People all around the world are familiar with the “under tall” cartoon cat we call Garfield. The Sunday comics wouldn’t be the same without him! This lovable, but lazy and overfed animal has been making his way into our hearts for over 35 years!
Fresh Off The Farm
Image courtesy of gafield.wikia.com
Garfield is the amazing creation of cartoon artist Jim Davis. Davis grew up on a farm in Indiana (the same city that would later be the setting of the Garfield comic strip) where he was able to observe dozens of barn cats. Allergies kept Davis from spending a lot of time outdoors so he took up drawing as a hobby. He claims that his drawings were really bad at first – so bad that he had to label them to remember what they were. A bad start didn’t stop Davis; he continued to hone his skills. In college he majored in Art and Business. His job working for the TUMBLEWEEDS creator, Tom Ryan, allowed him to further hone his skills and learn the business of comic strips.
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
After parting ways with TUMBLEWEEDS, Jim Davis created his own comic strip called Gnorm Gnat. This comic strip combined bugs with Davis’ dry sense of humor. Even after working on Gnorm for 5 years, the strip wasn’t being received the way he would like. One editor commented that people just couldn’t relate to bugs. This was the comment that convinced Davis to squish the bug idea and come up with a character that people could relate to.
Davis went back to the drawing board and started to study the other successful comic strips of the day. He found that the comic pages were seriously lacking in the feline department. He knew exactly where to make his mark.
A Star is Born
A “fiesty”, fat orange cat was created as a composite of all of the cats Davis had come to know over the years. He named the cat Garfield after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis. The cat was lazy, gluttonous, sarcastic, mischievous , loved lasagna, hated Mondays, and was still lovable. He also created Jon Arbuckle to be Garfield’s nerdy owner. Jon was a throwback to a coffee commercial from the 1950’s. A dog named Odie (made after a car dealership commercial that featured “Odie the Village Idiot”) and his owner Lyman (created so Jon would have someone to talk to) would also join the cast. Later Lyman would be removed from the cast and Odie would be adopted by Jon. Originally the strip was centered around Jon, but editors convinced Davis to change the strip to center around Garfield. Garfield was first published on June, 19 1978 to a total of 41 newspapers.
Clawing His Way to the Top
Garfield went on to become one of the fastest rising stars in his industry. The first book of Garfield comics hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list in 1980. The follow up books had the same response. He even got a little facelift in the early 80’s to make him more expressive and able reach for food or kick Odie.
Demand for Garfield merchandise became so strong that Jim Davis had to start Paws, Inc to handle the distribution. In 1982 Garfield began being featured on tv and made the cover of People Magazine. By 1984 he was in an American Express Commercial, featured in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and he won his first Emmy for “Garfield on the Town.” Garfield got his own cartoon on television, Garfield and Friends, in 1988 that went on well into the 1990’s. Garfield even started a trend in the late 1980’s with his “Stuck On You” stuffed animals.
Garfield’s success just kept on rising. He made musical CD’s (with the likes of B.B. King, The Temptations, and Lou Rawls) , made 11 prime time specials, was nominated for a total of 10 Emmy Awards, campaigned for the National Wildlife Foundation, read books with the First Lady (the first Mrs. Bush), had a Bookmobile to promote reading, started his own website (www.Garfield.com), honored with a U.S. postage stamp, made 2 feature films, and more! In 2002 Garfield made it into the Guiness Book of World Records for “The Most Syndicated Comic Strip in the World” as it was being published in 2,570 journals world wide and translated into 44 different languages. The current version of Garfield’s daily cartoon is scene in 131 countries – including China. Hopefully Garfield will be with us for many years to come!
A 7 Minute Treat
Below is one of the shorts done for Garfield and Friends titled Mistakes Will Happen.
Playful Kitty 