Episode 72 - Tuesday, August 29, 1978

Listener, please conjure in your mind your own personal conception of the platonic ideal of a Garfield strip. Really think about the nature of that strip: How many panels does it have? Does it contain references to dieting? What is the ontological quality of the discourse between its various players? Is there a perplexing denouement in which one or more characters breaks the fourth wall for no particular reason? Perhaps most significantly, is it bloated with cumbersome dialogue containing allusions to bizarrely juxtaposed real-world entities?

Is Garfield a product, or is it more accurately described as a process? For that matter, is the comic even written by Jim Davis, or is there some fundamental fact of the universe that simply requires its existence? Do newspaper comics necessarily imply some connection with the material world or conscious minds to conceive of them, or is it possible that, like the laws of logic itself, Garfield is perhaps neither physical nor conceptual?

Now compare the image in your mind with the actual strip for today. They're like, totally identical, right??? Nah, probably not.

Today's strip
What is bipolar disorder?
Philosophical zombies