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No. 726: Jim Davis's Breakdown

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Jim Davis's Breakdown

First | Previous | 2011-05-15 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=726

Strip by: Manyhills

{Garfield stands atop Beachy Head.}
Sign: Beachy Head
Garfield: Goodbye, cruel world.
{Garfield is gone.}

The author writes:

The link between trauma and great art has been much remarked upon. The First World War begat Wilfred Owen; The Great Depression begat The Grapes of Wrath; Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann's breakup begat 13.

But the correlation is not perfect; as much as depression might entice you to create a work of such power, anger and fury that it echoes down the ages, apathy and self-destructive rage could have the opposite effect. Mostly Harmless, the last book of the Hitchhiker's "trilogy", was written by Douglas Adams in a depressive funk; it is long on killings and short on quality, and he later stated his unhappiness with it.

There is, naturally, a third path. External events could change the themes of your work, sure, but not have any effect on its quality. It is with this in mind that I present a Garfield strip from after Jim Davis's nervous breakdown.

[[Original strip: 2010-06-07.]]

Original strip: 2010-06-07.