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No. 5838: Indispensable First Panel

First | Previous | 2025-05-13 | Latest

Indispensable First Panel

First | Previous | 2025-05-13 | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=5838

Strip by: wye

{In Autumn, Garfield and Odie are standing next to a tree that has lost all its leaves, except for a single leaf which is tied to a branch with rope}
Garfield: Nice try, Odie, but all good things must come to an end
{Five panels of Garfield standing in a field doing nothing}

The author writes:

Sunday strips always start with a throwaway panel that adds nothing to the story, so that (I assume) newspapers can cut the entire first row without readers missing out on the plot.

I've been carrying around the idea - either out of kindness to the art of comics, or to purposefully alienate imagined readers of a truncated strip - of making the first panel more relevant. This recent Sunday strip I found was the perfect opportunity to even make only the first panel relevant.

Original strip: 2024-11-10.