If you're not a regular Sqrt(-G) reader, this link was posted last Monday.
By me here, too, but okay. My take on those bizarre comics, having seen most all of them originally (well, in book compilations)?
1--Yeah, probably just a weird euphemism for some sort of cat food. Of course, the fact that he swats it off a plate in front of John, not a bowl in front of himself, is no doubt what contributes to the confusion.
2--That guy's response to that comic is my own. My only guess, having re-seen it for the first time in a long while, is that, Odie being a dog, it's some accented pronounciation of "Lassie".
3--Yeah, totally inexplicable.
4--From the context and sound of the name, I don't recall ever being terribly confused about it beyond "oh, never heard that word before".
5--Uh... maybe the guy doesn't like to be reminded that those two names sound funny together? Makes as much sense as anything.
6--Attention, Garfield cynics with access to MS Paint: Jim D. beat you to that joke decades ago. Of course, Bill Watterson did something akin to that once in Calvin and Hobbes (I don't have a link and it's hard to explain, so I guess just ask if you care for me to elaborate).
7--Yes, it's an odd comic overall, and I don't remember what I thought when I first saw that, but it was either (judging by Garfield's seemingly horrified expression) cats literally used to fuel fires or--and this seems the likeliest--cats that put wood into a fire to keep things warm.
8--Yeah, this is evident in some of the above confusing stips, but I'd just like to say how interesting the transformation Garfield has had over the years is, in terms of not art style but subject matter. I remember the first few comics (I own "Garfield at Large"), wherein Jon smokes a pipe and watches Bridgette Bardot movies, and Garfield references things like the Edsel and Rin Tin Tin. Dare I say, it was more... mature, of a comic?
9--First of all, that character's never appeared since (at least, not to my knowledge), but then again, neither's Lyman. And I'd just like to say that that last panel is like Jim Davis tried to cram every obscure slang word and reference he could in one sentence.
10--Yeah, pretty much.
11--Like I said earlier, I figured this was a word I'd yet to learn when I read it as a kid. And... still don't get it.
12--It's a borderline fact that this is the strangest Garfield comic (sequence) ever. When I originally read it, it was in the books and I didn't think to look at the publication date, so I didn't know it was a Halloween special of sorts and just assumed Davis randomly decided to confuse/scare the heck out of everybody. Also, I retroactively dig that insane/alone Garfield conspiracy theory, and I do agree that, however out-of-place it was, those strips were pretty creepy.
I think most of the strangeness in those old comic strips can be attributed to how the main demographic of the strip has changed and the rural dialogue (anybody remember that fairly-recent "trivet" strip?) occasionally used by Davis.
