Garfield is a daily-syndicated comic strip created by Jim Davis. It chronicles the life of the title character, Garfield, a tabby cat, his owner, Jon Arbuckle, and the dog, Odie. As of 2007, it is syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals and it currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most widely syndicate comic strip. The popularity of the strip has led to an animated television series, several animated television specials and two theatrical feature-length live-action films, as well as a large amount of Garfield merchandise.On June 19th 2008, Garfield (both the comic and Garfield himself) will celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Garfield debuted on June 19, 1978, which is considered to be Garfield’s birthday. The strip pokes fun at pet owners and their relationship with their pets, often with the pet as the true master of the household. Garfield also struggles with human problems, such as diets, Mondays, apathy and boredom.
Garfield has undergone changes over the lifetime of the strip. His rear paws are now drawn as proportionally huge when he walks on his hind legs. He has a wide frown when it goes back to around 1982 or so, in order to allow more expression in the strip. By the middle of 1983, his familiar appearance—featuring oval-shaped eyes—had taken shape. By this time, Garfield was walking on two feet, and the strip emphasized sitcom situations such as Garfield making fun of Jon’s stupidity and his inability to date. Jon and Odie have also evolved quite a bit, from being thin and starkly colored to the cartoons they are today.
The characters and situations in Garfield have recently been constant, with no change or development for the past several years. While this was not unique to Garfield, as Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes and the children of Peanuts never aged, other strips such as For Better or For Worse, Cathy, and Doonesbury maintain a continuity with characters who develop, age, and may even die as the strip proceeds. In one particular sequence, however, leading up to Garfield’s 25th birthday (which is always marked by Garfield complaining about his age along with the rest of the characters making subtle references to it), Davis brought back the Garfield from 1978, the one that waddled and always had a frown under his pinpoint eyes. The old and new Garfields talk and find that, although they look different, they are still both too greedy and territorial to stand even themselves.[2]
On July 16, 2006, a new storyline began with the promise of changing Garfield’s life forever (according to the strip’s official website). During the next two weeks, Garfield and Jon accidentally spotted Garfield’s vet and Jon’s crush Liz in a restaurant with another man. After an embarrassing meeting, Liz admitted that she actually liked Jon, and the date ended with a kiss on July 28 (both Jon and Jim Davis’s birthday), when Jon could finally say that he had a life.
In June 7, 1999, newspapers began to offer full-color Garfield weekday strips.
Main characters
Garfield is the main character. He is a lazy, selfish, overweight, orange tabby cat who enjoys eating, sleeping, and being sarcastic.
Garfield was born in the kitchen of Mama Leoni's Italian Restaurant and developed a taste for lasagna the day he was born. This was revealed on a Garfield TV special called Garfield: His Nine Lives. Ever since then, it has always been his favorite food. At birth, Garfield weighed 5lbs, 6oz. Later in his life, Garfield runs across his Mother again one Christmas Eve, accidentally, and meets his Grandfather for the first time. Although, in a series of strips from November 10 to November 22, 1980, Garfield meets his other grandfather, and in a television special called Garfield on the Town, he finds his long-lost mother, and is disgusted to find that they are all "mousers" which is the technical term for mice eaters. Another twist was when Garfield met the rest of his family in the special. Most of them were cousins like Sly, the family's watchcat. The most shocking part was when Garfield met his older half-brother Rauel, who has some hygenic and psychological problems. Garfield can be seen with all his family in the kitchen of Mama Leoni's Restaurant in the Garfield T.V. special Garfield on the Town.
In his cartoon appearances, Garfield usually causes mischief in every episode. In June 1983, comic strips introduced Garfield's alter-ego, Amoeba Man, yet he was only shown in 6 strips (6-20 through 6-25). Amoeba Man is only one of his few imaginary alter egos. The Caped Avenger is one of the more common ones. Other alter-egos include Banana Man, The Chicken Man, the Claw, The Mummy, Count Cat, The Sock, Freedom Fighter, and Karate Cat.
Frequently, Garfield breaks the fourth wall, as seen in this and this strip.
First Appearance: June 19, 1978
Garfield and Odie's owner. His birthday is July 28,1951, the same date as Jim Davis', but six years later.
He has poor social skills, despite being a nice and patient guy, and his attempts at dating have usually failed, (in more modern issues, he has been getting lots of dates from Liz) but Garfield is happy as long as Jon keeps him fed. He has a taste in bizarre attire and has several dull hobbies, including talking to his plants, stamp collecting, measuring the growth of his toenails, and organizing his clothes. Basically, Jon was raised as a geek. Not entirely his fault, you discover, when he visits his family or reminisces about 'life on the farm'. Jon BL's in all the cartoons.
His mother often refers to him as Jonny, and his full name was revealed on December 6, 2001 to be Jonathan Q. Arbuckle, but he usually just goes as Jon. Jim Davis got this name from an old coffee commercial. He thought the name fit the poor sap who would be stuck with a cranky feline with an overactive appetite.
Even though he introduced himself as a cartoonist in the very first strip, Jon is never seen drawing cartoons, but his job was once referenced, as seen in the 1984 Christmas sequence when Jon left for a cartoonists' convention. (However, Garfield is seen in a couple of strips using Jon's easel and ink, presumably his cartooning tools. In one strip, Garfield draws a cat.) However, in one strip, Jon accidentally washes off one of Garfield's stripes while giving him a bath, suggesting that Garfield is a cartoon that Jon drew.
Jon seems to understand Garfield in some of the later comics, but only sometimes. Garfield's punch lines tend to roll toward the viewer, usually when Garfield answers questions. In the July 13, 1998, comic, he even reacted to Garfield even though Garfield hadn't even thought anything. In recent comic strips Jon has had his first success in love and finally hit it off with Garfield’s vet, Dr. Liz Wilson (following the path of the end of the first movie).
Note: Only twice was it ever mentioned that Jon had a niece. One instance was in Garfield's 11th book, where Jon bought a pair of ballet slippers for his niece. The second instance was in an episode of Garfield and friends where Jon's niece Shannon visits.
First Appearance: August 8, 1978
Jon’s pet dog (originally owned by Jon’s friend Lyman). Odie is a yellow, long-eared beagle who is always drooling and walks on all four legs. He is very unintelligent and naïve (although he has been shown on rare occasions to be the exact opposite). His birthday is on August 8th and is celebrated once in a strip where Jon says that Garfield didn’t care about Odie’s birthday. Because of his naiveté, Garfield likes to play tricks on him, particularly taking advantage to give him the boot—quite literally—when he is standing on the edge of a table.
Odie is the only animal character who doesn’t communicate with any form of dialogue (except in one comic where Odie actually speaks in Garfield’s dream, once when he tries coffee and says “Rowr...” and another when he sings on a fence “Lady of Spain, I adore you” and another one, the June 15, 1980 comic where he’s poking his original owner, Lyman, and saying he’s hungry), solely communicating with body language and his enthusiastic barking and other dog sound effects.
Odie didn’t appear in the very first comics; he made his debut on August 8, 1978 which is also his birthday. Odie was originally going to be named Spot, but Davis thought the name “Odie” better indicated stupidity. This was referenced in an early strip where Odie peed on the carpet, and Garfield remarks that they should have named him Spot. Odie used to have black ears, but Davis was told that he looked a little like Snoopy; Odie’s ears are now brown.
By the early 1990s, Odie’s presence in Garfield became so rare that some readers wondered if he had met the same fate as his former owner Lyman. (A letter published in National Review, responding to an Anthony Lejeune article about the decline of the American comic strip, complained that Odie had become doggie non grata.) In recent years, however, Odie has resumed much of his former status in the cast.
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