Garfield is basically the cat version of Superman. They’re both so ingrained in pop culture that even if you’ve never read their comics in your life, you’ll still recognize who they are. That being said, thousands of people (maybe even millions) still consistently read newly published weekly or monthly Superman comics, but what about Garfield?

If no one reads his comics anymore, what is it about Garfield that he remains the quintessential orange cat?

Origin Of Garfield

Here’s a quick briefing of where Garfield started; it all began with newspaper comic strips written and drawn by Jim Davis starting in 1976. Now, it still holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip.

However, that doesn’t answer the question of why he’s still popular, because no one under the age of 30 or 40 is reading newspapers anymore. Heck, even my 50-year-old parents aren’t reading newspapers anymore.

But Garfield is still popular.

Why? Because of the Internet. That might sound like an obvious answer, but the actual reason why Garfield is still popular is not because people still read his comics online, but due to all the hilarious Garfield memes.

Garfield On The Internet

For instance, there’s a whole website, Garfield Minus Garfield, which is dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips. This makes some of the comics even funnier in a dark comedy sort of way, as it makes Jon look more like a mentally-disturbed individual.

There are already a whopping 478 pages of this Garfield Minus Garfield comic, and you can start reading it from the very first one (by heading over here) if you want to dive into the depths of a lonely Jon Arbuckle who is imagining the existence of an orange cat named Garfield.

Simply removing Garfield from the comics makes the already-cynical and sarcastic tone of the Garfield comics even more SARDONIC. It adds even more perspective to the existing Garfield comics and makes them even funnier.

Check out a few examples below, or click the link above to read all of them:

For lasagna’s sake, there’s even Garfield Pokémon called Garfemon.

Yes, an unholy fusion of every Pokémon up to Gen 3 fused with Garfield to become eldritch monsters.

Feast your eyes on some examples, such as a Torchic, Lugia, Togepi, Charmander, Charizard, Butterfree, Pikachu, etc. (for the full list, head on over here):

And then there are the Lasagna Cat parody videos, which were a web series created by Fatal Farm as a parody of the Garfield comic strips. A bunch of them were uploaded to YouTube from 2008 to 2017. They’re basically live-action comedy skits of Garfield and there are around 40 of them.

Some of them are just funny skits but a few of the later ones are clearly for adults with a darker and more ‘horror’-like tone, especially the final video.

Check out some of them below (head on over here for the Lasagna Cat YouTube channel):

If you want to get even darker and into more ‘horror’ territory, look upon the works of artist Will Burke:

Or the Lovecraftian versions of Garfield by artist Omega Black:

These horror versions of Garfield even inspired mock survival horror games and animations, including:

Garfield Gameboy’d COMPLETE

Gorefield The Game (Free To Play on itch.io)

If you really want to dig deep into the dark depths of the Garfield rabbit hole, head on over to the depraved subreddit r/imsorryjon, or check out this brilliant one-hour-long video.

The Garfield Movie

That’s enough of ‘horror’ or weird Garfield on the Internet and let’s get back to happy kid-friendly Garfield!

Directed by Mark Dindal, Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt), the world-famous, Monday-hating, lasagna-loving indoor cat, is about to have a wild outdoor adventure! After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father – scruffy street cat Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) – Garfield and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered life into joining Vic in a hilarious, high-stakes heist.

Previously, Bill Murray infamously voiced Garfield in two live-action Garfield movies (which the actor has since admitted were miserable experiences for him, most famously during his cameo in 2009’s Zombieland).

The Garfield Movie is now showing in Malaysian cinemas. In the meantime, check out my full review of The Garfield Movie here.