printable pdf of my zine abt garfield
this one has been in my brain Foreverrr but i could not make it until i had orange paper to print it on. i love u garfield 🧡
The cover of a zine printed on orange paper. Title reads "a love letter to Garfield, earnestness, & my local library." Below is a drawing of child Maria and adult Maria sitting back to back. Child Maria has long dark hair in two braids with bangs. She wears a tank top and shorts and is reading the Garfield at Large comic book. Adult Maria has a buzzcut, glasses, Garfield earrings, a tank top and shorts. They are drawing Garfield in a sketchbook. Garfield, a fat orange tabby cat, is sleeping in front of them. Text below: "by @maria.therese.art"
Text reads: "As a very sheltered homeschooled kid, I didn't get out much, but the one place outside my house you could usually find me was the kids section at my local library. I remember two things vividly: 1: the painted turtle I always said hi to on the way there. 2: the Garfield books. I always went home with a stack of them and he was one of the first characters I learned how to draw from memory."
Below is child Maria peering over a counter as high as her chin. On the counter a painted turtle is swimming inside a tank. In front of them all is a bookshelf displaying 3 Garfield books: Garfield Loses His Feet, Garfield's Scary Tales, and Garfield Chews the Fat.
Text reads: "One one trip when I was around 6, we found the 1982 animated masterpiece Here Comes Garfield in which Garf has to break Odie out of the pound. I had my first real contemplation of death to the song that played when he thought they were going to put Odie down. To this day it still activates the same emotions that Gary Come Home does. We don't have time to unpack whatever is wrong with me."
Below, Child Maria is on her hands and knees crying on the ground as the aformentioned scene from Here Comes Garfield plays on an early 2000s CRT TV. The screen shows Garfield and Odie sleeping side by side in the pound. The lyrics "so long" are floating above the TV with music notes as it rains in the background.
Text above reads: "I grew up with two cats. Looking back I'm wondering if my attachment to Garfield was because he was the perfect combo of both of them:"
Two cats are drawn below: one is a slim white cat with grey patches on his fur labelled "Toby," described below in bullet points as "grumpy," and "pretends he doesn't love you (he does)." The other is a fat tuxedo cat labelled "Duke," described below in bullet points as "silly goofy guy," and "big chonker." Between Toby and Duke is a plus sign, and below both of them is an equals sign pointing to Garfield.
Text reads "As I got older and grew into my identity as a Certified Memelord, Garfield started to become the meme/eldritch horror a lot of the internet knows him as today. And so while he may still have been a part of my Brand, my love for him was deeply ironic." Below is a Young Adult Maria with glasses and a pixie cut nodding and giving a thumbs up in front of a computer. On the screen is a meme of Garfield smoking a pipe sitting on a crater in space a la Watchmen. Bottom of the meme reads: "Bottom text."
Text reads "Around my mid to late twenties, the algorithm started showing me some vintage Garfield plushies along with the memes. The Garfield collectors and all the wild niche stuff his face ended up on took me down so many YouTube rabbit holes, and somewhere along the line seeing the genuine love all these people had for him brought back the joy he brought me in that library in 2001 and it was earnest all over again."
Below is the adult Maria we saw on the cover in the same crying on the floor pose Child Maria was a few pages ago. Behind her this time are 3 YouTube thumbnails: one of Izzzyzzz, a person with shaggy black hair in front of shelves of Garfield plushes; one of Defunctland's video about the Garfield dark ride showing a Garfield mascot character and a Garfield wooden cutout from the ride; and one of Quinton Reviews, a man with long brown hair, glases, and a beard in a Garfield-striped puffer jacked in front of bookshelves with a giant Garfield plush next to him. The background above Maria is full of hearts with Garfield plushes and closeups of his face drawn inside them, the biggest heart in the center showing the "to be loved is to be changed" Garfield plushes - one very old and very loved plush next to the same one brand new.
Text reads "My collection right now is small and a lot of it is things I made, but it's enough that when I meet new people he's one of the first things they associate with me. They ask me what it is about him and I never really have the words for it other than that he's always been there. There's something so comforting about knowing that at every stage of my life, no matter how many layers of irony I try to wrap it up in, his silly little face has always been watching over me."
Below is Garfield hugging his teddy bear Pooky. Around him are some pieces of Maria's Garfield collection: their phone case covered in Garfield stickers, a Garfield watch, Garfield earrings, a Garfield mug with craft supplies in it, and a Garfield plush.
Text below: "And come on, man. Look at him."
Text above reads "My garfield white whales." Below are pasted black & white photos of various collector's items: An analog Garfield wall clock where the clock face is in his belly and his eyes and tail move labelled "garf clock," a large wooden spice rack with Garfield printed on the top and on the ceramic spice jars labelled "garf spice rack," a Garfield plush hugging a crescent moon with a face and nightcap and stars hanging on ribbons on the bottom labelled "lil moon guy," a landline phone shaped like Garfield labelled "The Garf Phone," and a large Garfield plushie labelled "giant garf."
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