Garfield Minus Garfield is a strange, surprisingly poignant website dedicated to posting versions of the Garfield comic strip that have been edited to remove everything except for the images and text of Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle.
As the site’s manifesto explains,
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.
As this collection of lonely expressions and single-sided conversations reveals, Garfield seems to be mining a thick vein of isolation. It’s not all about loving lasagna, hating Mondays and kicking dogs off tables. Of course, those who remember the “Garfield alone” series from 1989 know that the strip has visited dark places in the past.