Garfield Sans

Less is more: making Garfield comics funnier (or at least, more absurd) by omitting and altering strategic parts. Enjoy!
There will be no more updates. You may want to try my new webcomic ‘SONAIS’ instead.
Number of cartoons: 1509

Latest Comics - Older Comics - Oldest Comics - Alien Odie Comics - About - PAQ

Latest Comics

Older Comics

Oldest Comics

Alien Odie Comics

About

Some people, me included, got the feeling that the quality of ‘Garfield’ has been declining since Jim Davis delegated most of its production to the ‘PAWS collective.’ Luckily, people have found creative ways to spice up those new (and even the good old) cartoons by selectively omitting parts. The first experiment involved removing Garfield's dialogue. More recently, someone removed Garfield altogether, which gives the comic a whole new twist. While ‘garfield minus garfield’ seems to abide to strict rules, I went a bit further in a quest to maximize absurdity. The result is Garfield Sans. The only strict rule is: there must be no trace of Garfield. Otherwise, any modification is allowed, as long as it involves manipulating a single original comic. This has led to mutations like Alien Odie, and Jon's many dysfunctional eating habits like the apparent irresistible urge to suddenly shove his face into his food. Still, most often it suffices to simply erase Garfield from strategically chosen cartoons.

If you would want to make your own mutant versions of the comics, my Garfield Sans font might come in handy. Enjoy!

2023/10/24: The End

I have stopped making new Garfield Sans comics. Today's will be the final one. Reasons are:

1. Due to an apparent shift in its topics, it is becoming increasingly hard to find suitable original Garfield cartoons that fit the Garfield Sans concept. I need at least 2 per month, but lately even this target seems impossible to reach, so I would run dry pretty soon anyhow.
2. I have started my own ‘SONAIS’ webcomic and I'd rather allocate all my efforts on that one.
3. Let's face it: visitor stats show that there were only 1 or perhaps 2 people really following this on a regular basis. To these person(s): thanks for staying loyal for all these years, but it's time to move on. (I don't know if you'll like the new comic because it will be something entirely different.)

Anyhow, the Garfield Sans archive will remain available as long as this site exists, so you can always browse or randomly jump through the more than 1500 existing comics.
(The old RSS feed is still available, but rather pointless since there will most likely be no updates anymore.)

(What follows is an explanation in Dutch, because this originally originated in a Dutch-speaking newsgroup.)

Uitleg in het Nederlands

Sommige mensen, zoals ik, hebben de indruk dat de kwaliteit van ‘Garfield’ is beginnen dalen sinds Jim Davis de productie ervan overhandigd heeft aan het ‘PAWS-collectief’. Gelukkig hebben sommigen creatieve manieren gevonden om de nieuwe (en zelfs goeie oude) cartoons meer pit te geven door selectief delen uit te wissen. Het eerste idee was alle dialoog van Garfield te verwijderen. Recent is iemand begonnen met Garfield zelf te verwijderen, met een merkwaardig effect tot gevolg. Terwijl ‘garfield minus garfield’ zich aan strikte regels schijnt te houden, ben ik nog een stapje verder gegaan met als doel de absurditeit te maximaliseren. Het resultaat is Garfield Sans. Er is maar 1 strikte regel: er mag geen spoor van Garfield zijn. Verder mag alles, zolang het maar gebaseerd is op één originele strip. Dit heeft bv. geleid tot mutaties zoals Alien Odie, en Jon's vele disfunctionele eetgewoonten zoals de schijnbaar onhoudbare drang om zijn gezicht plots in zijn eten te kwakken. Er zijn ook enkele bijdragen van Brubbel en andere kotnet.absurders. Veel plezier!

PAQ (Possibly Asked Questions)

Q: Isn't this illegal, like violating copyright laws?
A: In many countries, including the USA and Belgium, there are fair use laws allowing to copy parts of artwork for purposes of parody. Plus, I don't get or intend to get profits from this, I'm just doing this for fun. I haven't even put ads on these pages. However if PAWS/Jim Davis feels this is a violation of copyright, I will delete this webpage immediately.

Q: Will there be more frequent updates?
A: No, on the contrary: there will be none. In the beginning I could dig through the entire Garfield archive for suitable cartoons to ‘transform.’ Then at some point I had gone through all the old comics, and I had to rely on there being enough new suitable daily comics. I had to reduce my schedule to one comic every 2 weeks, but even that became increasingly problematic. There just aren't many new Garfield cartoons anymore that fit the Garfield Sans concept. It is for this reason that I have stopped making new Garfield Sans strips altogether.

Q: Why are there some doubles with ‘garfield minus garfield’?
A: I used to check before making a cartoon if it hadn't already been done in gmg, but eventually I figured out that not everyone will read both these Garfield derivatives. If someone decides to only read my mutated Garfield comic, they should not be denied certain cartoons because a near identical one appeared elsewhere.

Q: What drawing program did you use for this?
A: Mostly the GIMP.

Q: Can I easily find the original Garfield cartoon for a certain GS comic?
A: Just click the tiny arrow button “” next to the comic. This will take you to the original cartoon on the GoComics website. The date of the original comic can also be found in the name of each image file.

Q: Why do I find most of these modified comics unfunny?
A: This is not a kind of humour that everyone appreciates. If you do like most of the newest ‘regular’ Garfield comics, you'll probably not like the ‘mutated’ versions.

Q: I want to download all the comics, should I waste some of my time and your bandwidth by writing a script or setting up a crawler?
A: Of course not, just mail me and I'll send you all the comics in a convenient archive. You might even get high-resolution copies of the newest ones…

Q: Can I have a hard copy?
A: I do not have paper print-outs and I do not plan to make any. I am not sure about the legality of selling physical copies of something based on copyrighted material, even when considering fair use laws. Feel free to make your own print-out of the archive in any way (e.g. through an online service), at your own responsibility.

Q: I waste a considerable amount of my precious lifetime going through the comic archive every single day, viewing the same comics over and over again. When an update is delayed due to a technical glitch, I keep on refreshing the page like crazy. Should I get professional help?
A: Yes.