Written by Jim DavisIllustrated by Jim Davis
Ballatine Books
I can just about guarantee this will be the first and only time Garfield shows up here on Panel Pattter, at least as a review. I decided a while ago that I no longer found Garfield, Dilbert, Foxtrot, Doonesbury, and a number of other daily strips funny beyond a mild chuckle and got rid of most of them.
This one escaped the cull because it was in my "review some day" pile, and since I'm in a cleaning mode, I figured I'd get it reviewed and into someone else's hands, so I can use the space for other comics I'd rather read.
If there's a Garfield book other than "Garfield Minus Garfield" that the average savvy comics reader might enjoy, it's this one. Rather than 3-panel gags, the jokes are of the one-page variety, like if the Sunday Garfield went oversized rather than added panels.
There's actually some clever bits in here, like Odie using a Garfield mask to try and get onto Noah's Ark, or the recurring cat nightmares, like dogs earning the right to vote. Others are just bad visual puns, like huge cats going to see the Broadway play, "Humans." All in all, it's not bad, just not something I really want to read over and over again. If you find it, it's worth paging through, but nothing I can recommend getting for keeps.
