‘Garfield Thrown Out the Window’ Makes Classic Comic Strip Hilarious

As a longtime favorite in the Sunday funny pages, Jim Davis’ Garfield has long been the subject of satire – much of it surreal – but current Twitter account Garfield thrown out the window achieves its affectionate mockery using only actual comic panels… just not as they were originally presented. Garfield may love lasagna and hate Mondays, but it appears the secret ingredient to comedy gold in his long-running strip may have been under the creator’s nose the entire time: having him thrown out of a window at the end of each of his adventures, no matter what happens in the first two panels.

Garfield has become a treasure trove of meme humor in recent years, with fans paying somewhat twisted homage to the longtime cultural icon in surrealist exhibitions such as hours-long, discursive commentaries or an entire subreddit devoted to elaborate, grotesquely Lovecraftian fan art of the characters. However, there’s a lot to be said for simplicity, and one twitter account – launched in October 2020 – goes back to basics by showcasing Garfield strips with the final panel replaced by a specific image from 1981 in which Garfield crashes through a window, changing how the overall ‘story’ reads to fans.

Titled ‘Garfield thrown out the window,’ the @yeetgarf Twitter page hosts all manner of Garfield strips changed into often darkly absurdist works of comedic cruelty when the final panel is replaced with an image of Garfield getting thrown through a window, usually by his owner Jon, but also occasionally by his dog companion Odie, and once in a while by himself (all by implication, of course.) Examples include Jon furiously announcing Garfield has slept the whole day before hurling his pet through the window, as well as quiet examples, such as Garfield ejecting himself through the window after Jon informs him of his relative insignificance in a world that will continue to exist after he is gone.

Garfield has long been the subject of surrealist parodies, going back to Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County, and his derisive imitation Bill the Cat. Begun in 1978, Garfield’s incredibly long-running saga has largely been bereft of weighty, existential commentary, or really drama of any kind, and is thus a prime target for bizarre memes in the postmodern age due to how seemingly inoffensive it is. With a little tinkering, even something as innocuous as a cat kicking a dog off a table can turn into an abstract metaphor for modern isolation.

Consisting of mostly user-submitted edits, Garfield thrown out the window is both really, really funny and a fascinating object lesson in sequential art, as the repeated third panel echoes back to cast the images before it in a new context – one never intended by their original creator, and yet clear and compelling nonetheless. Garfield may be beloved in its own right, but re-imaginings like this are doing a lot of heavy lifting to keep it relevant in the modern day – and somehow succeeding!

Source: Garfield thrown out the window

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Andrew Firestone
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Andrew Firestone is a writer of sentences, paragraphs, chapters and words, cultural enthusiast and a hard news junkie from Allston, Massachusetts. An editor, audio engineer and evangelist of all things awesome, he’s saddled with an all-consuming awe/fear of Alan Moore, so please be kind. Formerly a writer for the public interest in local government, Andy is a graduate of Lesley University and holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. He enjoys loud music and soft music and sometimes in-between.

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