Garfield Bigger than Aesop’s Fables

I’m still not sure what reaction I should have to the Online Computer Library Center’s list of most commonly held titles—the books that more libraries have on their shelves than any others. Oh, it’s not that the top choices (the Bible, Mother Goose, Dante, Homer) are all that surprising. I’m just not sure whether to be thrilled by the multicultiness of seeing the Bhagavad Gita in the top 25, or appalled to observe that it’s severely outranked by Garfield books…which are the most popular 20th-century literature in existence, apparently. At least L. Frank Baum and Tolkien are still outpacing Calvin and Hobbes, Doonesbury and The Far Side; then again, they’re all outpacing Ulysses.

I heard about the list from Boing Boing, which has also told me about the Garfield randomizer (now defunct) and, my personal favorite, Garfield without the thought balloons. The folks at Arbuckle are taking the concept even further, redrawing the strips to make Jon and Garfield look more realistic.

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