Garfield Linus Garfield... A semi-self-post and a lo-o-ong story.
→[More:]
So the guy who does
Irregular Webcomic looked at
Garfield Minus Garfield and thought "there are lots of other ways to mess with the Garfield comic and make it funnier - or not - and with 'Minus' as precedent, nobody would get in trouble for it". So
Square Root of Minus Garfield was created and a call went out for contributors.
Many responded, with
mixes of multiple strips,
variations on the
'Minus' theme,
graphical and
mathematical geekery and mashups with
other content (several of which were contributed by ME -
Garfield & Hobbes,
Garfield & Snoopy,
Garfield & the Laugh Out Loud Cats,
Garfield & Jim Davis,
Garfield & Unauthorized Calvin).
Then somebody discovered a Garfield comic in which it would be easy to substitute another character
in the center panel, allowing the play on words of "Garfield, Linus, Garfield", first with
Linus from Peanuts, then
Linus Torvals,
Ben Linus from Lost (twice) and
Linus Pauling (twice).
Not to mention
Garfield, Linux, Garfield,
Garfield Sinus Garfield,
Garfield, Lino, Garfield Garfield, Mynas, Garfield,
Garfield, Miley Cyrus, Garfield, the totally meta
Garfield, something that sounds a bit like "minus", Garfield and what should have been the ultimate permutation of the meme,
Garfield Minus Linus Garfield.
But I couldn't let the meme die without my own contribution (and there's a backlog of 80 strips), so sometime in July I provided
Garfield Linus Garfield, Et Tu Brute?. (Title provided by the editor who remembered one of Linus the Lionhearted's recurring catchphrases even better than I... or was he just calling me Brute?) Also, I just missed being #500 - or the editor just didn't want this running joke associated with that landmark.