Existential Garfield

It's probably as much an indicator of how much "existential" has been absorbed into pop culture that the Garfield Minus Garfield site has chosen to label itself as such. Or more precisely it's "a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle." In one sense it's an inspired goof along the lines of Nancy Poker (described here as 5-Card Nancy and with far more elaborate rules than when I played years ago) or the Dysfunctional Family Circus (the archives have diluted the idea so much that I'm not linking to it). And if you're so inclined you could reference more conventional "existential" sources--Beckett, Kierkegaard--but that's really stretching it. After all, Jon has yet to commit an unmotivated murder on the beach.