yesterday my grandma found a penny on the floor and said to my grandpa “there’s that penny again, pa!” and i absolutely lost my mind because i couldn’t shelve the thought of a single panel Far Side comic of two old people on the front porch in the middle of nowhere and a giant penny angrily and inexplicably rolling through the wastes
{Garfield is sitting on a torn-up couch.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is sleeping.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is walking while dripping alcohol.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is watching while Odie, Lyman and Jon are fighting.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is sitting on a torn-up armchair.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is holding a cup of coffee.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is standing behind a window, having just cleaned it.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is hanging awkwardly on a tree.} Garfield: Much better. {Garfield is standing before two mouse holes in a wall, one of which has a mouse poking out.} Mouse: Much better. {Garfield is wrapped in a blanket sitting in an armchair with Pooky while drinking hot chocolate.} Garfield: Much better.
The author writes:
I was flipping through old Garfields when I noticed both a strip and the strip after it used the phrase “Much better” in the punchline. Using a text search I uncovered several strips over the years using the phrase. It really shows how much the art has changed over time (but now that it’s computer-generated there’s hardly room for change any more, sadly).
Image quilting is a method of texture synthesis where a small source image is used to generate larger seamlessly tiling textures. However, when the source image contains highly context sensitive information instead of just generic “leaves” or similar simple patterns, the results can be rather surreal and nightmarish without being obviously wrong at any point. Perfect for that moment when reality and dreams intersect when you’re forcibly woken up…
This image shows the sections of the original strip the algorithm chose while tiling:
Garfield: This year I resolve to be nicer to Odie. SFX: KONG! {Odie is punched into 1988} Garfield: Now that that’s out of the way, I can enjoy New Year’s Eve. {1988} Garfield: Starting today, I’m going to work on being more pleasant. SFX: BOOT! {Odie is kicked to December 1988} Garfield: Have a nice day! {December 1988} Garfield: This year, I resolve to be gentler with Odie! SFX: Push {Odie is prodded into 1989} Garfield: For the new year, I resolve to be more polite with dogs. SFX: KICK! SFX: CRASH! {Odie is kicked into 1991} Garfield: Excuse me! {1991} {Garfield sneaks up on Odie} SFX: BOOT! {Odie spins around freely, floating over the table} Garfield: Hmmm… Too much repetition.
The author writes:
In the spirit of pointing out recycled jokes, this is probably a special one, the same punchline being used four times, including three times having exactly the same setup. When I read the archives and noticed this lazy gag, inspiration struck and gave me the idea of the poor Odie getting clobbered through the fourth wall repeatedly, never touching the ground, with the “Topspin” strip, which had always been a favourite of mine, being the punchline. It took me a while to get around to making it, though.
{A textured, blurry, impressionistic strip, dark on the left, light on the right.}
The author writes:
Take all 313 regular (non-Sunday) Garfield strips from 2009. Crop them gently to be exactly 175 pixels tall each, and stack them atop each other. At each point in the image frame there’s a stack of 313 pixels; pick up this stack and break it into 313 red values, 313 green value, and 313 blue values, forgetting which date each value came from. Then take the median for each colour channel (that is, the 157th brightest sample, which is also the 157th darkest). Assemble those medians into an image. You get something vaguely similar to Colour-Averaged Garfield.
Now change the procedure slightly. Instead of the median at each point, take a percentile determined by the pixel’s horizontal position within the image. At the far left you take the darkest sample in each stack, in the middle the median, and at the far right the brightest one, and so forth. This strip is the result.
There’s a fascinating progression of textures: from gritty and cracked, to mouldy and amorphous, to impressionist frosted-glass effects, to wispy pastels, to nothing.
LesbianChemicalPlant 
