Is Garfield dead?

Mr. Presentable

http://garfieldisdead.ytmnd.com/

Looks like he might be

Skinfull

I stopped reading garfield when I discovered Calvin & Hobbes!

Also the comics seem to be a dream sequence.

the Shades

Yup definitely a dream sequence! And that line is simply referring to how powerful imagination is (in that Garfield would perceive his dream as reality before eventually awakening)

I think that video reads a little too much into the strips.

Kold

Wasn't it like, the New York Times that dropped Garfield because someone realised that it just wasn't funny.. I remember reading about it and only then realising how unfunny Garfield was.

Fysh

I remember seeing this discussed online somewhere, possibly scans_daily. It's certainly one interpretation of the sequence, although being honest about it Garfield was never a strip that could adequately handle those kinds of ideas.

When you compare it to Peanuts or Calvin & Hobbes, it just lacks the depth of character required to really make you care about the character. (Compare it to the early sequence of strips in Calvin & Hobbes in which Calvin finds a dying sparrow, I think, and takes it home to his mum so she can fix it, and then ends up hiding under the covers with Hobbes as they discuss the nature of death. That was handled in a way that was moving while also having some great lines and being genuinely funny).

There again, when you consider that Jim Davis has openly admitted that he created Garfield to be profitable rather than funny, I suppose it's surprising that the strips even made it past the concept stages.

D

http://blogs.sun.com/rama/resource/calvin-ritalin.jpg

This is a fake sketch but it really got to me.

Fysh

Aw, that's horrible!

(One of those things I was always really happy about in Calvin & Hobbes was that the issue of Hobbes' reality was never definitively stated to be one way or another).

the Shades

If you really want to see depressing comics check out the last Peanuts strip featuring Peppermint Patty, I think it ran the Sunday before the strip officially finished but it features Patty standing in the pouring rain after a ball game saying to the others that it was fun while it lasted and slowly realising that all the others have gone home and no one is answering her because she's all alone.

Ar3d

no! its not true.. gardfield it can't be dead...

Blk150

ha:D

Thundercracker

its obviously some kind of dream, or maybe jim davis decided that he'd just come up with something as a sort of doomsday scenario should the worst befall garfield and he wants to end it abruptly or something, but at the moment i think his death would be unwise

DAVID GUIVANT

Thanks to Garfield, I am now a big fans of cats. I also like Heathcliff, wish they would do something with that character, he was naughtier and funnier then Garfield.

in_da_club

there are still garfield comics in the paper!

Fysh

Garfield is still running as a franchise, effectively, but it's not a particularly original (or even, depending on your criteria, a particularly good) comic. Compare it to the likes of Two Lumps and it doesn't do well, or at least I don't think so.

As for best cat-based cartoon/comic ever? I'd have to nominate Samurai Pizza Cats