Here Are the Darkest Implications of the ‘Garfield’ Franchise
In the dark recesses of the Garfield universe, Mondays are the most trivial of evils.
To the general public, the iconic orange tabby cat is associated with lasagna, laziness and Bill Murray. Garfield is the original grumpy cat, a lethargic, comedic cartoon character whose darkest qualities are his acrimonious actions against annoyances like Nermal and Odie. On the internet, however, the Garfield franchise has carried much more macabre connotations ever since 2018, when online fan artists began putting Garfield in H.R. Giger or Hieronymus Bosch-esque horror scenes in communities such as the 800,000 user-strong subreddit r/imsorryjon. The number of nightmare-inducing Garfield memes on the internet is staggering, but in the actual Garfield canon, there are more than enough implications over which even the most tired tomcats can lose sleep.
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In the non-horrific Garfield subreddit, superfans of the cat comic recently discussed the darkest implications in the Garfield universe. Here are the franchise’s most unsettling undertones, starting with…
Jon Drank Dog Semen
Okay, this one’s not “dark” as much as it is “disgusting,” but, since I had to read it, you do too. Series author Jim Davis later tried to backtrack on this strip and claim that the cup was filled with some fertility friendly protein supplement for pregnant dogs — yeah it’s filled with “protein,” alright. About a thousand puppy litters’ worth of the stuff.
Garfield (Kinda) Dies in “No More Mondays”
Ahead of Halloween season in 1989, Davis got tired of writing comics to make people laugh and decided to do a set of panels that would deliver untold thousands of young Garfield fans their first taste of existential horror. In the plot line that fans have since named “No More Mondays,” Garfield wakes up in a dark dimension where Odie and Jon are nowhere to be found, and the terrifying implications of his isolation led many readers to believe that Garfield had died and gone to purgatory — or somewhere much worse.
Garfield Killed His Owner in A Past Life
This one comes from Davis’ book of illustrated short stories stemming from the comic strip, titled, Garfield: His 9 Lives. Each entry is a stylized telling of Garfield’s previous incarnations, stretching all the way back to the Stone Age when cats first crawled out of the sea and into the caves of early humans. In the story “Primal Self,” Garfield’s seventh life sees him encounter a primal evil force that corrupts him into planning an attack on his elderly owner that, presumably, takes her life.
Lyman Isn’t Just “Missing,” and Jon Has More Pets Than Just Cats and Dogs
Early in the series, Jon’s neighbor Lyman played a central role in the story as one of Jon’s few human friends with whom he could engage in his usual banter. As Garfield slowly took over the role of his master’s sounding board, Davis cut Lyman from the comic strip — but not from fans’ memories. After angry Garfield readers demanded to know what happened to Odie’s original owner, Davis famously “joked,” “Don’t look in Jon’s basement.” In the now-defunct flash game Garfield's Scary Scavenger Hunt from the Garfield website, our protagonist took an ill-advised peak downstairs where he found Lyman chained to the wall.
Garfield Was A “Busy Boy” the Day Before 9/11
He WHAT?! Dear lord, there couldn’t have been a worse day for Garfield to engage in out-of-frame mischief than September 10, 2001. Obviously, Davis had no way of knowing that this fateful Monday would be the last day of what we now consider the pre-9/11 era, and this one only gets its horrific insinuations in retrospect. Garfield’s famous for hating Mondays, but according to the darkest assumptions of some Garfield fans, this one sent him over the edge and into unthinkable territory.