Garfield - History

History

In the 1970s the comic strip artist Jim Davis authored a strip, Gnorm Gnat, which met with little success. One editor said that "his art was good, his gags were great," but "nobody can identify with bugs." Davis took his advice and created a new strip with a cat as its main character. The strip originally consisted of four main characters. Garfield, the titular character, was based on the cats Davis was around growing up; he took his name and personality from Davis's grandfather James A. Garfield Davis, who was, in Davis's words, "a large cantankerous man". Jon Arbuckle came from a coffee commercial from the 1950s, and Odie was based on a car dealership commercial written by Jim Davis, which featured Odie the Village Idiot. Early on in the strip Odie's owner was a man named Lyman. He was written in to give Jon someone to talk with. Davis later realized that Garfield and Jon could "communicate nonverbally". The strip originally centered on Jon, being rejected by the King Features, Post-Hall and the Chicago Tribune-New York News agencies, all which asked Davis to focus on the cat, who in their opinion, got the better lines. United Feature Syndicate accepted the retooled strip in 1978 and debuted it in 41 newspapers on June 19 of that year (however after a test run, the Chicago Sun-Times dropped it, only to reinstate it after readers' complaints). Garfield's first Sunday page ran on June 25, 1978, being featured as a third-pager until March 22, 1981. A half page debuted the following Sunday (March 29), with the strips for March 14 and 21, 1982, having a unique nine-panel format, but UFS curtailed further use of it (but it allowed Davis to use the format for his U.S. Acres strip).

The strip's subject matter in the early months varied from the pattern it later settled into. Some could be seen today as politically incorrect, such as strips involving Jon's pipe smoking or his subscription to a bachelor magazine. Another point which has distanced these strips was the U.S./Canada-centric humor, with a few jokes being totally untranslatable to some languages, however by 1980, the strip became the universal family fare product that it's known for.

More notably, the strip underwent stylistic changes with 1978–83 strips being more realistic, while comics from 1984 onwards have been more cartoony. This change has essentially affected Garfield's design; who 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". Jon also underwent major changes, and still currently is. Now, he looks older than 1990 strips; he is taller and he has larger features.

Garfield quickly became a commercial success. In 1981, less than three years after its release, the strip appeared in 850 newspapers and accumulated over $15 million in merchandise. To manage the merchandise, Davis founded Paws, Inc. By 2002, Garfield became the world's most syndicated strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers with 263 million readers worldwide; by 2004, Garfield appeared in nearly 2,600 newspapers and sold from $750 million to $1 billion worth of merchandise in 111 countries. In 1994, Davis's company, Paws, Inc., purchased all rights to the strips from 1978 to 1993 from United Feature. The strip is currently distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, while rights for the strip remain with Paws.

Davis is no longer the sole artist of Garfield. Though he still writes the stories and rough sketches, other artists handle the inking, coloring, and lettering. Davis otherwise spends most of his time managing the business and merchandising of Garfield.