Quote:
Originally Posted by AerostarMonk
The best Garfield ever is live action Garfield as seen here http://youtube.com/user/lasagnacat. Although it's done with an undertone of seething hatred of all things Garfield, it stays closer to the spirit of the comics than the movies ever did. |
Haha, yeah, I can remember you introducing them to me a fair while back, since which I have grown to be rather fond of them.
My favourites would have to be
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZJUmwWHtSHE and
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fPEV9X0vgts. Yes sir, reading is cool! Get yourself a library card!
Garfield does seem to be quite a fashionable franchise to bash right now (certainly not helped by the arrival of the recent live-action movies, which did absolutely zilch for me - but then, they weren't very true to the spirit of the comic, as you say), but in truth I've always had a soft spot for the obese orange tabby, ever since I was a nipper, fuelled in part by my fondness for the
Garfield and Friends TV series growing up, and of course for the various TV specials (particularly
Garfield: His Nine Lives, which remains one of my favourite pieces of animation). I admit that I haven't really been following the strip itself lately, so I have little to add to that side of the debate, but I do have a whole pile of
Garfield books which span from his genesis in the late 70s through to the mid-90s, and I do genuinely enjoy pouring through them.
I'm glad to see that Matt Groening's
Life in Hell has already been brought up here. It's a strip which I've never actually properly followed - I couldn't even tell you which British newspaper carries it, if any - but I was quite taken with the bits and pieces which I've seen here and there. It seems to be a darker and more surreal sense of humour than Groening is generally known for. Given that
The Simpsons was apparently born from Matt's last-minute refusal to surrender the rights and image of LIH for usage in those animated segments on
The Tracy Ullman Show, a part of me does have to wonder, out of sheer curiosity, what it's like right now in that alternative universe where Matt
didn't get cold feet, LIH became an animated cartoon and
the Simpsons never existed.