Stuff I like: Comic strip mashups/parodies

I read a lot of Garfield comics while growing up. (I read a lot of comic strips in general.) I recently ran across the delightful Web application Garkov (no, it has nothing to do with Flash Gordon, my first assumption), Josh Millard's exercise in applying some complex mathematics to Garfield speech balloons. Reloading the Garkov page randomly generates new strips, such as this:


or this:


Sometimes these Garkovs are very straightforward or could almost be real strips. But the best are the ones that read like Zen koans. (Most of the Garkovs, naturally, are nonsense.)

From Millard's page, I followed a link to a strip I had heard of and then forgotten about: Garfield Minus Garfield. Pretty straightforward: the guy takes all of the animals out of the Garfield strips, leaving you with a view into the lonely, mentally unstable life of bachelor Jon Arbuckle. Quite funny (and touching).




(I just like that he's talking to his salad.)

This all reminds me of the now-defunct Dysfunctional Family Circus, which had to be taken down once it came to the attention of Bil Keane. Made me laugh a great deal back before the dot-com bust.