78: Garfield
| Garfield |
 Title text: The use of the 'Garfield' character for the purposes of this parody qualifies as fair use under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. sec. 107. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (92-1292), 510 U.S. 569 |
Explanation
Garfield has been known for repetitive, poorly written strips. Intended for a wide audience, these strips are now ghost written and do not do anything unconventional. The author is challenging Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, to do something unexpected and surprise us all. And also accuses Jim Davis of being a "sell out", sticking to bourgeois/commercial logic, something that dadaist artists challenged.
Dadaism was an artistic movement in the early 20th century marked primarily by chaos, irrationality and surrealism. Some of the artists believed that the bourgeois logic, made human being unhappy and therefore led to war.
Randall leads by example by featuring a strip with multiple colors (xkcd usually contains only black and white, with some few containing an additional color like red or yellow) and a character that is not a stick figure, which breaks the "whole xkcd logic". Another dadaistic aspect is the fact the while Garfield is smiling, he is "saying" something that could be considered terrifying.
Transcript
- {I want to see something unexpected in comics. Just one strip could make up for it all.}
- [Garfield is standing on hind legs facing and looking directly at the camera. But is offcenter in the frame, about 1/3 from the left, rotated very slightly clockwise.]
- [Zoom in on Garfield, still to the left, now rotated slightly counterclockwise.]
- [Zoom in again on Garfield, now the frame clips off the left side of his face.]
- Garfield thought bubble: The world is burning.
- [Final zoom in, the frame is ripped like a page, offset, and Garfield's eyes are half closed on the right half.]
- Garfield thought bubble: Run.
- {Jim Davis, throw off your commercial shackles. Challenge us. Go out in a blaze of Dadaist glory. There is still time.
