laughs.
So if this were the usual story, this is the part where the big, bad lawyers come in and try to take Dan Walsh’s house because of this clever parody (which is obviously in violation of the original author’s copyright). The heartening twist here is the original author appreciates the parody:
Garfield creator Jim Davis was intrigued by—and pleased with—the concept. “I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield. Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”
In fact Davis’ appreciates the parody so much that Ballantine is now publishing a book based on the Garfield Minus Garfield concept comparing the originals and the versions doctored by Walsh.
I don’t know what the revenue or advance split on this book will be and I hope it wil be fair to both artists in this endeavour. I am just really glad that for a change something innovative, yet derivative, is going to be shared with the world rather than crushed under the voracious caterpillar treads of the Intellectual Property Lawyers.