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popculturebuffet · 8 months ago

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HCG: Garfield His 9 Lives Retrospective Finale: The BOOM! Comic Book (Commission for Emma Fici)

Happy halloween all you comic cats and welcome to the finale of my look at Garfield His 9 LIves! We've covered the cult classic book, the beloved specail and now we're onto the final entry: the comic time forgot.

So in the 2010's Garfield had a comic book done by Boom Studios, both an ongoing and a few mini series, initially written by Garfield and Friends and The Garfield Showrunner Mark Evainer, but by this point written by Scott Nickel. Nickel seems to primarialy work in kids comics, having done some of Sports Illustrated's graphic novels for kids. A real thing that exists.

So naturally with a new medium, it was time to once again take a stab at this concept. Honestly with the films going on I wouldn't mind if they tried to do a full film version with 9 new lives, but we'll see.

For now this is the last stab at the concept and is largely forgotten as the Boom Garfield comic didn't make a huge splash. It is currently being reprinted which is good, I hate when things fall into limbo betwene licenses and i'm still waiting for Image to put more than meets the eye back into print. and meant I could read the whole thing on comixology unilmited as it's recently added the garfield comics.

So fitting the medium, much like the book, 9 Lives III: Season of the Witch has each life have a wildly diffrent visual style, probably the most of any of these, with the artists involved really going wild. Out of the three it has the most visual range, and even the segments closer to garfield writing wise still look vastly diffrent. I love it and while a style or two dosen't work for me I applaud the variety. Nickel writes all 9 , the only time one writer wrote all of these, if not a massive departure as Jim Davis wrote the bulk of his 9 lives and Phil Roman oversaw the adaptation and has a director credit for the whole thing.

As I hinted at last time this one's a mixed bag as the first few segments.. are not great. But it picks up as it goes along. It's the weakest of the three and while I admit I defintely have love built up for the other two versions I don't here, going into it for the first time for this review, it's more that a lot of the segments fall flatter, some not taking nearly as big swings or trying to do the old narrative thing of looping in past versions of garfield's fast. Sometimes it works, but the better segments, with one exception, tend to just do thier own weird genre thing. It's time for 9 last lives, 9 last ways to loose under the cut as we see the good, the bad and the ugly of garfield.. and also garfield homaging the good the bad and the ugly.

So unlike the others Boom's 9 Lives was originally done as the last 4 issues of the ongoing series, two lives per issue and instead of a garfield life, we just get a full page intro from garfield instead of the one off blurb from the original book or similar intros in the specail. These are mostly fine, just fun little diversions to help set it up each themed to whatever life it is and linking them back to garfield. It's a solid wraparound that dosen't really have an ending as the last one is a scinetest theroising garfields future instead. It does however have my faviorite depection of johns hair i've seen

These are done by Andy Hirsch who looking at his website seems to prefer historical fiction for kids, a cartoony style but you learn something. He did do work for boom on adventure time, regular show and amazing world of gumball so it's not a shock he wound up here. He does really fantastic garfield work and i'd love to see him return to the franchise if they ever do comics again

Art by David Degrand

Cave Cat sucks. It just.. does. On the writing front Nickel falls into the trap most of the lives from the other versions avoided, the same one that made me hate King Kat: it's garfield BUT IN ANOTHER SETTING. Jon is his cave owner! Nermal gets mailed to abu dabi! fucking vito the pizza making man shows up for some reason! I get these are aimed more at kids, but kids expect.. more.

And the thing is looking into the artist.. David Degrand honestly slaps: he did backups for rocko, has a unique and fun chunky art style he just.. didn't get to go as far with. You can see this in the fact he did another garfield story, what seems to be issue 10 of the boom comics, that he , like with cave cat, put art of up on his site for his portfolio

This is so much more expressive and fun btu Cave Cat isn't. The writing really lets him down while Mark Evanier clearly let him have a bit more oomph to his weirdness. That and Evanier can be fucking weird in general, and it fit what they were going for more. Defintely going to have to review this issue at some point and check out some of degrands other works, but Cave Cat did him dirty. I can't tel lif he thought he had to hold back or not drawing monsters he simply couldn't go all out but the man is awesome even if his anthology segment isnt'

Art by Kari Smith I couldnt' find out WHICH Kari Smith made this as Kari Smith turns out to not only be a shockingly common name but lead to a few artists, none of whom SEEM to have worked on this. I did give it my honest best and the art here is decent, if nothing special and nothing like the other kari smiths I found. Granted that again could simply be boom editorial stepping in.

King Cat is fine, which you wouldn't think given how much I fucking hate the animated version. And it DOES keep garfield owning slaves for some reason, but they mostly feed him and fan him. They don't you know. .have garfield whip the piss out of assorted slaves or actively visit the pyramids. He's just doing what a pampered cat/advisor to his king probably would do.

The plot itself.. is kinda boring but at least uses the setting better: Garfield is the beloved pet/advisor to his king, being the one who suggests the pyramids and thus the one who inherits the throne. The king's evil vizer, you know the type, wants the throne instead and sends mummies, a plauge of rats and the god of death anubis against him. And I love how each backfire: the mummies are so dang slow he can just unravel them, he, as you'd expect from garfield, bargins with the rats giving them a bunch of cheese and Anubis.. is pissed the evil vizer interuppted his poker game and kills him.

Honestly.. this one's pretty good. I don't love it and having garfield have slaves is questionable as always, I don't really LIKE characters who own people outright on principal because .. i'ts slavery, I shoudln't have to explain why slavery bad or why a beloved cartoon cat shouldn't be practicing it, but they at least don't tdwell on it as much and use the setting for egyptian gags and in the style of the prince and vizer. it's not amazing but it's at least a marked improvment.

Art by Roger Landridge

Pirate Cat comes to us from Roger Landridge, who as a first for the artists for these stories has a wikipedia article: He started writing a deranged comic strip from 2000ad, The Straightjacket Fits, did a popeye series for IDW and to my delight is the same guy who wrote and drew the excellent Muppet Show comic for boom I've gotta cover one of these days. All in all an acomplished dude. his art style here is nice and expressive, a bit more cartoony than usual for garfield and fitting the story.

It's also nice to get an original concept, as while I don't entirely mind the boom comic recycling concepts, as they do new stuff with the basic premises each time, it is nice to get NEW lives as history is vast. And garfield as a pirate fits as well as a viking with him pillaging lasanga and on a treasure hunt against Jon. It's also the only one that does this past lives gimmick that works for me as Odie and Nermal as his crew, along with some other cats, just makes sense and nermal isn't just.. shoved in there as a button. While Jon as the antagonist is just.. inherently funny. It's hard to imagine Jon as evil but here we are. We also get Melvin the sea monster

I like melvin Give him and old eli a spinoff yesterday.

Art by Yehudi Mercado

So I encountered something entirely unexpected here... see turns out the artist for this one, also artist of Barkham Asylum and other childs comics.. got to write a marvel comic.. what if miles morales #4. Each one in this series was by a diffrent author showing miles as a diffrent marvel hero and for some reason his idea of "Thor but in brooklyn".. became..

I mean combining the two could be clever, combining brooklyn arcateture with asgards buuuut

I mean my god. He later apologized and agreed to donate his residuals to a brooklyn charity but my god. Anyways I mostly bring it up as it's infamous and it'd be weird if I didn't.. and because so far googlling anyone else involve just brings up "They did a bunch of other neat stuff I might check out, usually better than this" not "They did a racisim".

So anyway this story itself is good. I like Mercado's style here, nicely stylized and the first of this anthology to really stand out. The script is also great , with Evil Roy Gato coming into town to force them to print goofy novelty shirts so when it's invented he can send the work offshore and pocket the money! It's just such a weirdly specific and goofy idea it makes me giggle. And his defeat by clint eastwood garfield is delightful. Just typing the sentence clint eastwood garfield is amazing and it's this right mix of fitting, as they both have an excellent resting bitch face, and being fucking weird to have an icon of hypermasuclinity who once ranted at a chair represneting the president for some reason represented by garfield. It's a great segment and while it's marred by it's artist being a bit of a shithead, my hope is that mercado genuinely learned from this and gets a chance to do better. Also just to be clear marvel editorial ALSO deserves blame for that one as they approved it and thought nothing was wrong with it. Mercado is NOT blameless, but my god ya'll read this script and thought "this is fine".

Art by Brittney Williams

Brittney Williams is the first artist whose work i've actually seen before in the marvel series "Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat" a decent slice of life comic starring patsy with fantastic art. Williams was fantastic there and does incredible work here.

Super Cat is a golden age superman pastiche, which happens a lot but works due to putting it's own spins on it: their clark kent stand in is a copy boy, trying to pine after a golden age style dismissive lois, fight a nefarious villian in a mech suit in a world of delightfully drawn furries. It's a simples tory: super cat gets depowered and his new sidekick, odie , the newspaper's janitor who stumbled in on supercat's identity and becomes his sidekick and saves the day. It's cute, funny and gorgeous to look at, getting the right ballance between a golden age comic and parody, feeling like one while also having nice colorful modern florishes in it's art. Super Cat might be my faviorite of the 9+ lives, and is certainly my faviorite of this batch. It's fun, breezy and I may cover it in full someday and gets the feel of superman comics from the golden age down pitch perfect. Read this one if nothing else.

Art by Andy Hrisch

Andy Hrisch gets to cut loose a bit and I like that they let the wraparound guy also do his own segment. You can see more style with this one, with a bulkier sam whose close to garfield. This story leands heavier on comedy than babes and bullets and is delightful: Spayed accidently eats poisoned lasagna and has to figure out who in his rogues gallery poisnined him> The comic has lots of fun designs, reminding me of dick tracy a bit but in it's own style and the payoff for both thigns is great; Spayed spends the day grilling all his enemies.. and thus they all come calling to beat him up, with the real culprit being his secretary he wouldn't pay. He's forced to pay her (He was never poisoned).. but since the whole "pissing off his rogues thing" is thanks to her instead of just..demanding a raise, which is a lot but sadly realistic givne this climate, he leaves her to get pummeled by his enemies. Sam's a jerk here.. but he's a likeable jerk versus Slaverfield. A guy being a touch anti heroic and leaving an asshole to other assholes is a bit more tolerable than "WHIP THEM WHIP THE PISS OUT OF THEM.. FIELD"

Art by Frazer Irving

Frazer Irving is an artist who seems to specialize in horror and being unsettling. Lab Cat ironically is more of a horror comedy, but irving DOES do a great monster design for the cat.. his humans... welll

This is also the only story i've seen talked about entirely for it's art. And it's a mixed bag. I do think Irving does great horror work here, if with dodgy humans.. but the offputting feel dosen't quite match the story, where a bumbling pab tech is forced to look after a giant monster and gets it t calm like any other cat. BOth sides of Lab Cat aren't bad: the idea this big horrifying mutation that man has created is just as much cat is ever is adorable, and the tech leaving the cast hastily and his exasierated reactions.. are genuinely funny. It's just not completely strong as it's clear the writer and artist werne't on the same page as much as with say the first 9 lives "Primal Self". It stillg ets points with me for doing something so diffrent with the basic concept and is on par with sam spade as far as the takes on a life we've sene before go. This one honestly grew on me for it's creatvitiy and unique garfield design and while it dosen't mesh perfectly, I like it a lot more than I did the first go round and a LOT more than the first two segments.. or our last.

Art by Genivive FT

Space Cat is a throughly disappointing finale, more on par with our first segment. It's a star wars riff.. which as a child of the late 90's and early 2000's i've seen far too many of those to be impressed by "OH you made Jon the emperor instead of darth vader, you made arlene leia and garfield han good for you"

It's only two highlights are making it's odie super intellgent, it's C-3PO. C-3POdie, which they shoudl've gone with is fun.. but we just dont' get much time with him or Ace Nova. Ther'es intresting bits here, I like the ending reveal that this was all a setup to get the infinity brick and that Ace.. ends up resetting time and space

But i'ts agressively bland. The art is decent, nicely done digital stuff that reminds me of a more polished versoin of John Allison's early work on scary go round before he started handrawing the strip again

Though the artist has done better work as seen by her deviant art instagram and her own style is better.. which does kinda note the pattern: these artist seemed to be restricted somewhat by whatever paws, boom or the writer wanted, compared to the previous two versions where there was little, the only restirction on the animated one being budget and censors but still not enough.

Overall

Mixed bag was my thoughts going out of the graphic novel.. but on this reread as I reviewed it it's generally.. okay. It has one truly awful segment, a few okay ones, and a lot of geninely great ones. It's the weakest of the three easily, as it's clear the writer for all three wasn't al ltha tup for actual experimenting the way Jim Davis was. He leans more toward humor for ALL segments instead of trying something diffrent with even Lab Cat being a horror comedy. I have nothing against comedy, especailly since this is garfield, but what made 9 lives in both previous versions so unique is it blended comedy stories you'd expect with diffrent styles of comedy, like the three stooges, or horror, noir , biography and more. This 9 lives dosen't seem as keen to experiment in the story ,though the artists involve all try their best, I feel there's WAY more that coudl be done with this concept in this medium and hope we get another crack. I"d even love for some of these artists to come back as they can do more bu it feels like SOMEONE told them to be more garfield. 9 Lives 3: The Dream Warriors is still well worth reading for it's good segments, but feels a bit downgraded, the way it feels like Davis slowly homognized the franchise. It wasn't super deep to begin with but it feels like its experimented less and less as it goes and it's to the franchises detrment

9 LIves Boom Ranking

Super Cat: I gushed about this plenty. It's fun, breezy and unique for a superman parody using the standard golden and silver age setup. Sam Spade: A solid noir spoof with great art Cowboy Cat: A fun western romp with good art from a guy who really needs to sort some shit out. Pirate Cat: Garfield's really handsome when he's on a boat Lab Cat: Despite it's clash of art and words it still stands out Garfield Wraparound: Pretty standard garfield stuff, pretty fun King Cat: Better than the original but still fairly bland compared to the rest Space Cat: Bleh Cave Cat: The artist deserved better.

So that leaves one bit of buisness left. We have 30 segments over three versions, we've ranked them all indvidually.. but which ones are the best? The worst? The middle? Let's see

Overall Ranking

For this i'll also be thrwoing in the babes and bullets special, because why the fuck not.

Primal Self Diana's Piano Super Cat Babes and Bullets (Special) The Exterminators Court Musician (Special Lab Animal (Special) Lab Animal (Book) Sam Spade (BOOM!) Cowboy Cat (BOOM!) Space Cat (Special) Blues Cat Stunt Cat Babes and Bullets (Book) Cave Cat (Special) Garfield (Book) Garfield (Special) Lab Cat (BOOM!) Pirate Cat The Vikings In The Beginning (Book) In the Garden (Specail) The Garden King Cat (BOOM!) Cave Cat (Book) Garfield Wraparound In the Beginning (Special) Space Cat (Book) Space Cat (Boom) King Cat (Special) Cave Cat (BOOM!)

And while I didn't intend it that way, this ranking was entirely by the seat of my pants I do like that it ended up with one of each near the top. I do recommend checking out all three versions of 9 lives if you haven't, it's a trip and well worth the time. Not all segments are created equal, but what's good there is great and well worth your time. Thanks for reading

Next Time: Thanksgiving.. the only garfield holiday done in it's actual month. What a concept.

#garfield #garfield his 9 lives #boom studios #comics #jon arbuckle #odie #david degrande #roger langridge #kari smith #yehudi mercado #brittney L. Williams #andy hirsch #frazer irving #Genevieve F.T.#halloween

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