The dually iconic comic strips originally found in the Sunday funny papers Dilbert and Garfield have been spreading joy to readers for decades. Dilbert chronicles the misadventures of an engineer dealing with the subtly comical everyday life of the office. Garfield follows an overweight, lasagna-loving house cat and his person, Jon, through the trials and tribulations of everything that goes into being a house cat and the funny situations that life entails. Both comic strips brought in all kinds of readers, getting children’s attention with the goofy short-form cartoon style and retaining adult readership through the often surreal and thought provoking humor. Now, one webcomic marries the two properties into a hilarious reimagining of both beloved comic strips in the form of Garfbert.
The webcomic Garfbert is produced by a creator who goes by Jim Jadams Jr. with an updated four-panel web strip every Monday on Instagram and Twitter, despite Garfield’s well-known disdain for that particular day of the week. The comic imagines what life would be like in the Dilbert household if Garfield suddenly moved in, and is decidedly more adult in content than the properties from which the comic derives its inspiration. In one four-panel post, Dilbert returns home from a vacation and asks Garfield if he missed him. In Garfield’s thought bubbles, the cat replies through his internal monologue that he had invited guests over to the house and used Dilbert’s bed in an intimate fashion, though the comic describes the scenario in a much more profane fashion, one which certainly would not make it in the Sunday funny papers.
Garfbert is a hand-drawn webcomic series with the artist seemingly striving for a sketchbook style. Even with the sketchbook black and white look of the series, it still packs a surrealist punch that highlights the strengths of both original series. Poking fun at Dilbert’s original art style with the character not drawn with visible eyes or a mouth, in one strip of Garfbert, Dilbert tells Garfield to watch him as he takes off his glasses and a wide toothy mouth opens where Dilbert’s eyes should have been. While the webcomic is a lot of fun, Jadams has high hopes that the crossover they established could potentially be seen on the big screen.
Possibly preparing for the future, Jadams put their photoshop skills to the test and created a movie poster for a live action Garfbert film. The poster depicts Drew Carey playing Dilbert and a familiar-looking Garfield from his live action movie on the cover right next to Carey, presumably voiced by Bill Murray reprising the role. While the post was made on April Fools' Day, it is a fun idea presented by the person who mashed these two characters together in the first place and could be an epic crossover fans would love to see brought to life.
While reading the webcomic series, it seems that Garbert was created for people who grew up reading Garfield and Dilbert in the Sunday paper and who are now adults being taken back to those days as a kid reading those characters, but with a comedy style that matured alongside them. From the surrealist existentialism to many of the panels, to profanity usage and toilet humor, Garfbert is a fun read for anyone who is even slightly familiar with the characters while being completely original in its own right. Simply put, Garfbert is an epic crossover that combines Garfield and Dilbert with surreal brilliance.
Source: Jim Jadams Jr.