WMG / Garfield

The Comic Strip dated October 28, 1989

Every Garfield strip since Oct 28, 1989 has been the hallucination of a lonely cat starving to death in an empty house.

These are the last Garfield strips that happened. See them in color at the bottom of this page, or in the official website's archive.

• Jossed by Word of God, as seen here.
  • He laughs it off, but he doesn't actually offer a better explanation. Of course it's a scary story fitting for Halloween, but why would that make it invalid? I posit that not only every comic since, but also every comic before the 23rd are part of the delusion. And Davis doesn't know.
    • Considering Davis created and owns the IP to Garfield, he would know better than anyone else.

Jim Davis wanted to end the strip on Oct 28, 1989, but was forced to continue due to Executive Meddling.

For a while, he tried to make the best of it, but he eventually started to just phone it in. He's been writing for an independent comic company under an assumed name for years now.

Garfield didn't die in the Oct 28, 1989 strip; he everted

Garfield has the same everting powers as Zee Tee but is so lazy that he didn't even know he had them. One day, he took a nap in an eversion point and accidentally everted while he was asleep. After he woke up, he found his house in its everted state, freaked out, and then accidentally reverted the house back to normal.

• Maybe it's a good thing he didn't try to get out of the ruined house. Who knows what he would've found wandering around out there...

The Garfield comic strip takes place in the town of Silent Hill.

That is, following the theory that there are three "levels" of existence to Silent Hill: a normal, functioning abode that used to be a mining town, the foggy "otherworld", and the dessicated dark world.

The town has been re-populated, but coal fires continue to burn underground. Jon's supposed Flanderization as the strip progresses is a result of the subtle smoke from the underground slowly damaging his mind, which would also explain Irma's "slow in the head" demeanor. (It's possible that Liz's sharpness results from her living and working on the edge of town, away from the most concentrated coal fires underground) The town, for the most part, lived in peace, unaware of the unspeakable things lurking within the lower two "planes" of its existence.

But in one week in 1989, something happened: the town called for Garfield the cat, and like James before him, poor Garfield had no choice but to answer.

In the infamous Halloween week series of strips, Garfield awoke within the second "plane" of Silent Hill: the seemingly-abandoned, broken-down town.

Silent Hill, mind, does not tend to pull in its chew toys without a good reason: one of the key reasons a protagonist will find themselves drawn to Silent Hill is a sort of guilt within them, an internal conflict as brutal as the creatures they encounter within the town. With that in mind, let's look at Garfield.

He's a lazy Jerkass who takes Kick the Dog to a literal extent, who spends his time deriding and lashing out against Jon, the only person in the world who even gives him the time of day. These attitudes have been pushing him away from everyone else in his life, creating an unparalleled sense of isolation; the Town finally makes him confront this fact with a terrifyingly real depiction of where this road will take him. Garfield is forced to come to grips with the simple fact, which he states in anguish: "I don't want to be alone!"

And suddenly, everything is back to normal; Jon and Odie are there, and the dessicated landscape is replaced by normality. He had learned what the Town tried to teach him, rather quickly; thus, he was allowed to return from it. It's quite a good thing he did not leave the house, as well; Silent Hill aficionados know well that an empty room is far, far preferrable to the things lurking elsewhere.

But it didn't take him long to resume his Jerkass ways. Thus, the Town may soon call on him once more, to teach a more permanent lesson...

• For clarity, this would mean it was the movie version of Silent Hill, as in the games the "normal" version is an ordinary resort town, with no coal fires to speak of.

The October 23, 1989-October 28, 1989 strips were a nightmare Garfield had after watching Allegro non Troppo

Allegro Non Troppo contains a sequence about a cat remembering happy times in an abandoned house. Garfield watched that film shortly before going to bed and had a nightmare. The end of the last strip shows him waking up.

• Real Life injection: The October 28, '89 strips started to gain wide Internet attention around the same time period parodies like Garfield Minus Garfield started to become big. Shortly after that, so did Allegro Non Troppo when people started accusing Jim Davis of having ripped it off for these strips. If you're willing to believe Davis, the "rip-off" theory itself is Jossed.

The Halloween 1989 strips were an elaborate practical joke by Jon

Jon decorated the house to look as if it had been abandoned, then took Odie and left for the week. The purpose of this prank was to teach Garfield not to take life for granted. It didn't work.

The Halloween 1989 strips were nothing out of the ordinary

They were just a disturbing look into what Garfield thinks when Jon leaves. Jon only went to the store and was only gone for a few minutes. Sure, early on he loved it when Jon left, but after so many years of doing the same things, you get tired of the house...

Garfield was briefly shunted into an alternate universe during the Halloween 1989 strips

Garfield was not imagining anything, nor is he simultaneously hallucinating and starving to death. He just happened to fall asleep at a point in space and time which was connected to a universe where his home truly was abandoned. Not long after, though, he was sent back to his home reality when the powers that be realized that he was in the wrong universe.

Jon was evicted because they found Lyman's corpse

Lyman was murdered by Jon but the authorities were sent searching by his family, they had Jon sent to prison, Odie was put down but Garfield was asleep the whole time.

The Halloween 1989 strips were Garfield's diet-induced nightmare.

We've seen time and time again the nightmarish thoughts Garfield has when he's on a diet. It makes perfect sense that he has a nightmare about impending starvation when he can't have the foods he wants. Jon's absence could also be born from how Garfield worries Jon no longer cares about him if he's imposing a diet onto him.

Character theories

We don't get to see Odie's thoughts for a good reason...

Jim Davis is probably doing us a favor by not showing us what goes on in Odie's mind. Just imagine...

Odie: Oh, boy, oh, boy, it's a brand new day with brand-new adventures and brand-new discoveries to be had and new friends to meet and I can't wait to go outside and enjoy this lovely, beautiful, sunny, sunny morning with no clouds in the sky and it's a beautiful lovely morning and I can't wait to start this brand-new day with new things to do and places to go! Ooh, there's a lump in a box with a blue blanket covering it up! I bet something is under this blue-colored blanket that is blue! I want to see what it is! It's an orange kitty! Ooh, it's Garfield! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! I love you, Garfield! Can I lick your face? I am licking your face now because you are my friend and I love you! I love you I love youIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou! Owie! Garfield hit me in the nosey! My nosey hurts and it is painful! Owie! Oh, well, it was probably an accident, so it is okay now! I will go get my dingleball now because I want to play! I want Garfield to throw the dingleball so I can fetch it because I love fetch and it is my favoritest favorite game ever and I love it! I have my dingleball now! Come on Garfield! Let's play! Hey, Garfield! Let's play! Let's play fetch! Come on! Throw the ball so I can fetch it! Let's play! Come on! Let's go play! Let's play fetch! Come on, let's go play! Let's play! (etc...)

If Odie had thoughts, hyperactive Odie would never shut up.

Realfield is Weegee.

Or, at least, the comics incarnation of him.

Jon actually draws the strip, and "Jim Davis" is just a pseudonym; or "Jon Arbuckle" really is Jim Davis.

• Think about it. We all know from day one that Jon is a cartoonist, but we never see what strip he draws, so who's to say it's not Garfield itself? Plus, they were both born July 28, and "Jon" and "Jim" booth start with "J" and go Consonant-Vowel-Consonant.
  • The last strip will have Jon and Garfield going on their usual antics, but in the last panel, it zooms out to Jim Davis working on the computer on the comic (since the strip is computer-generated now) with a realistic Garfield next to him and realistic versions of all the human characters (even Lyman) watching him.
  • Garfield is a completely normal cat in real life, but Jon loves his cat and is inspired by his IRL Garfield's affinity for human food, occasional spats with Odie, etc.

Jon Arbuckle is a psychopath

• He killed his best friend Lyman because he wanted his dog.

Garfield is an ordinary cat with an ordinary cat's mind, and Jon is a clinically depressed and possibly suicidal man who talks to his pets.

Any clever quips in the little thought bubbles emanating from Garfield's head are hallucinated by his owner, Jon, along with the bubbles themselves. For more information about this hypothesis, look here.

• What's so unusual or strange about talking to a cat?
• Jon's not suicidal. Low self-esteem, sometimes; but he's energetic and enthusiastic too often to be depressed, much less suicidal. On the other hand, some kind of mild psychosis...
  • Reality is unrealistic. Many a suicidal person can appear normal enough in public — even moreso for depression, especially if meds are a factor. We do frequently see Jon being enthusiastic and upbeat in private, though. Perhaps bipolar disorder? He does seem to have manic episodes, come to think of it... Or else he includes Garfield (whom he thinks is sapient and cartoon) among the "people" he needs to maintain his act for.
    • The manic states lend credence to the bipolar theory, but don't necessarily joss the depression. Reality Is Unrealistic indeed, as depressed people can still have upbeat times even in private, and in some cases these aren't infrequent.
• A couple websites have tried imagining what the comic would actually look like if we saw this from an objective view. Realfield presents edited comic strips that have replaced the wise-cracking, bipedal cartoon cat with a much more realistic one that reacts just like a real cat (that is to say, hardly at all) while leaving Jon's behavior untouched. Meanwhile, Garfield Minus Garfield takes it a step further by removing the cat altogether, which leaves us with Jon literally talking to himself "as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb."
• This also explains why his dates tend to run away from him in terror.
• Also of note is Arbuckle, a project started by Tailsteak, but thrown to the viewing public. (Who haven't been doing much lately...)
• Are Liz and the Mailman hallucinating, too? Maybe they're both in Jon's head, too... but that still wouldn't account for the stuff that happens when Jon isn't around to hallucinate it. Maybe it's all Jon's dream - or all someone's dream.

Garfield is the story of Jon slowly descending into madness, while his housecat watches

At the beginning of the series, Jon was a relatively normal fellow with a fondness for football, a roommate, and normal-if-unlucky skills at romance. Over the years, he's slowly transformed into a man-child who talks to himself frequently, finds excitement in mundane activities, and frightens any woman he talks to so much that many have restraining orders against him and run in terror.

What we've been taking as normal flanderization has been deliberate. Jon is suffering from schizophrenia, and the series is showing the account via an unreliable cat narrator. We don't see him working because he's on disability, or his parents have been funneling him money to support him. His assorted freakouts and "comedic" moments are how Garfield sees him react to his delusions and hallucinations.

Right now in the series, he seems to be having a moment of normalcy, perhaps because he's gone on medication and Garfield hasn't noticed. He seems to have gotten his life together slightly; he's begun dressing normally again (this most recent weekend had Jon wearing a somewhat ratty brown suit, purple shirt and matching checkered tie — it may sound a little unusual, but it's more basic and less eye-burning than his former standard outfit, a yellow plaid jacket, neon green tie, and massive daisy in lapel) and dating Liz.

However, this could just be a Hope Spot. Jon's schizophrenia may yet lead to him having a massive freakout that scares even Liz away.

• Of course Jon's insanity may be a result of Garfield's deliberate attempts to drive Jon insane Gone Horribly Right.

Garfield is telepathic.

Garfield is unable to vocalise any of his snarkiness, yet Jon frequently reacts as though he can, in fact, hear him. Garfield also directly adresses the audience, something no other character does, or at least has done in some time.

• This has been Jossed by Garfield's Judgement Day, where it is revealed that Garfield - and by extension, all cats - can talk, and the fact that nobody (not even Jon) could communicate with them before is a plot point.

Garfield can transmit thoughts at will

That's why Jon can sometimes understand what he's "thinking" and sometimes he can't! Of course sometimes Jon just ignores him.

• He is too lazy to use it much.

Garfield's beard was part of a plot to build a franken-facial hair using Tycho Brahe's grave robbed moustache.

Ambrose Burnside was part of the same project. Fortunately, no suitable eyebrows were around during the decades that the project was— What? The cat? Great, this is Cats all over again!

Garfield's father is Heathcliff

• They look similar, and Garfield's mother is named Sonja.

Garfield, because of his selfishness and the multiple acts of pettiness against Odie and Jon, was transported by the Dark Powers in the Demi-Plane of Ravenloft

Now he is the Darklord and prisoner of a tiny domain where he must be alone as a punishment for treating others the way he did.

Garfield is a shinigami

His lasagna addiction is much like that with Ryuk's apples. Jon carries the Death Note, but doesn't normally use it.

• He once used it on Lyman.
• Scarily enough, Garfield actually has a "Depth Note" in Garfield Gets Real (probably a 3D gag, as Gets Real was Garfield's first All-CGI Cartoon). So this is highly plausible.
• Near gave a speech at the end of Death Note about how a normal person might have tried the Death Note once, as a gag, and then would've been horrified, guilt-stricken and locked it up as soon he realized that it actually works. Clearly Jon is that normal person. He tested it on Lyman after they had an argument over the chores, found out it's real when Lyman died, and has kept it hidden ever since (and is taking care of Odie out of guilt). Garfield's hanging around for the lasagna and because Jon hasn't relinquished the Death Note to anyone else, and Jon seems to a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander because living with the temptation of being able to kill anyone without getting caught would take its toll on anyone (especially when you're the world's Butt-Monkey).
• This also explains why Garfield often seems to be Jon's hallucination: only the people who have touched the Death Note can see Garfield, so most of the time, Jon seems to be talking to himself. Liz, the mailman and a few other humans have, for one reason or another, ended up touching the Death Note by mistake, and Jon takes Garfield to Liz for checkups not only to hit on her, but also to keep her convinced that Garfield's an ordinary cat.

Garfield is a Bakeneko/Nekomata (or at least in the process of becoming one)

.He meets at least two of the three conditions to become one:

• Living over ten years of age - definitely
• Reaching one kan (3.75 kg or 8.25 lbs) in weight - also definitely
• Growing its tail too long - could be

And he shows several abilities that Bakeneko/Nekomata are known to have:

• Walking on its hind legs: he has done so for years now.
• Menacing sleeping humans: Jon frequently suffers from things Garfield does to him. Several older comics focus on Garfield roughly waking Jon up.
• Talking: in a way, because Jon does apparently understands Garfield's snarkiness according to his facial expressions.
• Changing into a more menacing form, as seen in an early 1978 Halloween comic...
• Will throwing fireballs/snowballs come next?!

Garfield has left the empty house, moved to Japan, had his mind transferred to a cat robot, and changed his name to Doraemon.

• Wow. Must have had a REAL change of heart to discourage being lazy to his new owner.

The current Garfield, Odie, Arlene and such in the comic are Generation Xerox.

Cats and dogs don't normally live as long as Garfield and his crew have. Ignoring the rule of Comic-Book Time for the sake of this theory, at some point, the original cast passed on. Jon, whose sanity is often questionable already, didn't take this well. However, Garfield had gotten together with Arlene at some point (and Odie with some random poodle or other Temporary Love Interest), with the usual results. Jon adopted one of the kittens that looked the most like his father, named him Garfield, and did the same for Odie. He continues to celebrate the wrong birthday and age as part of his ongoing denial over losing the originals.

This is also why the strip stopped following the Arlene/Garfield romance, and why Arlene dropped out of the strip for so long. These aren't the original Garfield and Arlene; in fact, this Arlene could actually be this Garfield's younger sister.

Garfield's trimmer looks over the years are a result of a cartoonish trick

He hasn't actually lost any weight, he simply shifted it all to his feet. LOOK AT THEM. They're HUGE nowadays.

Garfield's hatred of Mondays stems from lasagna withdrawal.

In one episode of Garfield and Friends, Garfield finds a wishing well and wishes Monday out of existence. It's a standard Be Careful What You Wish For plot, but contains a particularly odd reveal. Jon no longer cooks lasagna for Garfield, because Monday night was lasagna night. This doesn't make a lot of sense, considering how much Garfield hates the day and loves the food, unless you think about it the right way. On Monday morning, Garfield has gone seven mornings without lasagna, and this problem won't be rectified until the end of the day. Cue grumpiness and impatience.

Garfield's understandable hatred of Mondays started with his love, then unwarranted hate, of them.

In 1979, Garfield loved Mondays, because while many humans are returning to work from the traditional replacement day of rest, Garfield, being a cat, doesn't have to. The smugness he felt was just aching to be deflated, but then he started hating it for "marking the beginning of a long week of drudgery with no end in sight", and yet... still no job. No sudden transition from rest to work. What drudgery could he be hating it for? And so, the universe decided to give him something to hate the day for: Anything from unwanted visits from Nermal to random pies in the face to having large objects fall improbably on him in open fields.

When he goes on a diet, Garfield is put on drugs by Jon.

This may explain why everything appears screwed-up in some of the diet-themed comics.

Part of Binky the Clown's contract is that he must be off his meds during sweeps week

Binky is Pennywise.

• This explains his odd behaviors and creepiness, not to mention the evil grin he had at the beginning of the Garfield Halloween Special.
  • Or he could be one of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Nermal was given to Jon recently.

Why else does his recent vists seem to imply that he's part of the household?

Mai Tai isn't the cat that Garfield befriended in Garfield in Paradise.

Have you noticed the glee of the fat cat and the lady right next to her when the chief called for Owooda and Mai Tai than their collective shock when Owooda walked in with the pink cat who looks like Arlene? That's because the fat cat was infact Mai Tai(the pink cat never stated that she was infact Mai Tai and never was addressed as Mai Tai by Owooda either) and that the fat lady was her kittysitter assigned to her(the fat lady is clearly not Owooda judging from the words of the chief so this is the only logical possibility). The cat who looks like Arlene? That's Arlene following Garfield to Paradise Island(which part of the plane she was on is unknown) and judging from Mai Tai and her Kittysitter's reaction to her appearance hitch-hiked on the car Jon rented all the way to the village and snuck out while Jon and Garfield were listening to the chief's tale about "The Cruiser" and ended up being found by Owooda who adopted her(until she snuck away to follow Garfield back to the US leaving Owooda with the much fatter Mai Tai).

• She never shows her teeth even once which indicates that she doesn't want Garfield to suspect her true identity(which explains why she doesn't correct Garfield when he addresses her as Mai Tai) and start matching wits with her nor to start insulting the gap between her teeth.

Jon is Sirius Black's cousin.

• He has an Aunt Walburga.

Odie has been Obfuscating Stupidity all along.

In this strip, Garfield is kicked out because Jon's shirts — except for one which says "I [heart] Cats" — are missing. Outside, Odie is leaning against the door, wearing one of Jon's shirts with an evil grin on his face.

• I think Odie really is dumb, but not THAT dumb, and the other characters simply overestimate how dumb he really is, partially due to the fact that the others can't understand his thoughts. I believe that Odie does have thoughts, but is unable to transmit his thoughts to the others due to a brain injury of some sort when he was a puppy, possibly from Garfield being abusive to him as usual. Sort of like the whale dude in "Finding Dory" whose ECHO thingy didn't work quite right due to a head injury. He's actually really quite smart for a dog— he can finish a sudoku in record time, order dingleballs off the internet, figure out how to operate Jon's car (which he drove through the house), etc. (I think the "Odie reading War and Peace" strip was a joke and wasn't meant to be taken seriously.) Also, he's a dog; dogs pant and lick and slobber, which is part of the reason why Odie looks so stupid all the time. He does show good judgement sometimes, though. Even when Garfield doesn't. Overall, he's still pretty stupid, but still intelligent enough to function. I think a good example of Odie being "not that dumb" would be the strip from September 7, 2010.◊ To a normal person, it looks like Odie just left the conversation with the purple dog because he's stupid. But the purple dog has been shown to bark at everyone and sometimes become violent and chase them. Odie might know about this. Remember that Odie can't transmit thoughts to others and enjoy my interpretation of what really happened.
  Purple dog: How's it going?
  What Odie may be thinking in the first panel: Hmm. I'm not sure about this dog. He's a bit mean. He might be being nice to us to try to trick us! I don't trust this guy. Come on, Garfield, let's go.
  [Odie turns to leave; however, since his telepathy powers don't work properly, neither Garfield nor the dog register that he's "said" anything, and therefore are surprised when he walks away.]
  [About a second later, Odie realizes that Garfield isn't moving at all.]
  What Odie may be thinking in the second panel: Well, Garfield, it's your funeral.
  Purple dog: Has that guy bumped his head?
  Garfield: More times than you'd believe...

See what I mean? If you think about all the points I've already given, my interpretation of this strip makes perfect sense. Of course, Odie worrying that the dog might be trying to deceive them was probably a false alarm but still. Overall, Odie isn't obfuscating stupidity. He may be obfuscating happiness though. No one can be kicked off a table every day and rarely be shown any kindness and still be happy. This is explained in my next WMG below...

Odie is a Stepford Smiler who is secretly suffering from severe depression.

After years of being abused by Garfield and misunderstood by Jon, Odie has become very discontent with his life. He's sick of Garfield beating him up all the time and rarely being nice to him, and yearns for the days when they did everything together and helped each other out. And although Jon cares for him, he doesn't realize how rough Garfield is being to him. He misses Lyman, and the bond they once shared, and is on the brink of becoming a shell of his former self. The only thing keeping him from being open about his feelings is the idea that he is a big dog, and big dogs don't cry, right? This fanfic I made explains this theory in more depth.

Garfield and the dog killed the mailman

Has anyone noticed that ever since this comic back in 2002, the mailman hasn't appeared or even been mentioned in the comic anymore? It seems that Garfield and the dog ganging up on him went a little too far.

• Or he retired/got a transfer to a better neighborhood. Actually. I think they sort of did that plot in the cartoon, didn't they...?

Garfield is a girl.

And she's pregnant. Might dip into Epileptic Trees for a bit, but think about it. There was a controversy regarding Garfield's true gender a few months back, and the way that the fat cat has started slimming down are much more denoting pregnancy (i.e. large stomach, but no other noticeable weight gain in the arms/legs, swelling feet, strange cravings) than a character redesign. It probably explains why there haven't been any dieting strips as of current, she's gotta keep her strength up if she's got who knows how many mini-Garfields to carry to term. It's only gone on for so long because it's a comic strip, and it'll probably end the series if it's confirmed.

What happened to Lyman?

Lyman is Luigi

Think about it. They look pretty similar. Lyman has Mario's mustache. And Lyman was last seen in a regular Garfield strip in 1983, the same year that Luigi debuts in Mario Bros.. Coincidence?

• Plus they're both young, under-appreciated, and have names that begin with the letter 'L'.

Lyman was gay. For Jon. But they weren't a couple.

Jon was just a straight, extremely unlucky man, and Lyman eventually moved out , leaving Odie as a sort of Audience Surrogate for himself, since while he couldn't stand to be near but not with Jon, Odie could.

Lyman killed himself.

See above for one possibility, but the possible causes are many and varied.

Lyman killed everyone else.

And Garfield is the ghost of an already-dead cat "living" in a long abandoned house.

Lyman got a job transfer, and the only city apartment he could afford even on his increased salary was a no-pet complex.

Because this page needs some lightening and softening.

Lyman underwent eye surgery and became the Mailman in later comics.

Same mustache? Check.
Same physical build? Check.
No appearances together? Check.

Lyman was arrested.

He moved in with John with only one suitcase and a dog because he'd committed a serious crime, thought the cops were right behind him, and only brought a few essentials. He knew his old friend John was both generous and oblivious enough to let him stay without asking any questions about how he ended up homeless. He successfully laid low for a couple of years, but eventually his past caught up with him and he was sent to prison. John continued to care for his dog.

Relations to other comics/cartoons/series

Garfield is a Time Lord.

His TARDIS is his bed, that's why he can fit Pooky and other things in it without them showing. Garfield being a Time Lord would explain why his appearance has changed so much over the course of the comic strip, he's changed into new forms. The reason why everyone else in the series has changed so much is because Garfield has traveled into a distant past (or future) that has people similar to the other eras that Garfield has visited.

• And when Garfield was in the abandoned house that everyone here is obsessed with, he simply traveled too far into the future and momentarily panicked.
• Remember that strip when his past self meet him?◊

Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes take place in the same universe.

The connection is Lyman. He disappears from the strip in 1983, then a few years later reappears in Calvin & Hobbes. Lyman is Calvin's Uncle Max: his full name is Max Lyman. The evidence is that Max◊ and Lyman◊ look the same, and have a similar sartorial taste. The few differences between the two (such as Max's bigger nose) can be explained by different artistic impressions of the same character. Max's hairline has receded somewhat since he was living with Jon, but there are years between his disappearance from Garfield and reappearance in Calvin & Hobbes, so that certainly could've happened. Max being Lyman also explain why he's worried about Calvin's imaginary friend◊, and why he says that all of his friends might've been imaginary too. When he was living Jon, they were caught up in a folie à deux, where they imagined their cat and dog were acting like human beings. Max realized he had to break away from this fantasy, but Jon, being the more infantile of the two, couldn't do the same. Max realized he had no choice but leave: that's why he disappeared so suddenly from Garfield and left Odie behind. His past history explains his comment about imaginary friends (he's referring to Garfield an Odie), as well as why he thinks Calvin having an imaginary friend might not be healthy for him.

• Calvin and Hobbes actually appeared as background characters once.

Garfield, Odie and Jon are reincarnations or Alternate Universe versions of Bucky, Satchel and Rob.

Snarky cat. Stupid dog. Owner who can understand them. Am I the only one who thought of this?

• Or perhaps Get Fuzzy is a deconstruction of Garfield, being more realistic and edgy than Garfield, and containing more three-dimensional characters.

Jon is Witted.

• He's just not completely aware of it. He can hear most of Garfield's thoughts, and cats can use the Wit to speak with whomever of the Old Blood they choose to, and all the cats you meet in Tawny Man seem to have Garfield's attitude about humans and self-importance.

Since, according to one strip, the day Jon brought Garfield, he had to choose between him or an iguana...

• That iguana was then bought by a blond nerd, and named Quincy.

Garfield is the Cat Next Door

• That Cat and Snoopy annoy each other, and the cat likes to destroy Snoopy's Doghouse. It doesn't seem like a stretch that Garfield, who loves to cause Odie pain, wouldn't be up for destroying a doghouse. Plus, there could be another reason as to why Lucy hates dog kisses: Odie keeps kissing her

Jon killed Gnorm Gnat

• That giant foot that squashed Gnorm Gnat at the end of his final comic? That was Jon, on his way home from the pet store after picking up Garfield.

Recurring themes

Miscellaneous

The last strip of Garfield

The finale will consist of Jon letting an older Garfield live in the same Italian restaurant (where he was born in) with other stray cats, before living his final bachelor days with Dr Liz, being Happily Married. That concludes the strip.

Garfield hates raisins because he ate rabbit poop at one point.

It's made apparent in Garfield and Friends that he hates raisins. Rabbit and other rodent poop look like raisins, so that makes sense why he strays away from them.

• Even if one thinks they look like raisins, they certainly wouldn't smell the same, especially to a cat. Unless of course Garfield has an unusually poor sense of smell, which is possible since he doesn't seem to use it much.

Jim Davis is winding up the strip.

Think on it. This used to be one of the Status Quo Is God strips, when it came to Jon's love life. Now suddenly he's dating the woman of his dreams?

The strip is ending. And it will end when Jon and Liz get engaged or married.

Note: this comic did what the author intended it to do. And it has been in print for approximately thirty years. He's not doing it for the art; this won't be a 10-Minute Retirement.

• Considering that Jon and Liz have been a couple for over five years, Jossed.

This tune◊ is a cat food jingle, or part of one.

Evidence.◊ Of course, you could say that since he wasn't humming it (as far as we're shown), it doesn't count, but still...

Heathcliff and Garfield are twins and were Separated at Birth

Heathcliff was born in the same Italian restaurant kitchen as Garfield a few seconds after Garfield was born. Both were given away and Heathcliff was taken by Iggy's never-seen dad to Westfinster.

Garfield's family is the family from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

The 10/28/89 and the Halloween special with the pirate ghosts made me wonder what would happen if Davis wrote a horror film. I thought maybe it would be based around a family like Garfield's only everyone's human. Then I realized something. Take the bumbling single father and make him a bumbling single mother. Take the spotlight off the snarky older brother and put it on the dimwitted middle brother. Make the obnoxiously cute youngest brother an obnoxiously cute girl. It's the family from E.T.!

Jon and Liz will finally get married on Garfield's 40th birthday

40 years is a big milestone and there really hasn't been a big change in the comic since Jon and Liz started dating in 2006. This would be a perfect way to shake up the comic's formula and give a treat to longtime fans.

• Jossed. That birthday has come and gone, and no status changes.

The final sentence in the final strip will be "Feed me."

That was the last line of the first strip, and I can imagine Jim Davis would want it to come full circle like this.

---