Trivia / Square Root of Minus Garfield

• Based on a Dream: There are a few submissions based on dreams.
• Creator Backlash:
  • In "Garfield Takes a Dip", the author, who also made "Nostalgiafield" and "VHSfield", disowned both comics, feeling that they acted immaturely about their sincere appreciation for old media formats and considering them "examples of what you probably shouldn't do for a submission".
  • Variation: The creator of "Nip It in the Bud"^note a deliberate Stylistic Suck version of "Linguistics with Liz" took to the forums shortly after it was posted to call out the publisher for changing the transcript they had written^note In the strip, Liz's speech bubble is replaced with poop emojis, Jon says he doesn't understand memes, and Garfield talks about pudding pops; the original transcript (shared on the forum) says that Liz and Garfield were saying "(high quality humor)".
    Shout out to the uploader for "correcting" the transcript. How I had it written was part of the intention of the strip[.]
  • In response to yet another strip in the "Lazy edit" vein, the author who kicked it off "personally apologize[d]" for causing another "pudding pop" situation.
  • Downplayed: "Death of the Author" is an edit of the author's earlier strip "Meta Commentary", with the Framing Device of Jon creating, then immediately hating, the strip of Garfield entering his "time machine", being removed wholecloth. "[E]nough time has passed. Past me's opinions don't matter anymore."
• Creator Breakdown: Extremely downplayed: #3215 was simply made "while in a bad mood".
• I Am Not Leonard Nimoy: "Voice Actors Garfield" has the characters refer to each other by the names of their voice actors from the cartoon.
• In Memoriam: This Is Garfield Calling Orson to Robin Williams.
• Meaningful Release Date: While this is normally invoked by using the dates of the original Garfield comic strips, there was one instance when it happened in the comic itself. The 8/29/2014 strip remembered The Terminator's prediction that the "Pudding Pops" meme would become self-aware on the date back in #625. The strip showed the characters of Dinosaur Comics inventing the meme and promptly running it in the ground, destroying the reality of the comic.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • Played straight in the one thousandth comic, 1000th Root of Minus Garfield, which features every strip up until that point pasted into one giant collage. Parodied in Party Like It's #999 (the comic immediately afterwards), in which Garfield dumps a bottle of ketchup on himself as celebration, only to realize it's not the 1000th strip.
  • For the fifth anniversary, we got a parody of the 10th anniversary strip, featuring Jon and Garfield looking at panels from various past strips. (However, due to a mistake in the buffer, it didn't appear until five days after the actual anniversary)
  • For strips 1978-2015, strips ran in succession using the aforementioned year's birthday strip (with the exception of 2015's, as this celebration took place in 2014).
  • For strip 3000, we get a MST3K riff of the infamous "Alone" arc from the original strip.
  • #4000 appears to be a rerun of the "world is constantly changing" strip... until Garfield notices the number of the strip and scolds Jon for trying to waste the milestone on a meme.
  • #5000 is a parody of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" based on the past 4,999 strips and Garfield proper, ending with a fan illustration inspired by the music video to boot.
• Missing Episode: "Truthfield".
  This strip was submitted in March 2015, a couple of days after the original Garfield strip ran. The submission email contained an external link to the strip image, rather than an attachment. Unfortunately, by the time I read the email, the link had gone dead, and so I am unable to provide the strip image here. However, the description the submitter included implies it should be possible for the reader to quickly determine the nature of the edit by themselves, so I have decided to run it anyway.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The author of "For Want of a Grip" ultimately admits that the strip would've been longer... had he not made it so late at night:
  ...also, it was around 3 to 4AM when I made this. I was very tired...
• Recursive Adaptation:
  • Garfield comic◊ → Lasagna Cat video → Lasagna Cat: The Comic
  • Garfield comic strip → Garfielf web video → Garfielf'd, the original Garfielf video as a Garfield comic
• Recycled Script:
  • Two strips by two different authors featuring Garfield as Catbert ran a year apart. Both using the same Dilbert strip, no less (2009-04-18). The latter strip even points this out, saying "In fact, I thought somebody had done this before me, but couldn't find it in the archive. If you do, never mind."
  • #1071 and #1101 have the exact same gag. This is because two authors submitted the same idea independently, but the older of the two got lost in the submission pile.
  • #2993 and #3156 have the exact joke, although #2993 changes the dialogue in the first panel. Additionally, #3156 was apparently submitted twice by different authors, which were merged into one.
• Rerun: A filing mistake resulted in #4617 being a rerun of #4554.
• Similarly Named Works: Happens occasionally when two different authors submit two different strips with the same title:
  • Butterfield by Manyhills, Butterfield by MoonHitler, and Butterfield by DEIDATVM.
  • Mirror Universe Garfield by Quarterninion and Mirror Universe Garfield by MadDogBV.
  • Smile by DanielBT and Smile by tardis2334.
  • Gayfield by Colin Foster and Gayfield by Penrock13.
  • Just Look at that Gorgeous Garfield by Wes White and Just Look at that Gorgeous Garfield by Manyhills.
  • Calvin And Garfield by Garfunkel and Calvin And Garfield by Manyhills.
  • A variant occurred with [This Strip Has Been Copyright Claimed By Nintendo] by Crazy56U and [This Strip Has Been Copyright Claimed By Crazy56U] by Nicholas Crawford; the variant being that the second strip was deliberately retitled by the uploader as a joke in regards to upload timing.
  • Unprovoked by Nottoostupid and Unprovoked by Manyhills.
  • Garfield Without Words and Garfield Without Words, both by cappy.
  • Old and Inferior by Midnight Strike and Old and Inferior by Muk.
  • Mean by Nigel and Mean by Levellass.
  • Square Root of Minus Garfield in 2053 by Camwoodstock and ''Square Root of Minus Garfield'' in 2053 by SonicLover.
  • There are three strips named Reversed Garfield: by LTDave, Colin Foster, and Reisen U. Inaba.
  • Hug by Xindaris and Hug by Gashren.
  • Comics two days apart shared the same title of Underfield: by Buffalo and SonicLover.
  • There are two comics by Manyhills called Depressed: #1832 and #2817.
  • Reality by Manyhills and Reality by Michael C. Fortner.
  • Garfield Minus Jon by Johan Tenge and Garfield Minus Jon by Colin Foster.
  • #45 and #52, both made by David Morgan-Mar, are titled "Plush Garfield".
  • One Panel Garfield by tardis2334 and One Panel Garfield by Lubaf.
  • Just Look At That Gorgeous Garfield by Wes White and Manyhills.
  • Detente Flowers by tardis2334 and Levellass.
  • Nature by PartyEscortBotBeans and Manyhills.
  • Paintfield by Colin Foster and Jaiden.
  • Gladosfield by Riley and RicochetProductions.
  • Bored by Chezzie and Insquamous.
  • Cat Food by DanielBT and Densetsu Bros.
  • Da Ba Dee Da Ba Daa by edderiofer and Riley.
  • Donut by Mr B Natural and Garlene1987.
  • Double Espresso by KOBK and Mr. Skullhead.
  • There are three Drilfields: Slobberbeetle Offalrot's, Manyhills', and tbodt's.
  • Gar by Buffalo and David Morgan-Mar.
  • Garfield's Punishment by Trevor and Galax.
• Throw It In!: Dr. Manny, the creator of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl-based "Warning! Challenger Approaching!", wrote in the author's note that Garfield's up-special move being named "Lasanga Throw" was a typo, but he didn't realize he had misspelled it until after he finished the strip. In addition to the Lasanga Throw attack, Manny took the opportunity and made one of Garfield's nightmares for his Final Smash "A year's supply of "Lasanga"".
• What Could Have Been:
  • The comic to end the frozen pudding pops running gag was originally going to be this◊ Pulp Fiction Shout-Out instead of the Terminator one we got.
  • Instead of getting banned from the restaurant for laughing uproariously, Jon and Garfield were going to wind up being arrested.
  • "A Nickel's Worth Of Free Advice" wasn't originally about Garfield's decay, nor did it have the fourth panel. It was in reality supposed to be a direct response to "Nostalgiafield".
  • As the Author's Note explains, the strip Jon made in Strip 2812 was originally going to be an upload all on its own. But, upon realizing the strip wasn't good, the Author added the first and last panels as meta commentary.
    • It was eventually uploaded by itself (almost seven years later) as "Death of the Author", as the Author had changed their stance on the strip.
  • Strip 5276 (a Take That! at another strip) was originally planned with a different idea, but the author decided to scale it back.

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