Sad: We're Thrilled That A Content Creator Isn't Suing Over A Derivative Work

from the a-sign-of-the-times dept

Tue, Jun 3rd 2008 2:14am — Mike Masnick

A friend of mine sent me to Garfield minus Garfield a few months back. It's a slightly bizarre and surreal showing of Garfield comic strips where the lead character, Garfield the cat, is removed from the cartoon, leaving only his owner Jon Arbuckle. The result is that it totally changes the meaning of some of the strips, leading to a sort of... existential despair. The NY Times wrote a story about it this week, which I read -- but perhaps the most interesting point is noted by Mathew Ingram: Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield isn't bothered by it. In fact, he seems to enjoy it, having thanked the creator of the site, and noted that it made him go back and look at the entire body of Garfield comics in a very different light. What's somewhat sad about this is the fact that a content creator not reacting angrily or threatening to sue (or just filing suit) over a derivative work is considered so rare to merit mentioning. Clearly, we still have a long way to go.

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Filed Under: copyright, derivative works, garfield, garfield without garfield, jim davis

15 Comments

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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 3 Jun 2008 @ 2:42am

*Sigh*
What a depressing site. What next--LOLcats without the cats?
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PaulT (profile), 3 Jun 2008 @ 2:51am

That's great to hear. With the controversially redesigned Dilbert site encouraging remixing and recaptioning of cartoon, at least one area of the entertainment biz is thinking...

As for the strip, that's weird but there's another one I liked more. I don't have a link but rather than removing Garfield entirely, it just removed Garfield's speech bubbles. Somehow, a man going nuts in front of his cat rather than alone seemed even more poignant...!
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MadJo (profile), 3 Jun 2008 @ 4:45am

Re: *Sigh*
Invisible lolcats? Has already been done:
http://lolcatz.net/144/invisible-lolcat/
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ehrichweiss, 3 Jun 2008 @ 6:09am

bizarre
Those are incredibly weird. Glad to hear that Davis understands this a bit better than most.
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Eliot, 3 Jun 2008 @ 6:20am

Jim Davis is a sellout...
Jim Davis understands the business very well, but it's because he's an unapologetic sellout. Realize, I say this with no malice, the guy knows precisely how to sell stuff and make Garfield bankable.
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Dan, 3 Jun 2008 @ 6:48am

Re: Jim Davis is a sellout...
Exactly. Try doing "Garfield Minus Jon and Odie" and see how many seconds it takes before Davis sues you.
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Me, 3 Jun 2008 @ 7:02am

Wow
I find those cartoons rather creepy. They are slightly funny until I recall my sisters constant struggle with depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and mania. Then they make me sad. So good looking out tech dirt on depressing me before 7am.
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TheDock22, 3 Jun 2008 @ 7:21am

Love Them
I have been reading Garfield Minus Garfield for months. I think they are great!
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2008 @ 7:39am

I am pretty sure this was thought about by Something Awful forum members for a thread, I remember reading it awhile back. It's a funny concept.
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www.custompcmax.com, 3 Jun 2008 @ 7:42am

This is really interesting. I read a bunch of these and I feel depressed. I find it so facinating that these strips still work, albiet a completely different tone, without the main character. I wonder if there is anything to be said about Jon Davis's mind in this. Is he Jon...?
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Yup, 3 Jun 2008 @ 8:25am

Re: I was thinking the same thing
Davis is a sick puppy, thats my conclusion.
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Nasch, 3 Jun 2008 @ 9:37am

Interesting
There seems to be an almost universal agreement that the strip is depressing without Garfield. Personally, I find them far more amusing than the real Garfield strip. I'm not sure what that says about my sense of humor...
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Another Bad Idea, 3 Jun 2008 @ 9:42am

Dibs on the movie rights
Coming soon to a YouTube near you
It's that loveable zany cat like
you've never seen him before,
or at all, at least in this movie...
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Nightmare, 3 Jun 2008 @ 10:07am

it's awesome
I found out about the site a number of months ago through Penny-arcade.com. I have the site in my RSS feed and I check it out every day. It's always good for a laugh.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Jun 2009 @ 1:01am

Re: *Sigh*
Isn't that what Garfield is?
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