Memetic Mutation/Newspaper Comics
Memes and catch phrases, like a lot of other things, can also be Born in the Funny Papers.
Please add entries in the following format:
- The meme. <ref>The explanation behind the meme.]]</ref> [1]
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- Lots of people on the Internet consider the early 2000s run of Garfield to be the blandest, most mediocre comic strip in the newspapers today. Then in January 2006, someone created The Garfield Randomizer, which automatically selected three random panels from the entire Garfield online archive and mashed them together as a strip, turning it into Dadaist nonsense. It was praised as the funniest thing to happen to Garfield in years. Then Paws, Inc., told the creator to cease-and-desist. In a small measure of revenge, however, the creator made the code publicly available, and a few Garfield randomizers persist to this day (like this one).
- Silent Garfield was born shortly after the Garfield Randomizer, when Mack J of the Truth and Beauty Bombs forum pointed out just how surreal Garfield becomes (and how pathetic Jon really is) when you remove Garfield's thought bubbles.
- This has been taken to the next logical step with Garfield Minus Garfield, which makes it look like Jon is conversing with imaginary playmates. Unlike the randomizer, Jim Davis actually found this one quite entertaining.
- Garfield Minus Garfield mashed up with the Sad Keanu meme here.
- Someone took the Garfield Minus Garfield concept to a great extreme, taking the Garfield and Friends Christmas Special and editing out Garfield and Odie almost seamlessly. Then you get to the ending at 8:30. Have fun...
- In the same spirit as Silent Garfield is Realfield, which replaces Garfield with a silent, photorealistic cat and does a good job of making Jon look pathetic...well, more pathetic.
- In a similar vein to Garfield Minus Garfield is Lucy Peanuts, which is basically Peanuts with everyone removed except for Lucy. Sadly, it got orphaned after about 30 strips.
- There's also Peanuts Minus Snoopy, which lasted a bit longer.
- This has been taken to the next logical step with Garfield Minus Garfield, which makes it look like Jon is conversing with imaginary playmates. Unlike the randomizer, Jim Davis actually found this one quite entertaining.
- Yet another variation is Tailsteak's Arbuckle, in which anyone is invited to redraw a Garfield comic in a different or more realistic art style, again with the thought bubbles removed.
- "Lasagna Cat" takes the deconstruction even further. Real life strips are acted out in live action. The strip and the its date of publication are shown. The skit is acompanied by a brief music video. (Its the highlight, Post-modernism at its best)
- Go back to bed, Garfield. o_O
- Garfield is so malleable that they did one...just on Garfield barfing (then fart jokes, then crude sexual humor... sadly, it works) (warning, gross)
- Garkov is Garfield + Markov chains.
- And then there's Square Root Of Minus Garfield, which does a different thing to Garfield with each strip.
- "I hate Mondays"
- "I'm putting you on a diet."
- "GARFIELD!!"
- "*SPLUT!*"
- "Hello! I'm Nermal, the world's cutest kitten!"
- "Shut up, or I'll mail you to Abu Dhabi."
- Pooky, Garfield's teddy bear
- Jon's ferns (or any other plants for that matter...)
- Garfield kicking Odie off the table
- There was a strip a few years ago with Garfield eating a banana, then dropping the peel on the floor so that Jon would slip on it. Garfield uttered the line "a banana has two uses" and internet message boards have had a field day with it ever since.
- None of that matters- It's all just a hallucination as he slowly dies of thirst in an abandoned house.
- Silent Garfield was born shortly after the Garfield Randomizer, when Mack J of the Truth and Beauty Bombs forum pointed out just how surreal Garfield becomes (and how pathetic Jon really is) when you remove Garfield's thought bubbles.
- A similar but much darker idea to the randomizer is Nietzsche Family Circus, [dead link] which puts a random Nietzsche quote with a random Family Circus panel.
- And now, Jersey Shore Circus has gotten in on the act...
- Marmaduke is an asshole.
- Mary Worth birthed a meme in Aldomania thanks to the Comics Curmudgeon.
- "Life is short, play naked!"
- The Noodle Incident
- The Phantom was king of memes even in the forties:
- PHANTOM SPEAK WITH THOUSAND TONGUES: OLD JUNGLE SAYING!
- PHANTOM ROUGH ON ROUGHNECKS!
- PHANTOM'S VOICE CHILL'S TIGER'S BLOOD: OLD JUNGLE SAYING!
- FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE...
- Mr Walker (for "The Ghost Who Walks"): "It's not a dog, it's a wolf!"
- "Cancer cancercancercancer?" "Cancercancer cancer."
- WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?
- THE SHADOW KNOWS...
- I have no hooooooooome!!
- She's roadside.[2]
- A simply staggering number of character or situational nicknames invented in Dilbert actually become professional corporate terms for those very situations.
- Classic example: the Bungee Boss. "HiI'myournewbosslet'schangeeverythingbeforeIgetreassignedoopstoolategoodbye."
- If everyone gets a nickname based on their appearance, where does Dick Tracy's come from?
- Oh, you blockhead!
- The phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" originally derives from an early-20th-century newspaper strip of that title.
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