Jon Arbuckle is one lonely, disturbed man. Without the snarky, eponymous cat in Jim Davis’s Garfield comic strip, the depth of Arbuckle’s angst becomes magnified and hilariously clear. Exhibit A:

Dan Walsh, the 33-year-old administrator and creator of the blog “Garfield Minus Garfield,” didn’t “invent” the phenomenon, but was the first to devote an entire site to posting the photoshopped strips. First appearing in February 2008, the blog now garners hundreds of thousands of hits a week and is being made into a book to be published by Ballatine Books, a division of Random House. The full-color book will feature the doctored strips alongside their originals, unlike the blog, allowing for comparison.

Because the rights to the comic are owned by PAWS, Inc., Walsh was not included in the book deal. “I didn’t receive a book deal, nor do I think I should have,” says Walsh on his Web site. “Paws, Incorporated … were kind enough to offer me a fee to write a foreword to a book by Jim Davis inspired by Garfield Minus Garfield and I accepted.”

So what does Garfield’s creator think of this? Davis recently thanked Walsh in a Washington Post article about the site, saying the idea was an, “inspired thing to do,” and that it helped him see another side of “Garfield.”

Tags: Ballatine Books, Comic Strip, Garfield Minus Garfield, Jim Davis, Random House