I got a letter the other day. It seems a reader took exception to my treatment of Garfield. (See Garfield’s brief life and exciting death in burn, garfield, burn.) This isn’t a really nasty letter or anything, but I thought it was worth reprinting.
From: PENNENINC@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 8:49 PM
To: “John Marcotte”
Subject: Garfield
Despite your loathing, you still seem to be an avid reader, and for that Garfield thanks you.
By the way, you destroyed a very classic early version of the plush doll. Worth much more than you’re getting for daily hits on your site/and or/ads.
I dashed off a quick response to the gentleman, outlining why I thought Garfield sucked. Then I took a closer look at his e-mail address: PENNENINC@aol.com. Pen and ink? Perhaps he was a cartoonist himself. A quick search on the newsgroups got me a name: Brett Koth. A search for Brett Koth on the Web revealed he worked for…Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, as an illustrator and cartoon storyboarder.
So I had personally insulted the guy’s life work. I was torn between not wanting to appear like an asshole, and the desire to stick to my guns. Garfield sucks.
I took the middle road and wrote him a letter suggesting that I did not fit Garfield’s target demographic (I can tie my own shoes). I left the door open to discuss Garfield in particular, or comics in general, some more. I’ll keep you posted on the discussion, if and when it unfolds.
P.S. - I checked ebay. The doll wasn’t worth squat. Nice try.
God bless.
May 4th, 2003 at 3:27 pm
Yet another missed opportunity at being a millionaire. First, Moshood and his multi-million dollar offer for a lifetime of financial freedom–then, Moses with an even better offer–and now, Garfield. What’s next?
May 4th, 2003 at 3:29 pm
How much for your girlfriend?
May 4th, 2003 at 3:32 pm
What about Garfield? Forget Moses and his untold millions for the taking. Garfield is where it’s at. And I happen to be a big fan of Brett Koth’s work. Us hefty guys have to stick together to be able to take barrages of insults and intentional feeling-hurts from skinny little guys like you. Where’s the love?
May 4th, 2003 at 3:34 pm
Patti, you are so right! Maybe you should dump this guy, he is obviously naive and not very bright!
June 21st, 2003 at 11:44 am
Sometimes I fall down.
August 19th, 2003 at 12:12 am
Hey, everybody that doesn’t have a cat ignores Garfield. Brett Koth ain’t got one either, preferring Bulldogs. But he was my best friend in the 7th & 8th grades and shouldn’t take all the heat. You write gags for the same three characters every day for ten years and see how hilarious YOU stay.
Check out his other work (Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Mother Goose & Grimm) and witness one of the best wielders of the inking brush to stroll this planet.
Anyone who knows where he is right now should e-mail me,as I lost him again after
finding him after 28 years of looking.
thanx.
December 19th, 2003 at 8:31 pm
“Inkers”. Ha.
Bunch of fucking tracers.
December 19th, 2003 at 8:56 pm
Chasing Amy. Classic.
January 14th, 2004 at 7:15 pm
Mother goose and Grimm is somewhat tolerable when its the dog and the cat, but when he tries to do far side style panel cartoons theyre horrible The far side had soul and it felt absolutely genuine Larson created actual situations and oftentimes the best part of his comics were the understatement in the characters reactions and the sheer absurdity of the situations,
the Far Side genuinely felt like a snapshot from a surreal parallel universe all Mother Goose and Grimm does is illustrate a joke and bad ones at that with no real sense of subtlety since its unwilling to write jokes that are an authors perception of the universe that others might not get, theres no real abstract thought going on and it cant really be artistic expression since 5 guys or so write it, like a guy steamrolling regular tvs to make flatscreen ones or hannibal winning survivior, or Columbus using his “discover” card when entering the new world wow you did a pun! its still soulless crap
March 3rd, 2004 at 4:27 pm
hi from Frank Naly amazing page see a later
March 23rd, 2004 at 8:35 pm
bah, moi, j’aime garfield. Puisque tu n’as pas pris la peine d’être objectif, je ne prendrais pas la peine d’écrire dans ta langue.
Ok, les derniers albums sont pas terribles, mais j’adore les premiers. Ca ne t’as jamais fait rire, tanpis pour toi, tu es peut etre trop intelligent pour comprendre des choses aussi simples. En tout cas suffisament intelligent pour cramer une peluche qui aurait pu te rapporter un max de frik. Si c’est bien la vérité, je suis très contente qu’il en soit ainsi.
A bon entendeur, salut.
March 23rd, 2004 at 10:38 pm
I’m gay !
March 24th, 2004 at 11:30 pm
While being polite was nice and all don’t you think he probably just came back here and read this?
Stick to your guns. I thought Pooky was kind of fun….for a while.
June 9th, 2004 at 5:09 am
garfield is a stupid cat and i cant believe there going to make a movie out of this. This movie is going to suck because garfield sucks and the people that are making this peice of crap movie are pretty retarted if you ask me and thats what i got to say about this peice of shit movie so called garfield.
June 15th, 2004 at 9:04 pm
Ah, the Orange merchandising turd…….
September 7th, 2004 at 4:38 pm
Garfield the movie rules !
October 21st, 2004 at 1:00 pm
hey i dont know where youve been but garfield is the best comic in the world so if i were u i would get sum help cos if you think that garfield is crap you must be wierd
October 28th, 2004 at 10:32 pm
Why is it that the people who say how stupid everything is, are the same people who can’t spell or use punctuation?
January 19th, 2005 at 4:38 am
I had one of those Garfields when I was little. As much as I loved the Garfield and Friends TV show I seem to recall dropping my Garfield doll in the pool at my grandma’s apartment once. Seeing him sink to the bottom and out of life broke my heart… So why was it so funny to see his head get stapled shut?
By the way, anyone else remeber U.S.Acres from the TV show? Those were absolutely terrible.
April 14th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
Yeah, garfield sucks big time. The comic used to be funny, but now it’s a piece of shit. Have any of you read Get Fuzzy? 10 million times better than garfield. So funny. It’s about a siamese cat named Bucky, a stupid but sweet dog named Satchel, and a human named Rob. It sounds like Garfield, but it’s better, believe me.
April 14th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
what have you been smoking garfield (person, not the stupid cat) whatever it is, I think it’s illegial. wake up and smell the catnip. garfield sucks!
May 16th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
I love the “Burn, Garfield, Burn” that’s funny
June 26th, 2005 at 10:27 am
>Garfield has a 1 slightly (and I do mean very slight) amusing strip out of 12 ratio in my opinion, not a good stat at all. To read the funniest strips look no farther than Get Fuzzy, Foxtrot, and Calvin and Hobbes. Dilbert would have made this list but after seeing an episode of the television series I was highly disappointed.
July 26th, 2006 at 5:56 am
There a nice bio and family photo of Brett here
http://ucomics.aolsvc.aol.com/news/mrpotatohead/bio_bk.phtml
July 16th, 2007 at 10:04 am
[...] garfield strikes back digg_url = ‘http://www.badmouth.net/burn-garfield-burn/’; [...]