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Lunch » Tags » Books » Reviews » Life in the Fat Lane

Life in the Fat Lane

1 rating: 5.0

A book by Jim Davis

A FAST-FOOD HELPING OF HUMOR! <br>What is it that makes GARFIELD America's favorite feline? Maybe it's the way he flies through the fat lane without losing his cool or without missing a meal! You'll marvel as GARFIELD finds new ways … see full wiki

Tags: Books, Humor, Comic Strips, Garfield, Garfield Books

Author: Jim Davis

Genre: Humor

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Date Published: October 01, 1995

1 review about Life in the Fat Lane

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Livin' Life in the Fat Lane

Sep 21, 2006

by ssjakira1
posted in Cafe Libri: Reviewing Books & More

Rating:

Pros: Makes ya giggle.

Cons: Only if you don't like Garfield.

The Bottom Line: Don't poke balls of yarn.

It was 9:55pm. I was sick of watching TV, I had a toothpick in my mouth because I ran out of gum in order to stop biting my nails, I was waiting for a politically incorrect video a friend sent me to load (yeah, that’s right – politically INcorrect), and I wanted to review something.

But what to review?

I stood in front of my bookshelf for a while, pondering what would make for a fast, yet efficient review. Watership Down? Nah. The Loop? Nope. Then I spotted it, or them, rather. Sitting atop my Calvin and Hobbes comics – Jim Davis’s Garfield. And it occurred to me; why not?

Jim Davis, the creator of the fattest cat with the wittiest lines, Garfield. A stomach like a pumpkin and black stripy marks that might entice a tiger to say, “No, I’m not related to him.” If you don’t know who Garfield is, you’ve been living under a rock, or you’ve never read the comics in the newspaper at any point in your life. In which case I suggest you head on over to Google or Wikipedia this very moment. This is Garfield’s 28th book, meaning the 28th collection of Davis’s comic strips featuring Garfield, his owner Jon, and Odie the idiot dog. On a side note, I don’t even remember where or when I got this book.

Haha.

So, what’s inside, what’s inside? Sadly, none of the comics are in color; even the pieces you would find in the Sunday newspaper are scaled down to fit and stuck in black and white. But no big deal. Sure it might put a little pizzazz in some of the strips, but you don’t need color to pull off the humor. In this collection you’ll find Garfield in various states of lazy fatness, at one point poking a ball of string, becoming entangled within it, and then comparing it to a dinosaur falling into a tar pit. I still remember that one after all these years of not looking at it. Got to be one of my favorite Garfield moments. Of course, there are always his feeble attempts at mouse chasing, bird eating, spider killing, taking insults from the talking weight scale, and above all, eating food. There are his classic moments of harassing Jon, kicking Odie, watching TV, and pulling off a comedic act on a fence.

There’s really nothing to be said con-wise when it comes to reading Garfield comics. At the very least, they should get a smile out of you. I always did like the detail Davis puts into his comics, from the slopping of food to the ridiculous faces Garfield or any other character might be making for various reasons – like a really loud alarm clock going off. Yeah, flush that stupid thing down the toilet Garfield, you’ll get a twofer; no alarm clock and a lot of confusion from Jon: “The toilet is ringing, what should I do??”

One thing I really like with these collections is the simple fact that you can get the whole story out of several comic strips. I don’t read the paper every day, so if one strip leads into another for the next day, I’m going to miss it. Take the ball of string fiasco, for instance. It spanned three pages, which is equal to six separate strips. This way you get to see Garfield get stuck in it, get stuck in it more, and eventually have to deal with Odie getting his revenge via ball o’string. Or a whole slew of Beware of Dog/Bird/Frog etc. pieces. Never would get all that in the newspaper. So come on, be a little like Garfield and indulge a little, er, or a lot.

Garfield: "The mighty lion lies poised and hungry.... A cruel smile reveals his lethal fangs...."
Jon: "Garfield, you look like a deranged walrus."
Garfield: "He spies his first victim...."

(I don’t know about a walrus, but he did look rather deranged…)

NT

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Recommended:
Yes

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