I've made a lot of Garfield stuff. It started off as kind of a joke, but at some point it a) stopped being funny and b) became a personal challenge to see how far I could run with a very very limited pool of inspiration.
This is a look back at some favorites from my last half decade-ish of Garfield arting (G'farting). There's still time to turn back, but if you're brave enough, you can find even more on my Instagram.
2019
The Softer Side
This is the most recent style evolution of general Garfield art: a softer palette, a greater abstraction, but still Garfy at its core.
2018
QUAG: The Questions About Garfield Podcast
I had a notion that I could make a podcast that's technically about Garfield, but is actually about other stuff. I got to explore how comics respond to tragedy, the legality of eating domestic animals, and the Norwegian teen tradition of "russefeiring." Here are few favorites:
Abstractions
For a spell, I worked mostly with actual elements from Garfield strips, but remixed and reshaped and recolored to become something new. I was also apparently super into Nancy at the time.
2017
Fields of Dreams
My attempt to mash up the least popular pop culture characters with Garfield's classic sitting pose. I'm truly sorry for Guy Fierfield.
Infinite Mondays
I went back to Garfield's first year of publication, 1976, and created a whole bunch of pieces loosely inspired by the contents of those strips. Some of them were more directly linked, some of them took a word or phrase and expanded upon it. A few of my all-time favorite pieces were in this mix, even though I see about a thousand flaws now in this early work!
Garfemon
Unfortunately, still the most popular thing I've ever done. Listen, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth...these creepy beasts helped me build an audience online and have been a consistent project to return to when I need to keep my hands busy. But man, there's just way too many of them...280ish so far, and counting.
Here are a few. The rest are on their own Tumblr.
2016
The Garfields Project
My first foray into Garfing, I drew a different take on Garfield each day for 49 days. Some of them are okay, some of them are less than okay, but it was just an excuse to get back in the habit of making something every day after having been away from illustration for many years.
I extended my sincerest thanks to Jim Davis for not suing me yet.