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No. 784: Centrefold, Updated

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Centrefold, Updated

First | Previous | 2011-07-12 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=784

Strip by: MadDogBV, AK47

Jon: {at computer} Don't tell Garfield... My monthly Playboy e-mail's arrived.
Jon: I wonder who the centerfold is: Elke? Farrah?
Jon: What? *sigh* Almira the Amazon?

The author writes:

AK47 wrote in the forums:

JLH's version is how the original comic should have been done. When I saw the source comic, with the title character completely absent, and Jon being a vehicle for some kind of joke about tall women being unattractive (what???), or possibly an observation about the size of centrefolds, I just couldn't believe it was a real, published Garfield strip at all.

I guess you have to put it down to being one of the older comics, when Jim Davis was still finding his groove for the strip. Imagine the letters to the editor if tomorrow's Garfield strip had no Garfield, but instead just Jon entering "hot ladies" into Google and disappointedly finding Almira the Amazon. It'd be Remembrance Day all over again!

I wonder, does Mr Davis look back on that one and think "What was I thinking?" or what?

MadDogBV wrote:

The original strip always confounded me too. I could only assume it was for the reason that you indicated. Bear in mind that this was back in the 70s, of course.

That gives me an idea...

The twist I made was a purely fundamental one. A lot more can be added onto it, but very few strips exist (I'd venture as far as to say "none") where Jon is viewed from the back looking at a computer monitor. It left me with very few options but to go for simple bad taste, as the original poster indicated - Jon looking at Playboy online and being disappointed with the featured item being an Amazon.

He's right; if this type of strip were published nowadays, the press would have a field day. And yet we can't deny that this is exactly the sort of thing that pre-2007 Jon would do. :P

[[Original strips (snicker): 1978-10-28, 1996-10-12.]]

Original strips: 1978-10-28, 1996-10-12.