Garfield is an American comic strip and media franchise created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as Jon in 1976 (later changed to Garfield in 1977), then in nationwide syndication from 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield, a lazy, gluttonous, and sarcastic cat, along with a dim-witted dog named Odie and their human owner, Jon Arbuckle. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals; the comic held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip. Though the strip's setting is rarely mentioned in print, the television special Happy Birthday, Garfield states that Garfield lives in Muncie, Indiana, the hometown of the creator Jim Davis. The strip frequently focuses on Garfield's appetite, laziness, and interactions with other characters.
Garfield has been adapted into various forms of media. Several animated half-hour television specials aired on CBS between 1982 and 1991, starting with Here Comes Garfield and ending with Garfield Gets a Life. Also airing on CBS from 1988 to 1994 was the animated series Garfield and Friends, which additionally adapted Davis's comic strip U.S. Acres. All of these featured Lorenzo Music as the voice of Garfield. The feature film Garfield: The Movie was released in 2004, followed by its sequel, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, in 2006. Both were live-action featuring a computer-animated Garfield voiced by Bill Murray. Another animated TV adaptation, The Garfield Show, aired on France 3 in France and Cartoon 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.
On August 6, 2019, New York City–based Viacom (now Paramount Skydance Corporation) announced that it would acquire Paws, Inc., including most rights to the Garfield franchise (the comic strip, merchandise and animated cartoons). The deal did not include the rights to the live-action Garfield films, which are still owned by The Walt Disney Company through its 20th Century Studios label, as well as The Garfield Movie (2024), released by Alcon Entertainment and Sony Pictures under its Columbia Pictures label. A new animated series is in production for Paramount+.
History
Before Garfield Cartoonist Jim Davis was born in Marion, Indiana, and raised on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana. In 1973, while working as an assistant for T.K. Ryan's Tumbleweeds, he created the comic strip Gnorm Gnat, which ran in the Pendleton Times of Pendleton, Indiana, from 1973 to 1975 and met with little success. Davis had tried to syndicate 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." Davis decided to review current comic strips to determine what types of animal characters might be more popular. He felt that dogs were well represented, but noticed that there were no prominent cat characters.Davis. 20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection. p. 14.
The title character, Garfield, was inspired by the cats Davis grew up with. He was named after Davis' grandfather, James A. Garfield Davis, whose personality also influenced the character; Davis described him as "a large, cantankerous man". Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, was named after businessman John Arbuckle, who Davis had heard mentioned in a commercial for Yuban Instant Coffee. Jon's roommate, Lyman, was introduced to provide Jon with a conversational foil and was named after a character from Davis' earlier comic strip, Gnorm Gnat. Lyman's dog was originally named Spot, but was later renamed to Odie to avoid confusion with another comic-strip dog of the same name in Boner's Ark.
Jon From 1976 to early 1978, these characters appeared in a comic strip titled Jon, which was published in the Pendleton Times. In 1977, the strip was renamed Garfield. For many years, Jon remained largely unavailable to the public until 2019, YouTuber Quinton Hoover found several microfilm archives of the Jon publications from the Pendleton Community Library and Indiana State Library. Jon first appeared in the Pendleton Times on January 8, 1976, two weeks after Gnorm Gnat ended.
Syndication In March 1978, United Feature Syndicate accepted the strip for national distribution (which had been retitled Garfield on September 1, 1977), and the last Pendleton 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, the Chicago Sun-Times dropped the Garfield strip, only to reinstate it after readers' complaints.
The strip underwent significant stylistic changes, evolving from the style of the 1976–83 strips, to a more cartoonish visual style 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 more expressive. According to creator Jim Davis, these changes made the character easier to animate and stage in visual gags, such as pushing Odie off a table or reaching for food. The redesign was in part on the advice of Davis's mentor and erstwhile rival Charles M. Schulz. Although he regarded Garfield as less subtle than his own strip, Peanuts, he provided valuable guidance, particularly in licensing and merchandising. Davis later applied many of these strategies to the Garfield franchise
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 founded Paws, Inc. In 1982 the strip was appearing in more than 1,000 newspapers.DRD/KT. "Newswatch: Garfield Hits 1000th Newspaper", The Comics Journal 73 (July 1982).
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.
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.
Content
The strip's title character is Garfield, an obese orange tabby cat. Garfield's personality is defined by his sarcasm, laziness, and gluttony, with the character showing a particular affinity for lasagna. His owner is Jon Arbuckle, a man with an affinity for stereotypically nerdy pastimes. Jon's other pet is Odie, 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 at dating, particularly involving the pets' veterinarian, Dr. Liz Wilson, a character who also carried over from Jon. However, after a 2006 story arc, the two engaged and started living together. 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's teddy 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 of social or political 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 a denture adhesive".
Originally created with the intentions to "come up with a good, marketable character", Jim Davis had observed that "dogs were popular in the funny papers, but there wasn't a strip for the nation's 15 million cat owners. Then, he consciously developed a stable of recurring, repetitive jokes for the cat." Davis recognized that the canine character Snoopy was responsible for the success of merchandise and licensing of the Peanuts comic strip; Peanuts creator Charles Schulz expressed irritation at the subsequent popularity of Garfield.
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-length live-action animated films, three fully computer-animated direct-to-video films, and a theatrical computer-animated film.
Marketing
As one of the world's most syndicated comic strips, Garfield has spawned a "profusion" of merchandise including clothing, toys, games, books, Caribbean cruises, credit cards, dolls, DVDs of the movies or the TV series, and related media. In April 2024, Motel 6 announced Garfield as their first "Chief Pet Officer" and Garfield-themed rooms for the release of The Garfield Movie.
Media Books Since 1980, the strip has been compiled in anthology books. The first, Garfield at Large, was published in March 1980 by Ballantine Books. These books helped increase the strip's popularity through sales, leading to several of them reaching the top of the New York Times best-seller list. 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. 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 of The Far Side.
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 with Ball State University and Pearson 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.