Curse you, Jim Davis!

There was a time, long ago, before the transformation of his hind legs into troublingly humanoid appendages, when Garfield was funny.

In my fourth grade classroom, the collected Garfield comic strip paperbacks were banned from our quiet reading time because we, the Garfield faithful, could not control our guffaws. The cat -- get this! -- eats lasagna! Can't get enough of it! He's smarter than his owner! And oh, the amusing and neverending torment of Odie. My sides ached with laughter. Okay, so it wasn't really funny, but in my defense, I was nine years old. And at least the strips had jokes back then.

This is what passes for humor in a Garfield strip now:







What the hell is that? I've been staring at it for several minutes now. Minutes I'm never getting back. Can anyone tell me why this is amusing? I suppose there's a possibility that it has morphed into one of those serialized dramatic comic strips like "Pedrick Wayside, Private Eye," or "Mark Trail," but if so, then I'm puzzled as to what the larger narrative could entail. Maybe the humor comes from the characters' teeth changing from rounded nubs in the first panel to squares. I don't know. Any thoughts?

I'm confused and not a little frightened.