#Mark Arbuckle
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Glazed And Confused
Mark Arbuckle: Glasgow, April 2024
I’m sure everybody remembers the first time they earned their own money and didn’t need to depend on their parents’ generosity ie pocket money….
In the early 70s, earning a few bob made saving up for the latest single (at 7/6d), new pair of Dr. Martens (at £4 10/-) or Arthur Black bespoke shirt (anywhere between £5-£8 depending on how many pleats, plackets,…
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#1971#70s#Arthur Black#Benny Lynch#clydebank#Doc Martens#Duntocher#featured#Glasgow#Glaziers#Hardgate#Mark Arbuckle#Peter Milligan#School#Sixties
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I'm sorry but...
youtube
Chris Pratt as Garfield does not work at all. It's so off-putting.
#garfield#garfield movie#the garfield movie#chris pratt#samuel l jackson#odie#jon arbuckle#david reynolds#mark dindal#it's worse than his mario voice#because his natural voice doesn't match garfield as a character#why didn't they get someone like jim gaffigan or will arnett?
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Hey There, Mister Jon Arbuckle!
(i’ll get back to posting OFF soon, i think! but i’m getting better at using layers! yay!!!)
#garfield fanart#garfield#jon arbuckle#not a sentence in this post without an exclamation mark now is there.
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The you're gonna go far kid John Arbuckle edit is ML!Mark core
THATS IN. HIS PLAYLIST. I THINK. THATS LITERALLY HOW HE DANCES IJUHYGTF
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YO-
When did the question mark turn into Jon Arbuckle-
Last night. (Ps if you see this after today this is what I temporarily changed my pfp to)
(Inspired by @john-battle )
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Buster’s first ever scene in a movie. The Butcher Boy with Roscoe Arbuckle 1917 + Buster’s diary marking the date.
#buster keaton#roscoe arbuckle#fatty arbuckle#the butcher boy#1917#1910s#silent film#silent movies#comedy#silent comedy#slapstick
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Anon
I'm not upset at your message.
Im inserting a read more because this is long.
I understand your confusion. I think you need more understanding of the time. There are parts that make me uncomfortable, as long as we acknowledge and know that we don't agree with that, we are still allowed to enjoy what we're watching. It is a completely different time. If we only watch things from the perspective that we have now, we would not be able to watch the majority of media from the past. Even within the past 10 years or less.
Watching things from the past give us a view of how things were; how similar we are but also how different and how we have progressed.
In regard to Buster enjoying Birth of a Nation. Yes, he had said that it was a movie he enjoyed, it was the movie that made him realize the potential of what films could do.
I'm pretty positive I know which article you read who mentioned it. I can only say my opinion on that. I don't think Buster was amazed by it because of the story, but because of what they were able to achieve visually on film. No one was really doing epic films like that.
From A Filmmakers Life - James Curtis, Page 100
" "You must never forget," Arbuckle had told him, "that the average mentality of our movie audience is twelve years old."
Such advice didn't sit well with Buster, who started taking films seriously after seeing Tillie's Punctured Romance, Sennett's pioneering 1914 feature, then thrilling to D.W. Griffth's Birth of a Nation, which he considered a masterpiece.
"I thought that over for a long time," he said of Arbuckle's pronouncement, "for three months in fact. Then I said to Roscoe, 'I think you'd better forget the idea that the movie audience has a twelve-year-old mind. Anyone who believes that won't be in pictures very long, in my opinion.' I pointed out how rapidly pictures were improving technically. The studios were also offering better stories all the time, using superior equipment, getting more intelligent directors... 'Every time anyone makes another good picture.' I said, 'people with adult minds will come to see it.'" "
In The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down by Tom Dardis, page 31 -
"In 1917 the motion picture business was growing at a furious rate. The building of new theaters solely devoted to the showing of films gives some idea of how deeply serious the passion for movie-going had become. Starting in April 1914, with the widely successful opening in New York City of the Mark Strand Theater, which had been built with a seating capacity of three thousand on two floors, the construction of ever larger and more opulent theaters proceeded all over the country. The number of paid admissions per week soared into the millions. If any single person can be held responsible for this ever-increasing, consuming interest in films it was surely D.W. Griffith, whose final triumph in mastering film narration during his days at Biograph Studios in the period 1908 through 1913 was summed up in his Birth of a Nation in 1915. It was not uncommon for people to see this film repeatedly; Buster claimed that he'd seen it at least three times shortly after its opening. Everybody saw it, for it was truly the "coming of age" movie for the entire industry."
Same book on page 47 while they're talking about the area around Hollywood it says, "That same year Griffith's The Birth of a Nation appeared, the film that quickly made Hollywood the film center of the world."
It's not just Buster who found the film to be one of their favorites, everyone did. It's what made people take film seriously, not just Buster. A lot of people regarded films as a fad and would fade away and they would go back to live performances.
I implore you to read more about the time period, about vaudeville, the beginning of films. Watch more silent films from others rather than just Buster. Chaplin, Lloyd, Langdon, Laurel and Hardy if you just want to do comedy, those are the main ones. I'd say watch Birth of a Nation for yourself. Watch Wings, Ben Hur, Phantom of the Opera, Faust.. Read up about the other actors of the time, I think if you want to better understand Buster and his films, you also have to see what others were doing but also who they were as people. Explore the environment.
I know I didn't answer all of your questions, it would be much easier to talk via messaging. But that's up to you. I hope that I at least helped in some way.
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When I was 18... 18 years old, I saw for the first time in my life... I saw an image of clarity. I saw a comic strip... a three panel comic strip that, though simple as it seemed, changed me... changed my being, changed who I am... Made me who I am...
Enlightened me...
The strip, Garfield, the comic strip was new... no more than maybe a month and a half since inception, since... since coming into existence... and there it was before me in print, I saw it... a comic strip... What was it called?
Garfield.
The story here is of a man, a plain man. He is Jon, but he is more than that... I will get to this later, but first let us say that he's Jon, a plain man.
And then there is a cat... Garfield.
This is the nature of the world, here. When I see the world, the politics, the future, the... the satellites in space, and... the people who put them there...
You can look at everything as a man and a cat... two beings, in harmony and at war...
So, this strip I saw; this man, Jon, and the cat, Garfield, you see...
Yes... hmm...
It is about everything. This... little comic is, oh, lo and behold... not so little anymore.
So yes, when I was 18, I saw this comic... and it hit me all at once, its power. I clipped it, and every day, I looked at it, and I said "Okay... let me look at this here. What is this doing to me? Why is this so powerful?"
Jon Arbuckle, he sits here, legs crossed... comfortable in his home, and he reads his newspaper... The news of the world, perhaps... and then he extends his fingers lightly, delicately... he taps his fingers on an end table, and he feels for something...
What is it? It is something he needs, but it is not there.
And then he looks up, slightly cockeyed, and he thinks... His newspaper's in his lap now, and he thinks this...
Now where could my pipe be?
This... I always come to this, because I was a young man... I'm older now, and I still don't have the secrets, the answers, so this question still rings true, Jon looks up and he thinks...
Now where could my pipe be?
And then it happens... You see it, you see... it's almost like divine intervention, suddenly it is there, and it overpowers you...
A cat is smoking a pipe.
It is the man's pipe, it's Jon's pipe, but the cat... this cat, Garfield, is smoking the pipe... and from afar, and someplace near, but not clear... near but not clear... The man calls out... Jon calls out, he is shocked. "Garfield!" he shouts.
Garfield. The cat's name.
But, let's take a step back... let us examine this from all sides, all perspectives... and when I first came across this comic strip, I was at my father's house... a newspaper had arrived, and I picked it up for him, and brought it inside.
I organized its sections for him and then, yes, the comic strip section fell out from somewhere in the middle, and landed on the kitchen floor... I picked up the paper pages and saw, up somewhere near the top of this strip... just like Jon, I was wearing an aquamarine shirt.
So I thought, "Ah, interesting. I'll have to see this later." I snipped out the little comic, and held on to it... and five days later, I reexamined it... and it gripped me, I needed to find out more about this. The information I had was minimal, but enough...
An orange cat named Garfield...
Okay, that seemed to be the lynchpin of this whole operation, yes. Another clue... a signature in the bottom right corner, a man's name...
Jim Davis.
Yes, I'm on to it for sure.
So... one: Garfield, orange cat, and two: Jim Davis, the creator of this cat...
And that curiously plain man.
I did not know, at the time, that his name was Jon. This strip, you see, had no mention of this man's name, and I'd never seen it before.
But I had these clues; Jim Davis, Garfield.
And then I saw more, I spotted the tiny copyright mark in the upper left corner. Copyright 1978 to... what is this? Copyright belongs to a... PAWS Incorporated...
I use the local library and mail services to track down the information I was looking for...
Jim Davis, a cartoonist, had created a comic strip about a cat, Garfield... and a man, Jon Arbuckle. Well, from that point on, I made sure I read the Garfield comic strips, though as I read each one, as each day passed... the strips seemed to resonate with me less and less...
I sent letters to PAWS Incorporated, long letters, pages upon pages... asking if Mister Jim Davis could somehow publish just the one comic, over and over again... "It would be meditative," I wrote, "the strength of that."
Could you imagine?
But... no response... The strips lost their power, and eventually I stopped reading, but... I did not want my perceptions diluted, so I vowed to read the pipe strip over and over again... That is what I call it, "The Pipe Strip."
The Pipe Strip.
Everything about it is perfect. I can only describe it as a miracle creation, something came together... the elements aligned... It is like the comets, the cosmic orchestra that is up there over your head... The immense, enormous void is working all for one thing, to tell you one thing...
Gas and rock, and purity, and nothing.
I will say this... When I see the pipe strip... and I mean every single time I look at the lines, the colors, the shapes that make up the three panel comic...
I see perfection.
Do I find perfection in many things?
Some things, I would say... Some things are perfect... and this is one of them. I can look at the little tuft of hair on Jon Arbuckle's head... it is the perfect shade... The purple pipe in Garfield's mouth... How could a mere mortal even MAKE this?
I have a theory, about Jim Davis...
After copious research and, yes, of course, now we have the internet, and this information is all readily available, but...
Jim Davis, he used his life experiences to influence his comic...
Like I mentioned before, none of them seem to have the weight of the pipe strip... But you have to wonder about the man who is able to even, just once, create the perfect form, a literally flawless execution of art, brilliance! Just as in a ward... I think there is a spiritual element at work...
I've seen my share of bad times and... when you have something... Well, it's just... emotions, and neurons in your brain, but... something tells you that it's the truth...
Truth's radiant light.
Garfield, the cat? Neurons in my brain, it's... it's harmony, you see? It... Jon and Garfield, it's truly harmony, like a... continuous, looping, everlasting harmony... The lavender chair, the brown end table, the salmon-colored wall, the fore's green carpeting, Garfield is hunched, perched... perhaps with the pipe stuck firmly between his jowls... His tail curls around. It's more than shapes too, because... I...
Okay, stay with me... I've done this experiment several times.
You take the strip. You trace only the basic elements. You can do anything, you can simplify the shapes down to just... blobs, just outlines, but it still makes sense...
You can replace the blobs with magazine cutouts of other things, replace Jon Arbuckle with a... car parked in a driveway sideways, cut that out of a magazine, stick it in... Replace him there in the second panel with a... a food processor... Okay, and then we put a picture of the planet in the third panel over Garfield...
It still works.
These are universal proportions. I don't know... how best to explain why it works, I've studied the pipe strip, and analyzed Jon and Garfield's proportions against several universal mathematical constants.
E, Pi, the Golden Ratio, the Feigenbaum Constants, and so on... and it's surprising... scary even, how things align. You can take just... tiny pieces of the pipe strip, for instance, take Jon's elbow from the second panel... and take that, and project it back over Jon's entire shape in the second panel, and you'll see a near perfect Fibonacci sequence emerge...
It's eerie to me... and it makes you wonder if you're in the presence of a deity, if there is some larger hand at work...
There's no doubt in my mind that Jim Davis is a smart man...
Jim Davis is capable of anything to me... He is remarkable, but this is so far beyond that, I think we might see that... this work of art is revered and respected in years to come.
Jim Davis is possibly a new master of the craft, a... a genius of the eye; they very well may say the same things about Jim Davis in five hundred years that we say about the great philosophical and artistic masters from centuries ago... Jim Davis is a modern day Socrates, or... Da Vinci... mixing both striking visual beauty with classical, daring, unheard-of intellect...
Look, he combines these things to make profoundly simple expressions...
This strip is his masterpiece... The Pipe Strip is his masterpiece... and it is a masterpiece and a marvel...
I often look at Garfield's... particular pose, in this strip. He is poised, and statuesque... and his cat stare is reminiscent of the fiery gazes often found in religious iconography... But still, his eyes are playful, lying somewhere between the solemn father's expression in... Rembrandt's "Return of the Prodigal Son," and the coy smirk of Da Vinci's "Saint John The Baptist".
His ears stick up, signifying a peaked readiness... It's as if he could, at any moment, pounce; he is, after all, a close relative and descendant of the mighty jungle cats of Africa that could leap... after prey. You could see the power drawn into Garfield's hind quarters, powerful haunches indeed.
The third panel.
And I'm just saying this now, this is just coming to me now... The third panel of the pipe strip is essentially a microcosm for the entire strip itself... All the power dynamics, the struggle for superiority, right?
WHO has the pipe? WHERE is the pipe? All of that is drawn, built, layered into Garfield's iconic pose here. You can see it in the curl of his tail... Garfield's ear whiskers stick up, on end, the smoke billows, upward... drawing the eye upward... increasing the scope...
I'm just... amazed... really, that after 33 years of reading, and analyzing the same comic strip, I'm able to find new dimensions. It's a testament to the work...
For six years, I delved into tobacco research, because... can a cat smoke? This is a metaphysical question... Yes, can any cat smoke? Do we know? Can just Garfield smoke?
The research says no. Nicotine poisoning can kill animals, especially household pets. All it takes is the nicotine found in as little as a single cigarette.
[ *Okamoto M, Kita T, Okuda H, Tanaka T, Nakashima T (Jul 1994). "Effects of aging on acute toxicity of nicotine in rats". Pharmacol Toxicol. 75 (1): 1-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0773.1994.tb00316.x. PMID 7971729 ]
Surely, Jon's pipe hold a substantial amount of tobacco, and it is true that pets living in the homes of smokers are nearly 25% more likely to develop some form of cancer... most likely due to secondhand smoke... but these are facts of smoking, its tolls on our world.
But after visiting two tobacco processing plants in Virginia... and the Phillip Morris cigarette manufacturing facility, I came no closer to cracking the meaning. I was looking for any insight. A detective of a homicide case has to look at every angle, so I'm always taking apart the pipe strip. I focused on every minutiae, every detail of this strip.
Jon Arbuckle's clothing... I have replicas. I'm an expert in textiles... so, you see, this smoking thing was a hang-up for me... but it was the statement here... until...
This is key, this is the breakthrough.
The pipe is not a pipe, really.
Obviously there is symbolism at work here... I saw that from the beginning, and I looked at the literal aspects of the strip to gain insight into the metaphors at play... I worked at a newspaper printing press for eighteen months, in the late 1980's... I was learning the literal to inform the gestural... the subliteral, the in-between...
Jon reading this newspaper means so much more than just... Jon reading the newspaper... but how could you ever hope to decipher the puzzle without knowing everything there is to know about newspapers?!
Okay... for example... Jon holds his newspaper up with his left hand, thumb gripping the interior. I learned that this particular grip here was the newspaper grip of nineteenth century aristocrats... and this aristocrat grip was a point of contention that influenced the decision to move forward with prohibition... in the United States, in the early twentieth century!
So Jon's hand position is much more than that, it... it is a comment on class war... and the resulting reactionary culture... but I didn't know about the aristocratic newspaper grip until I came across some microfiche archives at the printing press.
It's about information. You have to take it apart.
...and the breakthrough on the smoking cat came late... just eight years ago, actually. "Smoking cat" is an industry term. It's what the smoking industry calls a tattletale teenager who tells on his friends after they've all tried smoking for the first time... and it is actually a foreign translation, bastardization of the term "smoking rat"... But the phrase was confused when secret documents went back and forth between China and America...
These documents are still secret, and the only reason I know about the term is because I know a man, my friend. Let's call him "Timothy," yeah... yes, it's a fake name, for his protection. Timothy worked for Phillip Morris for sixteen years, and he had seen the documents... and when he told me, it was an Aha moment... and he said, "But how? How could this cartoonist, Jim Davis, know about this... obscure term from the mid-70's, used exclusively by a few cigarette companies!?"
This is still a mystery to me... but I connect the dots by noting Jim Davis' childhood experiences on a farm. He must have seen something...
What could it be?
Timothy went on to tell me there was one particular smoking cat, a boy, from... yes, Indiana, a boy named Ernie Barguckle, who became a thorn in the side of the tobacco companies for a couple of years... He did more than tattle to his parents; he and his family took legal action, and they eventually received a huge settlement payout...
But that name is too similar... Ernie Barguckle...
Jon Arbuckle.
Jim Davis must have used this.
There's more here. Ernie Barguckle spent nearly half of that settlement money on experimental medical procedures to cure his... impotence. He was impotent.
So... he was a smoking cat with a... a metaphorical pipe, that did not work... Are you starting to see the layers here? This is exciting stuff, you start to get a whole picture here, and it informs the work! It's... it's just remarkable.
Jim Davis took these raw ideas, these... pieces, and he transformed them into smart social commentary that is... all so ravishingly beautiful.
I have cried.
I've cried, I've cried... I've cried, cried over this piece. It just... gets in my soul.
I try to explain this to people, I have... the newspaper articles about Ernie Barguckle... People have fought me on this, they don't see it, or they're close-minded, "How could a comic strip about a cat smoking a pipe mean any more than that?"
But it is more... and when I feel spiritual, or start to think existentially, I still see this comic.
Here's something from 1981 that I wrote in thinking about the implications of this strip; this is just an excerpt here... there's more before and after, but this part is the essence to me... If a comic about a cat smoking a pipe can be the only thing in the universe... then maybe this is the strongest evidence for that.
fumbles with tattered sheet from 1981
"Many of you say, 'Oh, but I am not blind. I have never been blind,'... But when you truly see, you will understand just how truly blind you once were to even think it right to say you were not blind.
What does a blind man see?
Blackness. Darkness. Blankness. Blank darkness. Dark blankness.
The absence of things, quite literally NO thing. No things. Nothings.
So, you see nothing, and I bring you into the light. A cat has your pipe! You've been blind, do you understand this!?
The cat has your pipe.
You can't fully immerse yourself, you don't have the light. You don't have the radiance, the radical light, the radically radiant light of truth and truth's belonging love, and nature of light, and loving truthful radiance.
So don't be bold, and make bold statements. I know of you.
The cat has your pipe.
The. Cat. Has. Your. Pipe.
Remember that."
puts paper back in pocket
That writing, well... It's kind of rough... Kind of an... early eighties feel... and I see that, but I'm still... I'm still proud of it.
Sometimes I imagine that it is the editorial column in the newspaper Jon Arbuckle is reading. It's an exercise in recursion, it's like a vortex opens up... It's like you hold two mirrors up to each other, one is reality and the other is a cartoon strip.
Let's see here... Oh yes, I must bring this up, because I think, surely, Jim Davis is again speaking on multiple levels by including the details set before us in the comic.
Notice the glimpse of Jon Arbuckle's foot in the first panel. The size of the shoe would indicate that maybe the man just has small feet... but a deeper investigation takes us to the footbinding rituals of certain Asian cultures. Inflicted usually on women for the desire of men, this practice was incredibly painful and crippling...
Aha! Mister Davis is, here, presenting us with a man, or rather... "man", who engages in footbinding, a body modification for women, on top of "being without his pipe"... or impotent. This is a man facing extreme inner turmoil, the panels tell that story... subconsciously.
Notice the background wall shading of the first panel points inward toward Jon in the second panel... and the sharp tapered end of the purple pipe in the third frame also points at John in the second panel, inward; the eye is drawn to the center panel. You can connect these points and draw a triangle across the panels, and this triangle will align with the reoriented points of Jon's collar! This, this is majestic artwork!
...and to uncover this hidden order is... bliss like I've never known.
Comforting, in an empty world.
I can't help but read the thought bubble, over and over again.
Now where could my pipe be?
Now where could my pipe be?
It is a profound question.
Why am I here? What is my purpose? It is reflection and self-examination here. It is facing the dust, the misery of a cold, careless universe. You can feel the weight of it.
But where could my pipe be?
One imagines the author, Jim Davis, teetering on the edge of insanity... his rationality, his lucidity, hovering over the void... and he seeks the truth.
You can see it in the line quality of the drawings; the thoughtful, controlled outlines mixed with the... occasional, chaotic scribbles at work in the shadows and Garfield's dark stripes.
It's almost as if Garfield is chaos himself.
Yes, he is the embodiment of chaos, disorder, hatred, fear... Thievery, death, destruction, desolation!
These are the things Garfield represents; HE stole the pipe, HE sits with his back to Jon, Garfield... Garfield, this chaos cat, Garfield has turned his back on everything, everyone!
One recalls the great existential forces in literature... Camus' Meursalt, Kafka's Gregor Samsa, or Sartre's Antoine Roquentin... Garfield the Cat sees the hopelessness of life, which...ah, yes...
This is why Jim Davis has chosen smoking. It represents a recklessness, a... a disregard for what some would define as the beauty of life. Garfield may die from the nicotine, he may not... He defies life; he sits defiant, saying nothing, but looking as if he could say... "Then let me die... it does not matter."
It does not matter.
...and we are faced with this; Could Jon behave the same? Is Jon the glimmer of hope?
He seems to be unsure. Again, his question... "Now where could my pipe be?" indicates that he is wrestling with his own existence. The center panel centers the issue, and again, this hearkens to many of the great religious works of art.
I'm talking about the Pipe Strip in relation to religion. It's... it's interesting to assign the roles of God... and anti-God, or, as many know him to be, the devil... or on a much larger scale, simply the forces of... good and evil. Garfield, the thief-cat, evil and malicious... He is the devil, placed to the right... and note, the two forms of Jon; the Jon on the left, still innocent, still draped in the... delight, of the lack of knowledge. He is... the humans in the Garden of Eden. He feels for his pipe... but he has yet to eat from the tree... and Garfield, the sinister serpent... and notice, notice how Jim Davis has framed this... The center Jon is locked in a struggle, between his innocence, and his knowledge of the truth... knowledge of the existence of evil.
It is stunning. The great struggle, the struggle that transcends time... and Jim Davis floats over all this, as creator... the God, of sorts, in his own right.
... and he presents this cautionary message to us all; it is as if he is speaking from high and... he is saying, unto our awaiting ears...
Where will you be, when the cat reveals himself? [-Jim 7:27:78]
I can tell you where you'll be. You will have a choice; you can face endless suffering, and eternal misery... You can be forced and beaten down with barbarians, who claw at each other just for a view of salvation. They'll tear your eyeballs out, and rip your gizzards from end to end. They worship this cat, this... this false idol! This evil, horrible cat, do not be seduced by the cat and the pipe!
Garfield... thy name is a mark of the demons of hell. Something like this, and to those listening, it is a stark reminder to follow the path of the first panel Jon; be humble, be grateful, honor the law, and honor thyself. Be true, and be good, and no harm will come to you... Pray for salvation, and it will be granted unto you. Be like Jon Arbuckle, as he lowers his head. Be like Jon Arbuckle as he lowers his paper, as he turns his head. Bow with Jon Arbuckle, and praise unto the creator, Jim Davis... and banish demon Garfield from your life.
So, what is all this? What am I saying? Aha... hmm... What does all this mean? Why is this one comic strip so important to me... and why do I feel the need to share this?
Obligation. I have an obligation to you all. This is a redemption, this is a belief in redemption, a sacrifice of all the obvious trappings of this false modern life.
Look at the simplicity in this strip, in the pipe strip. Look at the simple clothes Jon wears, look at his simple, basic furniture... No adornments on the wall, even the very pipe his cat Garfield stole; it is a plain, modest pipe... and I have adapted this way of life, it speaks to me.
In our times... well... you don't need me to point out the hyperbole of our times; you have children being born eight or nine at a time, you have more money being spent on a single Hollywood movie than some nations can spend... feeding their starving people. Torture, distrust... Look around you, it's overwhelming.
What can you contribute?
...and every day, I look in the mirror, and I hold this comic up to the mirror, and I look into the mirror, and at this little comic strip.
Be humble.
Be thankful.
It is a reminder, be respectful.
You are a statue. You are fragile... and when you break, when you shatter... Where will those pieces go?
Ask... ask, ask, ask this question. Will you ask?
Humankind is only as great as you, YOU, the individual, it begins and ends with you! You must treat this expedition, this search, this... life, with a reverence and intensity found only in the smallest sticks. The littlest leaf, the tiniest stone! The most miniscule grain of sand... on a beach of billions!
This is the secret.
Do you want the pipe?
Do you want to know where the pipe has gone?
You ask yourself, you ask... you ask... you ask...
Now where could my pipe be?
When I was a young man... remember, now, I first saw this comic when I was eighteen years old... Ages ago... but I was youthful, vibrant. For weeks, I didn't hide that a comic strip was having such a profound effect on me.
I was much like Jon Arbuckle. In this middle panel, he says, "Now where could my pipe be?"... you could look into his eyes, his half-lowered eyes, and think to yourself... "Now, surely, Jon... Surely, you cannot be this naive... This is nothing new for you..."
And if you've read more of the Garfield comic strips by Jim Davis, you understand what I am saying now; Garfield the cat does things like this all the time. He will take things from Jon; food, items, anything... This is his very nature.
So you see this, and you want to say, "Jon Arbuckle, come now. You are lying to yourself. You are lying to yourself, and to all of us, if you pretend to have not... any idea of where your pipe has gone. Perhaps you think you've left it somewhere else, but... hmph, you're not so forgetful. You are lying to yourself, ah... yes...
You are lying to yourself, Jon Arbuckle. You know that Garfield has the pipe... somewhere, deep down, you know this. You don't even need to think the question."
And that was me when I saw this strip. One week passed, and each morning I'd open my drawer and slam it shut again. I would go to look at the comic... but I'd pause, and think... "Oh no, I don't need this comic, I don't n... I don't NEED to look at it..."
But there I was, lying to myself.
I DID need to see it, and so I did, it's... cathartic. You give in, and that is the transition, from the second panel of life, to the third panel of life! It is a simple story structure, the passage from the second act to the third, the twilight of things. Jon gives into his suspicions; he knows the truth, he's ALWAYS known the truth, he yells out, "GARFIELD! GARFIELD! GARFIELD!"
It is like... pressure from a steam valve, being released; the buildup is unbearable, and then... PSSHHWW, it's gone.
So it is like this... when I speak about the truth... the truth, the light, the radiance, this... this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. This is the essence of this brilliant work of art, the practical mixing, meeting, agreeing with the spiritual, it is all HERE.
...but spirituality is not an easy thing to confront. You might find yourself able to wrap your mind around a simple math problem, or a basic newspaper article, or... but intellect... is much less subjective.
What is spirituality... and how have I found spiritual peace and serenity in Garfield?
A long time ago, after I encountered the Pipe Strip... I spent some time, as I mentioned before, soul-searching. When something impacts you, or alters your very perception so greatly, there is a long period of confusion, recovery time...
It's as if you don't know who you are, and that can be a... a very scary prospect, especially if you thought you had a good grasp on that sort of thing.
Imagine if Jim Davis did not know who he was. Would he be capable of shaping the cultural landscape as he's done?
No. No, of course he wouldn't.
...and how about his characters? Jon... what if Jim Davis suddenly woke up, and didn't know who Jon was? What if he couldn't make the informed decisions to accurately depict Garfield's personality, because of... he could no longer specify, or demarcate the boundaries of Garfield's behavior?
What kind of comic would THAT be? You see?
So draw the parallel. I saw this comic and, yes, I was disoriented... and if I didn't reconcile this issue with myself, what kind of person would I be?
Undoubtedly dire circumstances, but remember; this was not a math problem, this was not an article, this was not something I could just... figure out... and as skeptical as I was, I realized that faith and spirituality were avenues that... required exploring.
At first I tried... long nights, reading Garfield by candlelight, or... aromatic meditation settings, while thinking of Garfield, but... nothing snapped. Nothing clicked, I still felt lost... but I kept it up, I hired a shaman, and a young... personal Yogi Sikh Guru; Avram Dahb Singh Sahib. I pushed and pushed, determined to find myself.
And then, a miracle happened.
Upon retrieving my morning paper, to clip the Garfield comic... I noticed a young girl, selling lemonade two houses down. She sat, occupied at her stand. She had no customers in sight.
So, I approached, and saw that she was coloring. I looked at her drawing...
Three rectangular boxes.
A man, in a blue shirt. An orange cat.
I knew what this was. Even in her crude scribbles, I knew EXACTLY what this was.
She was drawing a Garfield comic.
I looked at her words, and I saw that, in her strip, Jon asked Garfield to retrieve a newspaper. Heh, funny... since I'd done just that with myself... Garfield is sarcastic, but agrees to. He returns and calls Jon... "Sahib".
Jon exclaims that the paper's all chewed up, but then Garfield says, and I quote, "Sahib asks fish, paper is wet. Sahib asks cat, paper is holey." I remember the words, and ran back to my house, and thought, "How odd that Sahib shows up in the strip, and my spiritual advisor's name is Avram Dahb Singh Sahib!"
Coincidence surely, but, nonetheless, I spent the next sixteen hours poring through my clipped Garfield comics, looking for the strip this young girl had been coloring... I couldn't find it... and I eventually fell asleep, right on my kitchen table.
Next morning, I retrieved my paper again, and I clipped the Garfield comic. The date was July 12th, 1983.
There it was.
The Sahib Strip, in all its glory.
The girl had been drawing the next day's strip!
So, I ran right out of my house, I ran back to where she was... but she was gone, and in place of the lemonade stand was a "For Sale" sign.
They'd moved out.
I rushed back to my house to call Avram, but... I was informed that he'd moved away as well. I reeled, for several hours, and then it all connected for me.
It was meant to be. It w... it was meant to be this way! Jim Davis... Jon, Garfield... It was always meant to be this way for me.... They move to the forefront, and everything else fades away, EVERYTHING else; the girl, the lemonade stand, Avram Dahb Singh Sahib, it all existed to show me the way, and when I'd found the way...
Everything else melted away.
It was a beautiful miracle... and if July 27th, 1978, the day I first saw the pipe strip... was the first day of my life, then that day, July 12th, 1983, was the second day of my life.
I've never looked back. Garfield has transformed me... and I am a man, born anew, because of Garfield.
When I was in my mid-thirties, I was interviewed for a documentary... It was a documentary on the subject of cat behavior. Now, I've had cats my whole life; I have three cats now, and at the time of this documentary interview, I had four cats. I sat down for the interview and was joined by a veterinarian who specialized in felines: Doctor Caroline Wellmitz was her name, I believe... and the doctor discussed colorblindness in animals, and how it affects their behavior.
She specifically brought up the fact that cats are red-green colorblind; they can see colors, but they can't tell the difference between red and green ...and look at the color choice in this strip here.
Garfield sits on a green floor, behind a pinkish red wall.
I heard this, and I immediately pulled a copy of the comic from my wallet to show to the doctor... I moved so fast, I'm sure I nearly scared her, I... pointed at the paper and said, "Like this! Like this! Look, at this here! This cat, Garfield, he's colorblind, he must be! That must be the answer here... like this."
As over-excited as I was, I managed to take in her response; she said "Yes, a cat in this room would have a hard time differentiating the wall from the floor. Add to that a cat's known spatial confusion, and you have the makings of a Cat Rage room." Now, she informed me that this isn't exactly common knowledge among cat owners... but a seasoned cat owner, or someone particularly perceptive will have picked up on it.
So what's incredible here is not only is Garfield's behavior symbolic of the devil, and all the evil constructs in the world, but... but, but... but also, it is rooted in science and scientific fact.
Look at that. You cannot spell fact without "cat".
Hah, just a little joke there... just some wordplay, but getting back on track...
...and you can't spell track without "cat."
Okay... I digress. I gotcha, I gotcha, enough... kidding around.
It is established here that Garfield is in a rage; an ultimate rage of fury and hatred, caused by colorblindness. We know the "what", we know the "why"... but let us examine the "how", the how of his rage is particularly interesting here.
We've looked at his posture and called it "powerful", "in control", "statuesque", "etc., etc." Composed rage... It's peculiar, and I've talked to a number of psychologists and psychiatrists, and even a couple of anger management therapists about this concept...
Could we see the same kind of behavior in a human? Is Garfield representative of something more specific than just chaos and rage? Deciphering this is going to take some perseverance. for sure.
The psychologists pointed to a phenomenon in humans, and, yes, I believe one of the anger management counselors brought it up as well. The idea that people, oftentimes, will bottle their rage... Garfield the cat, here... well, he could be bottling his anger, inside, shoving it deep into his cat gut, to ignore and deal with at a later time.
Eh, well... No, that's not exactly right. Garfield has already acted out, he's already stolen the pipe... he's SMOKING the pipe, he's already dealt with his anger. He's already lashed out, so, psychologically, what is going on here? What is this cat doing, and how does it impact his owner, Jon Arbuckle... psychologically?
Well, Garfield is angry. He is acting on his anger... but is this passive anger, or aggressive anger?
Passive. It is passive because if Garfield has a problem with Jon specifically... he's choosing a passive way of dealing with that problem. He has not confronted Jon, and said, "Jon, I have a problem with the way you've decorated this room; as a cat, I am colorblind, and this room sends me into a rage... You've created a rage room for me here, and I don't like it; I want you to change it."
Instead of that confrontational approach, though, Garfield has chosen to steal Jon's pipe... and that, in turn, angers Jon... but Jon decides to be aggressively angry, and yell at Garfield, so... now, instead of a calm conversation between two respectful parties, you have two... heated, angry individuals, each with a problem and no direct line to solving it.
The layered emotions here tell a story with tight, focused brevity that would make Hemingway weep. This is an entire drama, in just three panels, people.
...but let's not be remiss, and miss the humor of the situation, the... absurdity of it all... for certainly, there is a reason that the visual shorthand for drama includes both the crying mask AND a laughing mask. Comedy and tragedy complement each other, and meld together to create drama, tension, the height of humanity, the peak of art, that reflects back to us our own condition...
...and here... in its basest form, we can laugh at this comic... yes, COMIC, in which a cat smokes a pipe... Hah... when was the last time you've SEEN such a thing in your life?
Never, I presume... I certainly never have...
The Greek muse, Thalia's presence is strong in this work of art, here. Comedy, it is COMEDY... and if you look at the structure again, you'll see this perfect form of thirds works magically for the transmission of, yes, YES, a JOKE.
The joke.... is as old as time... even cavemen told jokes, and the joke here is that Jon has lost his pipe... or he thinks he has... but lo and behold, it is the cat, Garfield, who has the pipe.
Surprise, surprise, the cat is smoking!
Again, the transition, from set-up to punchline takes place between the second and third panels... but make no mistake, the comic is more than just a comic... Yes, it IS funny, of course it is... it is operating at the height of sophisticated humor, on par with any of Shakespeare's piercing wit.
On the one hand, Garfield the comic, with Jon the man, humor as art... the other hand, Garfield comic, with Jon the man, stirring... no, RIVETING drama... as with everything, it is tension, and release. TENSION... and RELEASE...
A cycle.
I keep returning to this idea, because it is so omnipresent. Yes, you could... and yes, I have done this, on more than one occasion... you could print this comic strip on a giant piece of paper. The dimensions would be something like... thirty-four inches by eleven inches.
Now, tape the ends together, with the comic facing inward. Stick your head in the middle of this Garfield comic loop and READ, start at the first panel; Jon is reading the newspaper... he feels for something on the end table.
Second panel; he sets the newspaper down, something is not right...
"Where could my pipe be?" he thinks.
...and then, the payoff; the third panel, Garfield has Jon's pipe, and is smoking it.
But, aha! The paper is in a loop, around your head... so that you can see that, once again, Jon is in his seat, reading the paper... and so on, and so on, you can literally read the comic strip for an eternity!
I spent many a relaxing Sunday afternoon reading this strip, over and over... reminded of the Portuguese death carvings, which always begin and end with the same scrawled image.
[fig. 6b - Portuguese Death Carving c. 1330]
So, this idea of repetition, of the beginning being the end, and the end being the beginning... It's not new, it is an ageless tradition among the best storytellers humanity has ever offered... and I'm not wrong to include cartoonist Jim Davis in that exalted set for this particular strip alone
I'm not foolish enough to deny that great art is subjective... divisive, even, and that some people see this Garfield comic and shrug with no real reaction... but I will say that I believe everyone in the world should see it; at the very least, see it!
You should all see it. Read it. Spend some time with it. Spend an hour reading it... what's an hour? Yes, you could watch some television program, you could play some fast-paced video games or computer games, yes, you could do all those things...
But it's just an hour... and if you give this strip a chance, if you look into Jon Arbuckle's eyes... if you look into Jon Arbuckle's SOUL...
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Shaun the Sheep Movie (Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, 2015)
Cast (voices): Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Omid Djalili, Richard Webber, Kate Harbour, Tim Hands, Andy Nyman, Simon Greenall, Emma Tate, Jack Paulson, Sean Connolly. Screenplay: Mark Burton, Richard Starzak. Cinematography: Charles Copping, David Alex Riddett. Production design: Matt Perry. Film editing: Sim Evan-Jones. Music: Ilan Eshkeri.
The look of Aardman Animations' stop-motion characters hasn't changed much in the years since the first Wallace and Gromit short in 1990, though the humanoid characters have become more diverse. We now see people of color, including a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, on the street. And the basic slapstick humor hasn't changed, either. It still has that essentially British overtone, even in Shaun the Sheep Movie, which has no intelligible dialogue. I doubt, for example, that Pixar, even though its films are perceptibly influenced by Aardman, would venture into the kind of fart jokes and the gags based on the anus of a pantomime horse that are on display in this movie. And all of that is to the good. For what the Aardman films do so well -- especially the ones by Nick Park, who created Shaun and his colleagues, and is listed as executive producer on this film -- is revive the fine art of Sennett and Chaplin and Keaton and Arbuckle, the masters of silent slapstick comedy. Aardman has the advantage that its actors are clay and not flesh, so they can undergo assaults that would obliterate even so resilient an actor as Buster Keaton, but it succeeds in making its characters believable by putting limits on the mayhem. We know that the actors are putty in the hands of the animators, and yet somehow we wince at their peril when they're trapped by the villain on the edge of what a sign describes as "Convenient Quarry." (One of the delights of the movie, which make you want to watch it again, are the blink-and-you-miss-it gags on the fringe of the action, like that sign.) Shaun the Sheep Movie was nominated for the best animated feature Oscar, but lost to Pixar's brilliant Inside Out. These are grand times indeed for animation.
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Fear and Loathing in Benidorm
Mark Arbuckle: Glasgow, July 2023
As Summer holidays are now in full swing, I am reminded of my first ever foreign holiday, to Benidorm in August 1975.
I’d been to Malta the previous year but that was for an International Schools Basketball tournament and didn’t really count as a holiday.
Peter, my great friend, who’d already been there with his family three times before, suggested that we go…
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#1975#70s#70s music#Bee Gees#Benidorm#Budget Holidays#Fanta#featured#Holidays#Luton#Mark Arbuckle#memories#Seventies#TIO PEPE- FOCKINK- TIA MARIA#Torre Dorada#Typicallt Tropical
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The Jonicles - Entry 29
It is currently the 31st of October, 2022 at 4:51 am, the morning of a very spooktacular day: Halloween!! You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this day even though they always have school on this day for some... stupid reason... That's like having school on your birthday... But now is not the time to be gloomy! Tonight is the night of binging scary movies, playing your favourite horror games and making yourself sick from eating too much junk food all night! Today also marks the #165th day of my Jon Arbuckle hyperfixation!!
You know, Garfield isn't a stranger to celebrating holidays at all. He celebrates Christmas, New Years, his birthday, Thanksgiving because he's weird and lives in America, and finally the spooky day itself, Halloween. When they were making the cartoons back in the 80s, they made these holiday specials - around three to be exact - and the Halloween one was the one I watched the most as a child!
I remember sitting down on the floor in front of the TV at my old house when I would have been around five or younger, and the Garfield Halloween special would be playing. It's nostalgic to think back to that special and remembering Garfield having a musical number about deciding what to dress up as, going out into the night with Odie, finding that spooky old house and being told of the story of these ghost pirates from the weird old guy living in the house. The ghost pirates were definitely the one thing that stuck out to me the most.
The old man in the house tells the story of these pirates that once plundered the seas looking for treasure, but as they found their riches, they had to bury it for their doom would soon come iiii'm not actually too sure what happened to them... But they swore that come 100 years on that very Halloween night where Garfield and Odie stood, they would return to claim their riches as ghastly spirits right at midnight. A ghostly ship that rippled in the wind soon came sailing across the water towards the house, promptly scaring our two heros shitless in the process. They were horrific, undeadly, spooky and they wanted their treasure. They chased Garfield and Odie away, leaving them to fend for themselves, desperate to get back home...
The special also had plenty of other memorable bits (at least to me anyway), like our favourite boy Jon looking absolutely bored out of his mind scooping pumpkin guts out from a carved Jack-O-Lantern and being startled so hard by what he thought was a ghost that the carved fruit (is it a fruit? it has seeds...) landed right on the lad's head. There was also the aforementioned song number about Garfield deciding who he'd dress up as for Halloween, eventually coming to the conclusion that him and Odie would be pirates! It's funny because as a child, I used to have this plush Garfield who was dressed up like a little pirate. Actually, it was my dad's, but the little thing was fun to play with. I don't know where the guy went, we moved houses years ago and he seemed to disappear. He was most likely donated but I miss him...
A-Anyway, the two both go plundering out i to the night as two pirates, Garfy baby being the captain and Odie as his crewmate. They have this smooth jazzy number about how Garfield isn't a scardey cat, he's all good, nothing to eb afraid of! ...Before promptly being scared by everyone's spooky costumes when they realise some of them aren't who they appear to be before they find a boat and row to the house. At the end of the special, when they've been scared shitless by the ghost pirates and collected their goods, Garfield has a tough choice to make. He's got two bags of lollies (because that's what we call candy here in Australia), and he's gotta decide: Does he keep them for himself, or pass one on to his old buddy Odie? Garfield made it clear at the beginning of the special that he'd use Odie to get two times as much lollies (or candy) and keep it all to himself, but... Ultimately, with Odie being his bestie, his bro and saving him back at that ghost pirate blunder, he decides to give Odie his share of lollies and goes to sleep for the night... Not before seeing that creepy old guy wearing his pirate hat on TV!
There's other pieces of Halloween media related to Garfield too, but most likely, you already know about these ones. Back in the 80s, Jim Davis created a series of strips for Halloween where Garfield wakes up to find his home completely abandoned and boarded up. As he ventures deeper into his home, he finds out that he's just been here for years and his beloved Jon and Odie have been long gone. Unable to face the truth of the inevitability of time and probably slowly starving to death, Garfield realises he's only one weapon: Denial. Jon and Odie soon phase back into existense and Garfield meets the both of them with an embrace, revealing Jon and Odie to merely be a figment of Garfield's warped imagination. This comic is freaky, it makes such a scary concept - the inevitability of time and death - even scarier by having Garfield be trapped in a reality where he doesn't exist and be in complete denial. It's both relatable and depressing. Time is such a horrifying thing and you don't realise how much you care about something or someone until they're gone because of time. That's already powerful in itself, but I think the last panel has the most punch. It reads:
"An imagination can be a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice... Or terrify, all depending upon how we conduct ourselves today."
There's also the Garfield's Scary Scavenger Hunt games, which I may make a separate entry about! I never played those as a child, but I remember hearing about them through learning about Lyman's disappearance. There was a long gap where I didn't read much Garfield between when I was a kid and when my Jon fixation started, so I never really played Scary Scavenger Hunt when I was little despite having played a bunch of flash games. But, it's still a great spooky duo of games that definitely is worth a mention!
So, with all that said, have a Happy Halloween, folks! Lets hope your day is scary and spooky and full of treats and surprises! And for those who don't celebrate Halloween, have yourselves a great day regardless! If you don't mind, I'm off to watch a bunch of spooky stuff, rewatch the Garfield special and play Luigi's Mansion for the day... As long as I don't have any school, that is...
Last edited at 5:46 am. Happy Spooky Month!!
Cheers,
Your Local Jonnoissuer
Posted on the 31st of October, 2022 at 5:50.
#jonicles 29#HAPPY SPOOKY DAY!!!!#aw man i LOVE halloween#halloween is fuckin epic#i get to be all spooky and weird and scary and have an excuse#blasting monster mash all night#its great man
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Sid Smith (with Marvel Rea) in Nonsense (1920, Jack White)
Pencil-mustachioed Smith worked for Keystone briefly in 1917, but returned more prominently when teamed with Billy Bevan in Del Lord-directed comedies in 1924 like Lizzies of the Field.
A Fairbault, Minnesota native, Smith started in motion pictures in 1911 with Pathé Western under the direction of James Youngdeer, appearing in films such as Her Son, The Bullet's Mark and The Blind Gypsy. He joined Selig around 1913, appearing in Castles in the Air, the three-reeler Garrison's Finish, Her Victory Internal and Tale of a Coat. Smith played Mickey in "The Red Head" series and appeared in their "Chronicles of Bloom Center" series in 1915.
He married Ruth Beckman on Mar 17, 1915, and they divorced in Apr 1921.
Smith's first starring series came with Alkire Photoplays, and in 1920 he made 26 Holly Comedies for Bulls Eye, featuring Paul Parrott and under the direction of Robert Kerr. Smith supported Monty Banks in his Warner comedies, and in 1921-22 he appeared opposite a succession of other comedians in the successful "Hallroom Boys" series for CBC/Federated. Smith made some shorts for Grand Asher in 1923 and starred in Jack White's Cameo Comedies in 1923-24, before his work at Sennett. Smith had appeared as "Ramon Alfaro" in the feature The Ne'er Do Well(Selig) in 1916, and repeated his role in the 1923 Famous Players-Lasky version. He also appeared in Kismet(Waldorf 1920), and starred in many shorts for Al Christie during the 1920s, for Paramount and Pizor in 1927 and for Goodart in 1928. In 1928, Smith was featured in two World War 1 spoof features for Anchor, Dugan of the Dugouts and Top Sergeant Mulligan.
Smith's death in at 36, was attributed to his having imbibed bad liquor at a Malibu beach party. He left his father J.L. Smith of Fairbault, Minnesota, and brother J.C. Smith of Des Moines, Iowa, and is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
-Walker, B.E., 2010, Mack Sennett's Fun Factory, McFarland&Company, Inc., Publishers, p.543
The director Jack White(center)'s childhood days in Fatty Joins the Force (1913)
A neighborhood kid from Edendale, White appeared in a couple of 1913-14 Keystones (such as the boy who gives Fatty Arbuckle a pie in the face in Fatty Joins the Force). White also briefly worked the Sennett switchboard, but was fired for putting a call through to Ford Sterling that lured the star comedian to another lot. White wound up producing comedies for Educational in the 1920s that competed with Sennett's.
-Walker, B.E., 2010, Mack Sennett's Fun Factory, McFarland&Company, Inc., Publishers, p.597
#nonsense 1920#produced by#jack white#jack white comedies#sid smith#marvel rea#fatty joins the force 1913#책 인용
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Movie Review: The Garfield Movie is joke-free entertainment for a new generation
Much has already been said here and in other places about the adaptations of characters no longer for the big or small screen but rather what is aimed at the new generations, characters that aim to entertain in a modern world carrying a clearer and more current message about the things they occupy.
The above may or may not work partially, some will be interested and others will think that this has nothing original or new beyond wanting to compete and fill places in a movie theater or be the star of the moment on the list of a streaming platform.
One of these characters was born from the creative mind of Jim Davis in 1976 in a comic strip format originally published locally as Jon and then distributed nationally starting in 1978 as Garfield, a cat who lives intense adventures with his son. human owner Jon Arbuckle and his inseparable companion the dog Odie, a cynical, selfish, boastful character who loves coffee and lasagna, has been liked by locals and strangers over the years, with the 1980s being when he had his greatest popularity worldwide.
The popular comic strips that appeared in newspapers were compiled in 1980, having 79 volumes in a black and white booklet format and the special ones in color. One of the special characteristics they have is that the titles refer to the weight of the feline, The complete collection is titled Garfield Fat Cat, and the Ballantine publishing house has new editions now called Garfield Classics that have been printed and distributed since 2001.
Comic books, posters, t-shirts, folders, notebooks, collectible stuffed animals, stamps, and endless items have been part of their merchandising over the decades, animated series and television specials enjoyed great success among which we can mention Garfield and Friends (1988), The Garfield Show (2009), Garfield Originals (2019) and the specials Here Comes Garfield (1982), Garfield's Halloween Adventure (1985), Garfield Goes Hollywood (1987), A Garfield Christmas (1987) and Garfield's Thanksgiving (1989), his time on the big screen was with Garfield: The Movie (2004) by director Peter Hewitt and its sequel Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006) by director Tim Hill.
In 2024, this popular feline has a new opportunity with The Garfield Movie directed by Mark Dindal, a film that promises to be a reinvention of the character with a new origin story and a great adventure.
What is the movie about?
Garfield (Chris Pratt) is a Monday-hating, lasagna-loving house cat who is about to have an adventure in a world away from home, after meeting his long-lost father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) this cat in the company of his inseparable friend Odie (Harvey Guillén) is forced to abandon the life they know to join Vic and save him from his pursuers to be a family although this has great risk finally.
The idea of adapting a classic character from comic strips and animated series after his previous film failures this has been a great challenge, a character with a defined personality now faces the modern world and the demands of a new generation.
This new animated film based on the comic strip by Jim Davis has been directed by Mark Dindal and written by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, and David Reynolds, taking their characters to live a new adventure that tries to be of interest to locals and strangers, Modernity does not always work and there are things to consider among them that the slightest of changes will affect the development of a successful trajectory so that new generations know and probably identify with some of them.
The Garfield Movie tells us a new origin for this cat, the film opens with a small Garfield being abandoned by his father on a rainy afternoon/night where he meets Jon Arbuckle who is having pizza for dinner in a nearby restaurant, to the sympathy of both. This man decides to adopt him take him home and give him a new home in which he will inevitably be the one who dominates and sets the rules for everyone. Years later he reunites with his father Vic, who in reality did not abandon him since in all these years he has been keeping an eye on him, what he wanted was for him to have a chance at life that he couldn't give him at that moment.
We know very well that this cat Vic is a criminal who has gotten into one problem after another that he must now face to stop escaping and have a peaceful life, but first, he will have to face a new character, Jinx ( Hannah Waddingham) a thief cat who was caught because of Vic and who now intends to make him pay for that time with a big milk theft, with the help of her canine henchmen Roland (Brett Goldstein) and Nolan (Bowen Yang) this villainess will know a side different from his rival having the opportunity to plan better revenge now also against his lost son Garfield.
In this adventure full of craziness and some nostalgic references, Garfield will have to use all his ingenuity to save his father. After the failed milk theft he meets Otto (Ving Rhames), a bull who will help him in exchange for being able to see. his girlfriend and be with her permanently, this conditional treatment will make them realize that the value they have is greater than any of their fears, and overcoming it will give them the ability to stand out on their own in a world that has considered inferior like a domestic animal and a farm animal as well as the importance of helping others face their problems and overcome them.
After half-solving the problem and returning home, they will leave it again to rescue the father who abandons him for the second time after stealing the milk. Garfield understands that his father is a stray cat and a small-time criminal who has always wanted and proof of this are the marks he has left over the years on a tree in front of Jon Arbuckle's house.
They leave one problem to enter another and things change, in a magnificent sequence aboard a train, Garfield finally saves his father and puts things in order by returning home and inviting his father to be part of his new family along with Jinx's former henchmen, finally seeing that he can belong to both worlds, the one inside and the one outside the home, that he is so adult and independent that he can live this and more adventures.
In summary, this is the story of Garfield: The movie, a film whose central plot is that of the toxic relationship between a selfish father and a dominant son who thinks and believes that he is the center of the universe and that everything his human pet possesses. It is what he rightfully deserves for being simply Garfield, with this come subplots that involve Otto the Bull, Jinx and his henchmen, and Jon Arbuckle and Odie, the narrative structure sends us from the present to the past in the very helpful flashbacks that we get providing data to understand the situation in general.
Although the film has good and very funny moments, not everything is smooth sailing, the script very conveniently relies almost for the most part on the nostalgia that is left behind to give way to a new personality of this character, from the beginning they establish the rule that Garfield can break the fourth wall by addressing us as the audience and tell us his story in his very own style based on his sympathy for the hedonism and disobedience that determine the morality of his actions and the very poor and not very credible justification of the actions. themselves.
The studio's interest in presenting a modernized and more current version of a character that is already concretely defined and whom we identify as cynical and amusingly selfish changes here using a new formula and the classic references from which it wants to move away to now have a new one. pleasanter and more entertaining personality that is in line with a new and demanding public that is more conformist every day with what is presented to them, something that cannot innovate on itself and that remains only as something that entertains adults more than the public to which it is originally directed.
This project and its final result confuse the audience, on the one hand, it tries to keep true Garfield fans interested, and on the other hand, it wants to enter the field of current technology through unintentional and poorly focused humor with jokes and jokes. that not everyone will understand if they do not have a prior background of the characters, which makes these sequences feel boring and heavy, the narrative rhythm is so convenient that it goes from something moderately interesting to something that does not have much to do with it and resumes the rhythm To make it fun, with so many changes in such a short time it is intended that we maintain interest and the opposite happens.
The script has flaws, and it is more than clear that this work is completely far from its original material, if something that characterizes this character is his peculiar way of seeing things and how he provides solutions to his problems, it is not the same humor black and cynical and with this, I am not saying that in his comic strips, he intended to educate because that is not his function but it was what gave him that more adult touch very much in the style of Schultz's Peanuts, these original materials were intended to be for children but they They were understood more by adults, it is very convenient to do it through CGI animation than another version that mixed real action with digital special effects and not because this was cheaper but because the trend now is this type of films.
It is very convenient to fall into a comfort zone that presents a preview of what could be either an animated series in this same format or a new saga of films in which we see new and "renewed" adventures of these characters, another big mistake. and it is where it loses all its essence that these animal characters move their mouths and humanize them more with more human attitudes and movements such as the fact that almost all of them walk on 2 legs, finally, it is worth mentioning that their biggest failure is in the voice cast, we were already used to it and we as an audience already identified what their personality was like.
There are many failures and its script goes more towards the side of the shameless moral discourse that the family is the most important thing, the love of a father for his children, what he is willing or not willing to do for them, family love, inclusive coexistence and acceptance of the consequences of actions and all this aims to semi-educate new audiences and identify with them in the real world, it aims to be a pseudo role model of what the path of the hero is like and the advantages that It's about being responsible in a highly competitive environment.
The film as such entertains at times but is not a precedent that can promote something more in the future, what the director and screenwriters are proposing is an origin story mixed with an adventure that involves a dysfunctional family environment and an absent villainess with his henchmen and who decides to reduce Garfield's relationship with the human who adopted him to a minimum along with his relationship with his housemate the dog Odie, this is changed by a supposed adventure that will have ups and downs and a fight between good and evil, between doing what is right and what is not.
In the case of the antagonists, we do not fully understand where she comes from, what she did before, and how she met her henchmen who ultimately redeem themselves and do the right thing. It is also not very clear to us if what they propose is that this Persian cat is the central villain. In other words, the world is full of dangers that a domestic cat has to face, Jinx's motivations are more cartoonish than something deeper, she is evil because yes, she wants revenge for having been betrayed, yes, but this is not something new, we have seen it countless times in other genres and with other actors in other situations where this can take on importance and relevance for the development of the story, here that does not happen and remains only a bad joke. of a very badly done and very mua ha ha evil.
In the end, we have as a result something lacking in emotion in a subplot of parent-child reconciliation in a climax that aims to move us in the face of the insistent comedy of entanglements and chases to have a result that may be able to keep this forward as a new way of narrating things and to give these characters the unnecessary opportunity to modernize and please everyone, it is evident that their scriptwriters did not understand what this central character was about nor did they know how to develop him, creating a new profile that would please without having to break their own rules.
The situations it poses are very hypocritical in themselves, a cat that can enter and leave a house and pretend that it can fix the world without having consequences for it, it is so comfortable to see that everything is done in favor of a very good animation but nothing impeccable, a palette of colors invented by CGI that show a partially happy world where it doesn't matter what you do or the means you use to achieve your goal because in the end you will come out ahead and you will be congratulated and loved for it.
Nobody here intends to follow a specific line of events, everything is structured so that these characters work on their own and apart from everything, the problem comes when you put together all these elements that together do not work, it is intended to be as if we were turning the pages of those old strips comics and we will go from one self-contained situation to another and so on until its end where we confirm that this work is only a commercial device that seeks to revive a merchandising franchise for old and new generations.
This is what is annoying and outrageous, that a character who could have had better treatment and who could have preserved his essence and personality is left only at the disposal of a studio that we do not know for how long he can continue to remain in force, it seems that the trend in cinema and this type of films it is about experimenting to see if it works out well for us to continue with other things that involve what it occupies and not to have quality material that can be presented and that exalts its original base in various new ways and contributes something new and enriches what we already know and above all, that we feel attracted once again to this eighties fashion.
Garfield The Movie Voice cast
The cast is made up of Chris Pratt, Samuel Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, and Snoop Dogg and once again we turn to the old and reliable they did what they could with what they had, voices that are good but do not quite fit the profile of the characters and the version dubbed into Spanish better not even talk, tries to emulate a popular folklore where every joke is transformed into something with a double meaning that does not cause the slightest thank you.
Who composed the soundtrack?
The soundtrack composed by John Debney, who has had successful works for films such as Hocus Pocus, End of Days, Sin City, and The Jungle Book, falls far short of what was expected, the musical pieces are not a complement to accompany the sequences, here everything is heard and seen separately, each thing on its own, as independent material or for an action movie it would be better placed, in this case it doesn't work.
In conclusion, The Garfield Movie 2024 is one of many animated projects in which time, money, effort and talent have been wasted. If this is intended to be the beginning of something more like a saga of new films or a series for some streaming platforms have started in the wrong direction, a product that entertains but that is not going to be distinguished by being something famous neither for new nor for old generations, it is something that in the media is left in favor of time and the audience decides whether or not this can continue or that it remains as one more example that there are characters that should not be modernized just to satisfy the need of some studios to remain relevant in an industry that is increasingly sinking.
Garfield The Movie is now available in movie theaters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3XjsSvwSuU
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#ProyeccionDeVida
🎬 “GARDFELD FUERA DE CASA” [The Garfield Movie]😸😻🙀
🔎 Género: Animación / Comedia / Gatos / Robos & Atracos / Cómic
⌛️ Duración: 101 minutos
✍️ Guión: Paul A. Kaplan, David Reynolds y Mark Torgove
📒 Cómic: Jim Davis
🎼 Música: John Debney
🗯 Argumento: El famoso Garfield, el gato casero que odia los lunes y que adora una buena lasaña, está a punto de vivir una aventura ¡en el salvaje mundo exterior! Tras una inesperada reunión con su perdido padre –el desaliñado gato callejero Vic– Garfield y su amigo canino Odie se ven forzados a abandonar sus perfectas y consentidas vidas al unirse en un hilarante y muy arriesgado atraco.
👥 Reparto: Chris Pratt (Garfield), Nicholas Hoult (Jon Bonachón, Jon Arbuckle), Ving Rhames (Otto), Samuel L. Jackson (Vic), Brett Goldstein (Roland), Hannah Waddingham (Jinx), Gregg Berger (Odie), Snoop Dogg (Snoop Cat), Cecily Strong (Marge), Harvey Guillén (Odie #1) y Bowen Yang (Nolan)
📢 Dirección: Mark Dindal
© Productoras: Alcon Entertainment, Double Negative, Sony Pictures Animation, Paws & Prime Focus
💻 Distribuidora: Sony Pictures
🌎 País: Estados Unidos
📅 Año: 2024
📌 ESTRENO:
📆 Jueves 02 de Mayo
📽 Cartelera Nacional: Cineplanet / Cinemark Perú / Cinépolis / Multicines Cinestar
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Estreia no dia 1º de maio o novo filme animado de Garfield, o gato de estimação mundialmente famoso que odeia segundas-feiras e ama lasanha. No longa, ele está pronto para ter uma aventura selvagem ao ar livre. Após um reencontro inesperado com seu pai há muito perdido - o maltrapilho gato de rua Vic, Garfield e seu amigo canino Odie são chamados a sair de suas vidas perfeitamente mimadas para se juntarem a Vic em um hilariante e arriscado assalto. A direção é de Mark Dindal.
Criado como um personagem de tirinhas de jornal em 1978, por Jim Davis, Garfield costuma protagonizar histórias onde causa problemas ao seu dono, Jon Arbuckle, por conta de seu estilo de via preguiçoso.
Antes de sair de casa, confira os horários das sessões nas salas de cinema do Cinépolis e Cinemark.
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