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No. 263: Garfield Shrink & Re-enlarge, Part 3

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Garfield Shrink & Re-enlarge, Part 3

First | Previous | 2010-02-06 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=263

Strip by: John Callaghan

{Jon and Odie sitting in an inflatable pool.}
Caption: Sigh... If only there was some way to liven up my afternoon in the pool...
{Garfield appears, holding a bomb.}
Caption: Try the cat-onball! Today's offer - free legs with every purchase!
{A hole in the ground, surrounded by shredded remains of an inflatable pool.}
Odie: How long until the next ride?
Jon: First: free legs. Then: throttle cat.
Caption: No pool is safe from the dreaded "cat-onball".

The author writes:

qvaak wrote in the forums:

The process would be as follows: 1. A Garfield Sunday strip is sent to the first participant. He squeezes the strip into a three panel strip. 2. The three panel strip is sent to the second participant. He squeezes it into a single panel funny picture. 3. The funny picture is sent to the third participant, who expands the picture into a three panel strip. 4. The fourth participant expands the three panel strip into a Sunday strip.

Rules: 1. Everybody will be told what the original strip was, so that they can avoid it as much as they can. We cannot hope the participants don't remember the strip or that they would not run into it by accident, but the less the better. No artwork or dialogue may be taken straight from the original. This does not concern the first participant, of course. 2. Other than that every method is allowed. You can edit existing artwork or copy/paste new art from other Garfield strips. You can rewrite dialogue or add new dialogue. Etc. 3. The goal of edits should be to carry the most essential parts of the story and the gag from one strip format to another.

This experiment is based on my experiments already published: #127, #113, #109. They are a fine proof that the challenge should be manageable. Not that my ways should be yours; the truncating and expanding can certainly be achieved by many different tricks.

Rule three might seem strange, but my aim for this experiment is to play on information loss and confabulation that slips into creation when edited and re-edited enough. If everyone would make their own gag somehow based on material given to them, information loss and confabulation would not so much slip, but crash in.

Original strip: 1999-07-04.