Jon(1976–1977) andGarfield(1977–1978), locally published strips in thePendleton Times-Post
Garfield is an Americancomic strip created byJim Davis. Originally published locally asJon in 1976 (later changed toGarfield in 1977), then in nationwidesyndication from 1978, it chronicles the life of the title characterGarfield the cat,Odie the dog, and their ownerJon Arbuckle. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers andjournals; the comic held theGuinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.[1]
Though its setting is rarely mentioned in print, according to the television specialHappy Birthday, Garfield, Garfield takes place in Davis's hometown ofMuncie, Indiana. Common themes in the strip include Garfield's laziness and gluttony, as well as his interactions with the other characters.
Garfield has been adapted into various forms of media. Severalhalf-hour television specials aired onCBS between 1982 and 1991, starting withHere Comes Garfield and ending withGarfield Gets a Life. Also airing on CBS from 1988 to 1994 was the animated seriesGarfield and Friends, which additionally adapted Davis's comic stripU.S. Acres. All of these featuredLorenzo Music as the voice of Garfield. The feature filmGarfield: The Movie was released in 2004 andGarfield: A Tail of Two Kitties two years later. Both were live-action featuring a computer-animated Garfield voiced byBill Murray. Another animated TV adaptation,The Garfield Show, aired onFrance 3 in France andCartoon Network in the United States from 2009 to 2016. In addition, Garfield has been the subject of merchandise, video games, books, and other spin-off merchandise. The strip has also been re-published in compilations; the first of these,Garfield at Large (1980), developed what came to be known as the "Garfield format" for re-publication of newspaper comics in book form.
CartoonistJim Davis was born and raised inMuncie, Indiana. In 1973, while working as an assistant for T.K. Ryan'sTumbleweeds, he created the comic stripGnorm Gnat, which ran in thePendleton Times ofPendleton, Indiana, from 1973 to 1975 and met with little success. Davis had tried tosyndicate the strip, but was unsuccessful; he noted that one editor told him that his "art was good, his gags were great, [but] nobody can identify with bugs."[5] Davis decided to peruse current comic strips to determine what species of animal characters might be more popular. He felt that dogs were doing well, but noticed no prominent cats.[5]
The firstJon strip, which ran in thePendleton Times on January 8, 1976. It was redrawn as the firstGarfield strip published on June 19, 1978, with the dialogue in the second panel removed and Garfield's line in the first panel moved there.
The title characterGarfield was based on the cats Davis grew up around; he took his name and personality from Davis' grandfather, James A. Garfield Davis, whom he described as "a large, cantankerous man."[6] Garfield's human ownerJon Arbuckle derived his name from a 1950s coffee commercial. Jon's roommate Lyman, added to give Jon someone to talk with, carried on the name of an earlierGnorm Gnat character.[5] The final character was Lyman's dog Spot, who was renamedOdie so as to avoid confusion with a dog also named Spot in the comic stripBoner's Ark. From 1976 to early 1978, these characters appeared in a strip calledJon which also ran in theTimes. In 1977, the strip's name was changed toGarfield. TheJon comic strip was largely unknown until 2019, when YouTuberQuinton Hoover found severalmicrofilm archives of theJon publications from the Pendleton Community Library andIndiana State Library.[7]Jon first appeared in thePendleton Times on January 8, 1976, just two weeks afterGnorm Gnat ended.
In March 1978,United Feature Syndicate accepted the strip for national distribution (which had been retitledGarfield on September 1, 1977), and the lastPendleton Times strip ran on March 2, 1978. United Feature Syndicate debuted the first strip nationwide in 41 newspapers, starting on June 19, 1978. After a test run, theChicago Sun-Times dropped theGarfield strip, only to reinstate it after readers' complaints.[1][8]
The appearance of the characters gradually changed over time;[9] the left panel is from the March 7, 1980, strip; the right is from the July 6, 1990, strip
The strip underwent stylistic changes, evolving from the style of the 1976–83 strips, to a more cartoonish look from 1984 onward. This change has mainly affected Garfield's design, which underwent a "Darwinian evolution" in which he began walking on his hind legs, "slimmed down", and "stopped looking ... through squinty little eyes" His evolution, according to Davis, was to make it easier to "push Odie off the table" or "reach for a piece of pie".[9] The redesign was in part on the advice of Davis's mentor and erstwhile rivalCharles M. Schulz; though Schulz privately expressed some jealousy atGarfield overtaking his own stripPeanuts and thought Davis's characters were lacking in subtlety and nuance, he provided substantial advice to Davis over the years, particularly in setting thefranchising andmerchandising blueprint Schulz had built forSnoopy, which Davis adopted to great success forGarfield.[10]
Garfield quickly became a commercial success. By the beginning of 1981, less than three years after its nationwide launch, the strip was in 850 newspapers and had sold over $15 million in merchandise. To manage the merchandise, Davis foundedPaws, Inc.[8] In 1982 the strip was appearing in more than 1,000 newspapers.[11]
By 2002,Garfield became the world's most syndicated strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers with 263 million readers worldwide;[1] by 2004,Garfield appeared in nearly 2,600 newspapers and sold from $750 million to $1 billion worth of merchandise in 111 countries.[12] In 1994, Davis's company, Paws, Inc., purchased all rights to the strips from 1978 to 1993 from United Feature.
While retaining creative control and being the only person to whom the strip is credited in newspapers, Davis now only writes and usually does the rough sketches. Since the late 1990s most of the work has been done by long-time assistants Brett Koth and Gary Barker. Inking and coloring work is done by other artists, while Davis spends most of the time supervising production and merchandising the characters.[12]
The strip's title character isGarfield, an obese orange tabby cat. Garfield's personality is defined by his sarcasm, laziness, and gluttony, with the character showing a particular affinity forlasagna. His owner isJon Arbuckle, a man with an affinity for stereotypicallynerdy pastimes. Jon's other pet isOdie, a dim-witted yellow dog. Most strips center around interactions among the three characters' conflicting personalities. For much of the strip's history, one recurring theme was Jon's unsuccessful attempts atdating, particularly involving the pets' veterinarian, Dr. Liz Wilson, a character who also carried over fromJon. However, after a 2006 story arc, the two became engaged and started to live together.[13] Many strips feature Jon, Garfield, and Odie visiting Jon's unnamed parents and brother Doc Boy on their family farm. Other side characters include various mice and spiders within the house, both frequent targets of abuse and scorn from Garfield; Garfield'steddy bear Pooky; Garfield's girlfriend Arlene, a pink cat; Nermal, a gray striped kitten who enjoys tormenting Garfield over his perceived age; and various other pets who live in the neighborhood.
Part of the strip's broad pop cultural appeal is due to its lack ofsocial orpolitical commentary; though this was Davis's original intention, he also admitted that his "grasp of politics isn't strong", joking that, for many years, he thought "OPEC was adenture adhesive".[14][15]
Originally created with the intentions to "come up with a good, marketable character",[16]Garfield has spawned merchandise earning $750 million to $1 billion annually. In addition to the various merchandise and commercial tie-ins, the strip has spawned several animated television specials, two animated television series, two theatrical feature-lengthlive-action animated films, three fullycomputer-animateddirect-to-video films, and a theatrical computer-animated film.
As one of the world's most syndicated comic strips,[17]Garfield has spawned a "profusion"[12] of merchandise including clothing, toys, games, books, Caribbean cruises, credit cards, dolls,[18] DVDs of the movies or the TV series,[19] and related media.[20] In April 2024,Motel 6 announced Garfield as their first "Chief Pet Officer" and Garfield-themed rooms for the release ofThe Garfield Movie.[21]
Media
Books
Since 1980, the strip has been compiled in anthology books. The first,Garfield at Large, was published in March 1980 byBallantine Books. These books helped increase the strip's popularity through sales, leading to several of them reaching the top of theNew York Times best sellers list.[22] For these compilation books, Davis devised a book layout which is considerably longer and less tall than the average book. This allowed the strip to be oriented in the same format as it appeared in the newspaper, as opposed to earlier comic strip anthologies which often stacked the panels vertically.[22] This book style has since been referred to in the publishing industry as the "Garfield format" and has been adapted by other publishers. Davis noted that it became popular for other comic strip anthologies in particular, such as those ofThe Far Side.[23]
Internet
Garfield.com was the strip's official website, which contained archives of past strips along with games and an online store. Jim Davis had also collaborated withBall State University andPearson Digital Learning to create ProfessorGarfield.org, an educational website with interactive games focusing on math and reading skills, and with Children's Technology Group to create MindWalker, a web browser that allows parents to limit the websites their children can view to a preset list.[24][25][26]
A variety of editedGarfield strips have been made available on the Internet, with some being hosted on their own unofficial, dedicated sites. Dating from 2005, a site titled the "Garfield Randomizer" created a three-panel strip using panels from previousGarfield strips.[27] Another approach, known as "Silent Garfield",[28] involved removing Garfield's thought balloons from the strips.[29] Some examples date from 2006.[30] A webcomic calledArbuckle does the above but also redraws the originals in a different art style. TheArbuckle website creator writes: "'Garfield' changes from being a comic about a sassy, corpulent feline, and becomes a compelling picture of a lonely, pathetic, delusional man who talks to his pets. Consider that Jon, according to Garfield canon, cannot hear his cat's thoughts. This is the world as he sees it. This is his story".[31]
Another variation along the same lines, called "Realfield" or "Realistic Garfield", was to redraw Garfield as a real cat and remove his thought balloons.[32][33] Still another approach to editing the strips involved removing Garfield and other main characters from the originals completely, leaving Jon talking to himself. While strips in this vein could be found online as early as 2006,[30] the 2008 siteGarfield Minus Garfield by Dan Walsh received enough online attention to be covered by news media. Reception was largely positive: at its peak, the site received as many as 300,000 hits per day. Fans connected with Jon's "loneliness and desperation" and found his "crazy antics" humorous; Jim Davis himself called Walsh's strips an "inspired thing to do" and said that "some of [the strips] work better [than the originals]".[34][35] Ballantine Books, which publishes theGarfield books, released a volume ofGarfield Minus Garfield strips on October 28, 2008. The volume retains Davis as author and features a foreword by Walsh.[32]
On June 19, 2020, the website was shut down during the strip's 42nd anniversary, followingViacom's acquisition of Paws, Inc. in August 2019. The website now redirects to Nick.com, with an alternative link to GoComics.
Television
Garfield's animation debut was onThe Fantastic Funnies, which aired on CBS on May 15, 1980, voiced by actorScott Beach.Garfield was one of the strips featured, introduced as a newcomer (the strip was only two years old at the time). From 1982 to 1991, twelve primetimeGarfield cartoon specials and one hour-long primetime documentary celebrating the character's 10th anniversary were aired;Lorenzo Music voiced Garfield in all of them. A Saturday-morning cartoon show,Garfield and Friends, aired for seven seasons from 1988 to 1994. This adaptation also starred Music as the voice of Garfield.[36]
The Garfield Show, aCGI series, started development in 2007 to coincide with the strip's 30th anniversary in 2008.[37] It premiered in France in December 2008 and made its U.S. debut onCartoon Network on November 2, 2009.
On May 24, 2016, it was announced thatAlcon Entertainment would develop a new CG-animatedGarfield film, with John Cohen and Steven P. Wegner producing, andMark Dindal directing the feature.[51][52][53] In August 2019,Viacom acquired the rights to Garfield, leaving the status of the movie for the time uncertain, with Dindal confirming that the film was still in production in December 2020.[4][54] On November 1, 2021,Chris Pratt was announced as the voice of Garfield, with animation being provided byDNEG, a production company of the film.David Reynolds was announced as the screenwriter of the film, reuniting him with Dindal after they worked together onThe Emperor's New Groove.Sony Pictures will maintain global distribution rights for the film, apart from China.[55] On May 24, 2022,Samuel L. Jackson joined the voice cast as Vic, Garfield's father.[56] The movie was released on May 24, 2024, and was a success, bringing in a box office total of $255.4 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million. Pratt has been confirmed to return in the sequel, announced on July 8, 2025, with a planned release date of May 14, 2027.[3]
Joseph Papp, producer ofA Chorus Line, discussed making a Garfield stage musical, but due to some complications, it never got off ground. A full-length stage musical, titled "Garfield Live", was planned to kick off its US tour in September 2010, but got moved to January 18, 2011, where it premiered inMuncie, Indiana. The book was written by Jim Davis, with music and lyrics by Michael Dansicker and Bill Meade, and it was booked by AWA Touring Services. The opening song, "Cattitude", can be heard on the national tour's website, along with two more, "On the Fence" and "Going Home!".[61] When the North American tour concluded in 2012, it toured throughout Asia.
Comic book
In agreement with Paws,Boom! Studios launched in May 2012 a monthlyGarfield comic book, with the first issue featuring a story written byMark Evanier (who has supervisedGarfield and Friends andThe Garfield Show) and illustrated by Davis's long-time assistant Gary Barker.[62]
Art book
In 2016,Hermes Press signed an agreement with Paws, Inc to publish an art book on the art of author Jim Davis, titledThe Art of Jim Davis' Garfield.[63] The book includes an essay by authorR.C. Harvey and other original material, and was released in July 2016 forSan Diego Comic-Con.[63]
Restaurant
In 2018, aghost restaurant themed after the franchise known asGarfieldEATS was opened inDubai. Customers order food through the official mobile app, which also contains games and allows users to purchase episodes ofGarfield and Friends. The restaurant serves lasagna, Garfield-shaped pizza, "Garfuccinos", and Garfield-shaped dark chocolate bars. A second location opened inToronto in 2019.[64][65] Due to theCOVID-19 pandemic and a dispute over rent, the restaurant closed in 2020.[66]
Many of the gags focus on Garfield's obsessive eating and obesity; his dislike of spiders; his hatred of Mondays, diets, and any form of exertion; his constant shedding (which annoys Jon); and his abuse of Odie and Jon as well as his obsession with mailingNermal toAbu Dhabi, or simply throwing himthrough the front door. Though he will eat nearly anything (with the exception ofraisins andspinach), Garfield is particularly fond oflasagna; he also enjoys eating Jon's houseplants and other pets (mainly birds and fish).
He also has odd relationships with household pests; Garfield generally spares mice, and even cooperates with them to cause mischief (much to Jon's chagrin), but will readily swat or pound spiders flat. Other gags focus on Jon's poor social skills and inability to get a date; before he started dating Liz, he often tried to get dates, usually without success (in one strip, after failing to get a date with "Nancy", he tries getting a date with her mother and grandmother; he ended up getting "shot down by three generations").[67] When he does get a date, it usually goes awry; Jon's dates have slashed his tires, been tranquilized, and called the police when he stuck carrots in his ears. The storylines featuring Jon's dates rarely appear now. Before, he had dates with many odd characters, whereas now, he exclusively dates Liz.
Garfield's world has specific locations that appear normally on the comic strips, like the vet's office (a place he loathes). Irma's Diner is another occasional setting. Irma is a chirpy but slow-witted and unattractive waitress/manager, and one of Jon's few friends. The terrible food is the center of most of the jokes, along with the poor management. Jon periodically visits his parents and brother on the farm. This results in week-long comical displays of stupidity by Jon and his family, and their interactions. There is a comic strip where Jon's brother Doc Boy is watching two socks in the dryer spinning and Doc Boy calls it entertainment.
On the farm, Jon's mother will cook huge dinners; Garfield hugs her for this. Jon has a grandmother who, in a strip, once kicked Odie; Garfield subsequently hugged her. Jon's parents have twice visited Jon, Garfield, and Odie in the city. Jon's father drove into town on histractor (which hedouble-parked) and brought a rooster to wake him up. As Garfield has a love for food, they will often eat out at restaurants. Most trips end up embarrassing because Garfield will pig out, or Jon will do something stupid, including wearing an ugly shirt, which happened one night when he took Liz on a date. When Jon takes Liz on a date, Garfield occasionally tags along—once, he ate the bread and other food at an Italian restaurant they went to.[68]
Frequently, the characters break thefourth wall, mostly to explain something to the readers, talk about a subject that often sets up the strip's punchline (like Jon claiming that pets are good for exercise right before he finds Garfield in the kitchen and chases him out),[69] or give a mere glare when a character is belittled or not impressed. Sometimes, this theme revolves around the conventions of the strip; for example, in one strip, Garfield catches a cold and complains about it, noting that his thoughts are stuffed up.[70]
Short storylines
One particular semi-recurring storyline features Jon and Liz on a date in a restaurant. They sometimes are waited on by the Italian Armando, who is refined and sophisticated and shows a great loathing towards Jon, presumably for his immature and uncouth behavior at the prestigious eatery. On other occasions, the couple receives a different waiter, such as a large ogre-like man who intimidates Jon when he is about to report a complaint about the food.
Another commonly recurring character, although hardly ever seen, is Jon's neighbor, Mrs. Feeny. Garfield seems to take both enormous pride and excess zeal in doing whatever it takes to harass her, to the point that she even erects an electric fence (which does not stop him).
Other unique themes are things like "Garfield's Believe it or Don't",[71] "Garfield's Law",[72] "Garfield's History of Dogs",[73] and "Garfield's History of Cats",[74] which show science, history, and the world from Garfield's point of view. Another particular theme is "National Fat Week", where Garfield spends the week making fun of skinny people. Also, there was a storyline involving Garfield catching Odie eating his food and "kicking Odie into next week".[75] Soon, Garfield realizes that "Lunch isn't the same without Odie. He always slips up behind me, barks loudly and makes me fall into my food" (Garfield subsequently falls into his food by himself).[76]
A few days after the storyline began, Garfield is lying in his bed with a "nagging feeling I'm forgetting something", with Odie landing on Garfield in the next panel.[77] Jon and Liz began to go out more frequently. Jon has started hiring pet sitters to look after Garfield and Odie, though they do not always work out. Two particular examples are Lillian, an eccentric (and very nearsighted) old lady with odd quirks, and Greta, a muscle-bound woman who was hired to look after the pets during New Year's Eve.
Most of December is spent preparing for Christmas, with a predictable focus on presents. Other Christmas themed strips include Jon's attempts at decorating the tree and house, or the attempt to buy the tree. Some years, the Christmas strips started as early as the end of November. Another example is "Splut Week", when Garfield tries to avoid pies that are thrown at him. For most of Garfield's history, being hit with a pie has inevitably resulted in the onomatopoeia "splut", hence the name.
Every week before June 19, the strip focuses on Garfield's birthday, which he dreads because of his fear of getting older. This started happening after his sixth birthday. However, before his 29th birthday, Liz put Garfield on a diet. On June 19, 2007, Garfield was given the greatest birthday present: "I'M OFF MY DIET!" Occasionally the strip celebrates Halloween as well with scary-themed jokes, such as mask gags. There are also seasonal jokes, with snow-related gags common in January or February and beach- or heat-themed jokes in the summer.
Right panel of the October 27, 1989, strip
One storyline, which ran the week beforeHalloween in 1989, is unique among Garfield strips in that it is not meant to be humorous.[78][failed verification] It depicts Garfield awakening in a future in which the house is abandoned and he no longer exists. In Garfield'sTwentieth Anniversary Collection, in which the strips are reprinted, Jim Davis discusses the genesis for this series:
During a writing session for Halloween, I got the idea for this decidedly different series of strips. I wanted to scare people. And what do people fear most? Why, being alone. We carried out the concept to its logical conclusion and got a lot of responses from readers. Reaction ranged from 'Right on!' to 'This isn't a trend, is it?'
One of the recurring storylines involves Garfield getting lost or running away. The longest one of these lasted for over a month (in 1986, from August 25 to September 28); it began with Jon telling Garfield to go get the newspaper. Garfield walks outside to get it, but speculates about what will happen if he wanders off – and decides to find out. Jon notices Garfield has been gone too long, so he sends Odie out to find him. He quickly realizes his mistake (Odie, being not too bright, also gets lost). Jon starts to get lonely, so he offers a reward for the return of Garfield and Odie. He is not descriptive, so animals including an elephant,monkeys, aseal, a snake, akangaroo andjoey, and turtles are brought to Jon's house for the reward. After a series of events, including Odie being adopted by a small girl, both pets meeting up at a circus that they briefly join, and both going to a pet shop, Garfield and Odie make it back home.
Another story involved Jon going away on a business trip around Christmas time, leaving Garfield a week's worth of food, which he devoured instantly. Garfield then leaves the house and gets locked out. He then reunites with his mother, and eventually makes it back home in the snow on Christmas Eve (December 3–23, 1984). Part of this storyline was taken from the 1983 Emmy-winning specialGarfield on the Town.
National Stupid Day
The November 11, 2010, strip featured an interaction between Garfield and a spider. The spider forcefully warns Garfield (who is brandishing a newspaper) that should he be squished, there will be an "annual day of remembrance" for him and that he will become famous. The final panel shows a classroom full of spiders, in which the teacher asks, "does anyone here knowwhy we celebrate 'National Stupid Day'?"[79]
Since November 11 isVeterans Day in the US, some readers expressed concern that the strip and its timing were mocking the holiday. Davis released a statement saying that he had no control over the strip's timing but nonetheless apologized for any offense it may have caused.[80]
Paws, Inc.[81] was founded in 1981 byJim Davis to support the Garfield comic strip and its licensing. It is located inMuncie, Indiana, and has a staff of nearly 50 artists and licensing administrators. In 1994, the company purchased all rights to the Garfield comic strips from 1978 to 1993 fromUnited Feature Syndicate. However, the original black and white daily strips and original color Sunday strips remain copyrighted to United Feature Syndicate. The full-color daily strips and recolored Sunday strips are copyrighted to Paws as they are considered a different product. Though rights to the strip remain with Paws, Inc., it is currently distributed by theAndrews McMeel Syndication. In August 2019, Davis sold Paws, Inc. toViacom, who has placed Garfield under theNickelodeon banner.[4]
See also
Heathcliff another American comic strip featuring an orange cat
Hurd, Jud (2004).Cartoon Success Secrets: A Tribute to 30 Years of Cartoonist Profiles. Andrews McMeel Publishing.ISBN978-0-7407-3809-8.
Inde, Vilis R. (1998).Art in the Courtroom: Piracy or Fair Use?. Greenwood Publishing Group.ISBN978-0-275-95971-5.
Mansour, David (2005).From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century. Andrews McMeel Publishing.ISBN978-0-7407-5118-9.
Price, Nelson (1997).Indiana Legends: Famous Hoosiers from Johnny Appleseed to David Letterman. Emmis Books.ISBN978-1-57860-006-9.
Rogers, Katharine M. (2001).The Cat and the Human Imagination: Feline Images from Bast to Garfield. University of Michigan Press.ISBN978-0-472-08750-1.
Thomas, Phyllis (2007).Indiana: Off the Beaten Path: A Guide to Unique Places. Globe Pequot Press.ISBN978-0-7627-4414-5.
^abHamrah, A. S. (November 14, 2008)."The tabby vanishes".The National. Abu Dhabi: thenational.ae. Archived fromthe original on February 12, 2009. RetrievedDecember 25, 2008. Review ofGarfield Minus Garfield (Ballantine Books, 2008)
