Who is “Garfield?”

Check this webcomic that just started coming out. Man, I gotta say, it’s probably the single most moving piece of sequential art I’ve ever read. Sort of takes that Chris Ware-style hyper isolation and awkwardness, but—as a statement on the stultifying mundanity of modern life—strips away all of the formal experimentation and reduces it to its newspaper-daily essence. It’s much more archetypal.

Click here to read some more of “Garfield minus Garfield.”

The truly profound question is, “Who is Garfield?” Although I think we owe it to the artist to see how he / she weaves out the narrative over time, my initial guess is that Garfield is a sort-of Godot-type figure, an off-stage redeemer for whom we all wait hopefully, but who never arrives to save us from ourselves. He represents a promise of salvation, of elation, of elevation. But it is a broken promise.

Shed a tear for the lonely everyman who wanders desperate and near-insane through these sparse, near-empty panels…