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No. 5543: The Elephant in the Graduation Room

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The Elephant in the Graduation Room

First | Previous | 2024-07-22 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=5543

Strip by: limmey comic

{A smiling Odie walks by a bored Garfield. He is wearing a blue-and-yellow graduation cap}
{Garfield stares at Odie, then stares at the reader}
Garfield: Jon keeps all 35 of his graduation caps

The author writes:

Not sure if this new punchline makes this particular strip any funnier.

Oh, and now, for the hypothetical backstory: Jon, despite not knowing better, applied for a high-level college after graduating high school. However, when he applied, he was informed he had an extremely low GPA, and that the college would only accept students with very high GPAs. This meant Jon was forced to retake his senior year of high school. But he kept failing, and to this day, he is still taking high school courses.

The cartoonist job was the occasional stint he did when he had a good amount of money, which is also why it was sparingly mentioned.

Now for the math! Jim Davis has mentioned that his life parallels that of Jon Arbuckle. Jim Davis was born in 1945. This strip takes place in 1998. 1998 minus 1945 is 53, and 53 minus 18 (the year in which most students graduate high school) is 35.

Original strip: 1998-11-17.