A few years ago a man I do not know noticed that Jim Davis’s “Garfield” was in fact not the lighthearted comic strip that gave us a brief respite from Cathy’s “Acks!” and Andy Capp’s misogyny, but a public cry for help from a depressed man. The resulting Garfield Minus Garfield, which eliminates the cat’s thoughts and allows the reader to truly understand his owner, is the profound yet reasonably simplistic insight into the life of the original cartoon’s creator.

However, Garfield’s lasagna-filled, Odie-patronizing internal musings did not disappear. They were simply intended to be transferred to a comic strip several frames above it, on the same publication date. Sometimes cryptic, always accurate, this realization finally grants the reader a reasonable grasp to why “Henry” has continued to exist for an unreasonable number of years. While he initially appears to be a dimwitted, non-sensical child, the titular Henry is in fact a fully actualized character, as evidenced in the examples below.

[Editor’s note: Henry+Garfield” was conceptualized and created by the author and Rajiv Thavanathan.]

Henry+Garfield
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