It's almost 2027. Jim Davis realizes he's not going to last much longer. He decides to end the Garfield comic, as he doesn't want his creation to be left without him and possibly lose the charm it had.
For the entire year of 2027, Jon and Liz are increasingly getting worse in their relationship. At first, it's simply Liz getting annoyed at times, and it eventually escalates to any strips with them together having a very negative vibe, with Jon trying to salvage any happiness while Liz simply wishes she wasn't there. She's even meaner than the original Liz was to Jon.
The previous 10 strips before this one revolve around Liz breaking up with Jon, and him not knowing what to do with himself. Garfield doesn't take anything seriously, only thinking about the fact that Jon is too depressed to feed him. Odie doesn't notice anything.
This strip is published on June 19th, 2027. News articles pop up everywhere. Wyatt Duncan, the creator of the @GarfieldFanArt Twitter, tweets out nothing that day except for "Alrighty then". Garfield is the top trending topic on Twitter. Wikipedia staff locks all Garfield related pages due to massive edit waves. Garfield.com has a 3 hour outage due to server overload.
The next 5 strips, all in black and white, revolve around Garfield and Odie trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Liz comes back on the 22nd. The first panel has no dialogue, and is simply Garf and Odie staring at the floor. The second panel, Liz comes into the house out of view (still having a key) saying "Jon, are you here? Can we talk?" in the first panel, as Garf and Odie's eyes widen. They look at each other still wide eyed in the third panel, and Liz says "...Jon?"
The very last comic was on June 25th. The banner art usually seen in Sunday comics at the top is a series of images of Garfield walking with a gloomy expression, with each image becoming more and more transparent from left to right, and the usual Garfield text does not appear. Garfield and Odie accept that they can't survive in the house any longer, being completely abandoned by Liz and anyone else who came into the house. They both agree that their best option is to go become strays. They look around a bit, pack up some things, walk out of the house, and down the road. The first hint of color since the reveal of Jon's death is seen, with the sky above them in the very last panel being slightly tinted blue. This is believed to be hinting that Jon brought color to Garfield's life, and now his color is in a place beyond.
This ending was extremely controversial. Some said that Jim touched a much too serious topic for a family-friendly strip, while others praised him for giving the strip a very emotional ending which people would never forget. Many people in defense of the ending cited the series of comics from 1989-10-23 to 1989-10-28, which were much more serious than every other Garfield comic. Some theorized that this ending was planned from the very beginning, and that series of comics is actually taking place many years after the ending as Garfield comes back to the house and loses his mind.
Jim Davis lives the rest of his life happily, spending time with his family, and occasionally still writing personal comic strips that aren't Garfield. He dies naturally at the age of 94, leaving a note by his bed thanking his family, friends, and fans for giving him a life he could've never imagined would've happened when he was young. His grave has a specially-made Garfield sculpture that resembles the original 1978 Garfield. All Garfield media production has ceased as of Jim's wishes, including any sort of brand deals, movies, or apps. Garfield.com is left running as a archive of Jim's legacy, including all strips he's ever published (including Gnorm Gnat), and listings of all Garfield games, movies, TV shows, etc. Eventually, Paws Inc is shut down due to a lack of money, Garfield.com officially shuts down, and Garfield enters the public domain a few years later.
>>423164 >Like this is Garfield Without Garfield topic. Then why is Garfield in the majority of the posts, including OP's? This could easily have been a filename thread if we didn't drag it in the direction we wanted!
>>423419 >Liz is uncovered as a vet who secretly euthanizes patients to make and sell fur apparel onto black markets. Best plot twist in a mainstream comic award.
>>423702 holy fucking shit, it's true. Whose fucking idea was to do this? That website alone showcased how much the company loves their creation, and now it just redirects to fucking nickelodeon.
I can't even find the Garfield randomizer online either. The original one that let you save comics & their urls, not the javascript knockoffs.
And on that note, does anyone know if any site still has the strips online in high resolution? The one that the nickelodeon site redirects to only has small 600x130 strips.
>>423704 I have no doubt the Wayback Machine would have a copy of the old websites comics but they're facing a lawsuit and could conceivably go bankrupt.
>>424564 80s one was really clunky and looked silly when walking upright. The 00s one meanwhile enlarged the face too much, it basically went too far. 1990s has the best balance IMO, plus back then the strips were golden and the animated show was utterly sick: Garfield and Friends - Mistakes Will Happen
>>424609 Man evertything about the new "Gods" and "Angels" added to the dragonball setting in the new series is so incredibly retarded, which is a feat since the writing was bad beforehand.
>>435808 Yup, when asked about what happened to Lyman, Jim Davis jokingly said "don't look in Jons cellar" or something to that effect.
The funny thing is that someone on Garfield.com (RIP) had enough fun to actually put it in the game. It also raises some question that Jon has an actual dungeon under his house.
My mom's dog hurt its leg awhile back, then when it was seemingly healed enough to go walking managed to hurt it again. This all lead to it putting on alot of weight from lack of activity, and now he seems to be suffering from hip pain from the combination of factors. He's on a diet and is trying to exercise him but she can't throw the ball for him because of the stress chasing back and forth over it puts on his body currently, and he's just so confused why she won't throw the ball for him anymore since he loves to chase it.
This is all to say fat pets like Garfield aren't fun, they are heartbreaking.
>>441147 >>441139 I don't recognize him either (I was thinking it's George Lucas since he is next to Hamill and C3PO, but it's missing the glasses), and also the chick and the black guy on the left (unless it's meant to be Will Smith), and the dude with the pencil on his ear. I'm also not exactly sure which period of hollywood this is meant to signify. Mid 90s is pretty close, except for Boris Karloff being there. The then-current Frankenstein's Monster was De Niro.
>>443057 This is fucking great. Also that orange tie with Garfield stripes actually looks really fucking cool. I'm surprised that I can't actually find a tie like that online.
No way they did that. I've seen missing noses and lazy tweens left in, but they actually delivered the preview instead of the final render? That is beyond dismal.
>>446718 I feel this every night, when my fucking roommate won't shut the fuck up talking to his internet/gaming friends as I'm trying to sleep at night. Can hear his voice from his room, through the hall, into my room.
I'm actually seeing 'discussion' of Garfield pop up randomly again. Its about this comic, how officially it wasn't dog semen in the cup but some sort of fertility medication. Why did that happen to occour after all this time?