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114-395: Garfield is an American comic strip 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 the cat, Odie the dog, and their owner Jon Arbuckle . As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals ; the comic held

228-552: A syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Some newspaper strips begin or remain exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year. Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips . In

342-428: A "standard" size", with strips running the entire width of a page or having more than one tier. By the 1920s, strips often covered six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper. During the 1940s, strips were reduced to four columns wide (with a "transition" width of five columns). As newspapers became narrower beginning in the 1970s, strips have gotten even smaller, often being just three columns wide,

456-608: A Life . Also airing on CBS from 1988 to 1994 was the animated series Garfield and Friends , which also adapted Davis's other 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 and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties two years later. Both were live-action movies featuring a computer-animated Garfield voiced by Bill Murray . Another animated adaptation for television, The Garfield Show , aired on France 3 in France and Cartoon Network in

570-513: A comics artist, known as a cartoonist . As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are Blondie , Bringing Up Father , Marmaduke , and Pearls Before Swine . In the late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories , as seen in Popeye , Captain Easy , Buck Rogers , Tarzan , and Terry and

684-415: A crush on Liz (Garfield's veterinarian) and is now dating her. Jon disapproves of Garfield's "don't care, not interested", attitude and often encourages his pet to take an interest in the world around him, sometimes stating an interesting fact or asking a philosophical question in an attempt to prompt Garfield into thought. Garfield tends to brush off these attempts with a simple yet logical remark, and despite

798-587: A flock of geese (without anybody mourning their demise). Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks , who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897—a strip starring two German-American boys visually modelled on Max and Moritz . Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons, and thought balloons originated in Dirks' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of

912-430: A full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competition between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920s, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II , the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during

1026-636: A playable character in several Nickelodeon crossover games, including Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl , Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway , and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 . Joseph Papp , producer of A 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 in Muncie, Indiana . The book

1140-488: A secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper , such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board , both drawn by Gene Ahern . During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at

1254-493: A similar width to the one most daily panels occupied before the 1940s. In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during

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1368-506: A single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters ' Mother Goose and Grimm . Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high. Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. During

1482-574: A size of 17" × 37". In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home , drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page. Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune , or with one strip on

1596-496: A tabloid page, as in the Chicago Sun-Times . When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II , because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip

1710-554: A two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks , but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier. In Flanders , the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero . They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders. In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color. Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts

1824-507: A wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors—traditionally, the CMYK color model : cyan, magenta, yellow and "K" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery. The decade of

1938-508: Is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams ' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets . Jimmy Hatlo 's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and

2052-399: Is also shown to manipulate people to get whatever he wants. The strip's focus is mostly on the interactions among Garfield, Jon, and Odie, but other recurring characters appear as well. Garfield has been adapted into various other forms of media. Several half-hour television specials aired on CBS between 1982 and 1991, starting with Here Comes Garfield and ending with Garfield Gets

2166-509: 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 . Garfield.com

2280-467: Is in production for Paramount Global subsidiary Nickelodeon . Cartoonist Jim Davis was born and raised in Muncie, Indiana . In 1973, while working as an assistant for T.K. Ryan's Tumbleweeds , he created the comic strip Gnorm Gnat , which ran only in the Pendleton Times of Pendleton, Indiana , from 1973 to 1975 and met with little success. Davis had tried to syndicate the strip, but

2394-536: Is known for saying "breathing is exercise". Though Garfield can be very cynical, he does have a soft side for his teddy bear, Pooky, food, and sleep, and during one Christmas he says, "They say I have to get up early, be nice to people, skip breakfast… I wish it would never end." However, in the feature film Garfield Gets Real and its sequels, Garfield is better behaved, friendlier towards Jon and Odie, less self-centered, and more sympathetic. It has been wondered by many readers if Garfield can actually be understood by

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2508-430: Is the world as he sees it. This is his story". Another variation along the same lines, called "Realfield" or "Realistic Garfield", was to redraw Garfield as a real cat and remove his thought balloons. 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,

2622-626: The Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page." Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out." NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with

2736-537: The COVID-19 pandemic and a dispute over rent, the restaurant closed in 2020. Through the Garfield strips, there have been many additional characters, but the main ones are described here. First appearance: June 19, 1978 I'm not overweight, I'm undertall. — Garfield At Large: his First Book (1980) Garfield is an orange, fuzzy tabby cat born in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant (later revealed in

2850-657: The Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement . In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines , with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages. Storytelling using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry . Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in mid 18th-century England, where some of

2964-481: The Garfield franchise (the comics, 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 which was released by Sony Pictures under its Columbia Pictures label in 2024. Jim Davis continues to make comics, and a new Garfield animated series

3078-554: The Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip. Though its setting is rarely mentioned in print, Garfield takes place in Jim Davis's hometown of Muncie, Indiana , according to the television special Happy Birthday, Garfield . Common themes in the strip include Garfield's laziness, obsessive eating, love of coffee and lasagna , disdain of Mondays , and dieting . Garfield

3192-549: The Internet . Many are exclusively published online, but the majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams , creator of Dilbert , include an email address in each strip. Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston 's award-winning For Better or For Worse ,

3306-562: The Jon publications from the Pendleton Community Library and Indiana State Library. Jon first appeared in the Pendleton Times on January 8, 1976, just two weeks after Gnorm Gnat ended. 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

3420-546: The editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip was awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal . Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics , and Tank McNamara often appears on

3534-403: The franchising and merchandising blueprint Schulz had built for Snoopy , which Davis adopted to great success for Garfield . 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

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3648-935: The miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips. In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884. The origin of the modern English language comic strip can be traced to the efflorescence of caricature in late 18th century London. English caricaturists such as Richard Newton and George Woodward developed sophisticated caricature styles using strips of expressive comic figures with captions that could be read left to right to cumulative effect, as well as business models for advertising and selling cheap comic illustration on regular subscription. Other leading British caricaturists produced strips as well; for example James Gillray in Democracy;-or-a Sketch of

3762-536: The newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst . The Little Bears (1893–96) was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal ' s first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced

3876-475: The " sandbox " on occasion, such as in one 1978 strip; he says he hates commercials because they are "too long to sit through and too short for a trip to the sandbox". It was revealed on October 27, 1979, that he does not like raisins . On Garfield's 25th anniversary in 2003, several strips were featured in which he interacted with his 1978 version. In 2005, Garfield and Jon appeared in several comic strips of Blondie in honor of their 75th anniversary. There

3990-441: The 1920s the medium became wildly popular. While radio, and later, television surpassed newspapers as a means of entertainment, most comic strip characters were widely recognizable until the 1980s, and the "funny pages" were often arranged in a way they appeared at the front of Sunday editions. In 1931, George Gallup's first poll had the comic section as the most important part of the newspaper, with additional surveys pointing out that

4104-458: The 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for

4218-1055: The 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers , which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers . Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated. Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode , Dan O'Neill , Gilbert Shelton , and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy , National Lampoon , and Pete Millar's CARtoons . Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books. Webcomics , also known as online comics and internet comics , are comics that are available to read on

4332-413: The 1970s had been waning as an entertainment form. From 1903 to 1905 Gustave Verbeek , wrote his comic series "The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins". These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6 panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. The longest-running American comic strips are: Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated;

4446-474: The 1997 Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, an artist taking over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy ), and Terry and

4560-426: The 2008 site Garfield 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

4674-645: The Act for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive , Game Gear and Windows 3.1 computers. Other companies made games, such as A Tale of Two Kitties for the DS , published by Game Factory, Garfield's Nightmare for DS, Garfield's Funfest for DS, and Garfield Labyrinth for Game Boy . On PlayStation 2 were Garfield and Garfield 2 (known in the US as Garfield, a Tale of Two Kitties ). Garfield Lasagna World Tour

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4788-481: The British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross in 1867, Ally Sloper is one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday , in 1884. While in the early 20th century comic strips were a frequent target for detractors of "yellow journalism", by

4902-804: The Life of Buonaparte . His contemporary Thomas Rowlandson used strips as early as 1784 for example in The Loves of the Fox and the Badger . Rowlandson may also be credited with inventing the first internationally recognized comic strip character: Doctor Syntax whose picaresque journeys through England were told through a series of comic etchings, accompanied by verse. Original published in parts between 1809 and 1811 in Rudolf Ackermann 's Poetical Magazine , in book form The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of

5016-859: The NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which since the 1970s (and particularly the 1990s) has been considered to be in decline due to numerous factors such as changing tastes in humor and entertainment, the waning relevance of newspapers in general and the loss of most foreign markets outside English-speaking countries. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie , held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield ' s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie ' s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams ( Dilbert ) traded strips with Bil Keane ( The Family Circus ). While

5130-402: The Pirates . In the 1940s, soap-opera -continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity. Because "comic" strips are not always funny, cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that sequential art would be a better genre -neutral name. Comic strips have appeared inside American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life , but also on the front covers, such as

5244-490: The Pirates , started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder . A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers ' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed

5358-632: 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, before its merger with CBS Corporation to become ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global ), New York City–based Viacom announced that it would acquire Paws, Inc. , including most rights to

5472-427: The United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. Making his first appearance in

5586-561: The World ), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, ( Garfield , Snoopy in Peanuts ), and some can converse with humans ( Bloom County , Calvin and Hobbes , Mutts , Citizen Dog , Buckles , Get Fuzzy , Pearls Before Swine , and Pooch Cafe ). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck . Gary Larson 's The Far Side

5700-685: The adventures of Winnie Winkle , Moon Mullins and Dondi , and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn't miss it.)" The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for

5814-399: The artists of Blondie as part of the comic strip switcheroo , Garfield, still with thought balloons, can be understood by Jon. To break the fourth wall, June 19 is celebrated within the strip as Garfield's birthday. The appearance in 1979 claimed it to be his first birthday, although in the first appearance of the strip (June 19, 1978), he was portrayed as a fully grown cat, implying that

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5928-411: The birthday is for the strip itself. First appearance: June 19, 1978 Jon: Here's my sixth-grade report card. My parents were so proud. Garfield, reading the report card: "Jon has not shoved any crayons up his nose this term." — Garfield (1996) Jon (Full name: Jonathan Q. Arbuckle) is Garfield's owner, usually depicted as an awkward clumsy geek who has trouble finding a date. Jon had

6042-402: The character's gender. Although other characters have persistently referred to Garfield with male pronouns, owing to comments that the character's creator, Jim Davis, made in 2014 to Mental Floss , in which he said, "Garfield is very universal. By virtue of being a cat, really, he's not really male or female or any particular race or nationality, young or old. It gives me a lot more latitude for

6156-623: The characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley . The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom , Prince Valiant , Dick Tracy , Mary Worth , Modesty Blaise , Little Orphan Annie , Flash Gordon , and Tarzan . Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books , for example Superman , Batman , and The Amazing Spider-Man . A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal ( Marmaduke , The Angriest Dog in

6270-412: The characters. 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

6384-466: The characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids ). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate , ran until 1979. In the United States, the great popularity of comics sprang from

6498-594: The comic strips were the second most popular feature after the picture page. During the 1930s, many comic sections had between 12 and 16 pages, although in some cases, these had up to 24 pages. The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards , clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun ' s Linda White recalled, "I followed

6612-525: The feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens , drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style. As newspapers have declined , the changes have affected comic strips. Jeff Reece, lifestyle editor of The Florida Times-Union , wrote, "Comics are sort of the ' third rail ' of the newspaper." In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received

6726-402: The fifties and sixties led to Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. As newspapers have reduced the page count of Sunday comic sections since the late 1990s (by the 2010s, most sections have only four pages, with the back page not always being destined for comics) has also led to further downsizes. Daily strips have suffered as well. Before the mid-1910s, there was not

6840-412: The film was scheduled to be released on May 24, 2024. A Garfield video game was developed by Atari, Inc. for its Atari 2600 home video game system and appears in their 1984 catalog. However, after Atari's spinoff and sale of its home games and computers division, owner Jack Tramiel decided the character's royalties were too expensive given the declining state of the video game industry at

6954-468: The first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth 's 18th-century English caricature include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress , and single panels. The Biblia pauperum ("Paupers' Bible"), a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the Late Middle Ages , sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in

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7068-400: The first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer , it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to

7182-432: The first issue featuring a story written by Mark Evanier (who has supervised Garfield and Friends and The Garfield Show ) and illustrated by Davis's long-time assistant Gary Barker. In 2016, Hermes Press signed an agreement with Paws, Inc to publish an art book on the art of author Jim Davis, titled The Art of Jim Davis' Garfield . The book includes an essay by author R.C. Harvey and other original material, and

7296-565: 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 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,

7410-414: The growth of his toenails to watching movies with " polka ninjas ". Other strips portray him as lacking intelligence (he is seen reading a pop-up book in one strip). Jon was born on a farm that apparently contained few amenities; in one strip, his father, upon seeing indoor plumbing, remarks: "Woo-ha! Ain't science something?" Jon occasionally visits his parents, brother and grandmother at their farm. It

7524-571: The history of London. The Reuben , named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg , is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). In 1995, the United States Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, Comic Strip Classics , marking the comic-strip centennial. Today's strip artists, with the help of

7638-534: 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

7752-455: The human characters around him. Sometimes, it seems like Jon can hear him. However, it is mentioned in more than one strip that Jon cannot understand Garfield. However, in the feature film Garfield Gets Real and its sequels, Garfield and the other animals (save for Odie) are able to talk to, and be understood by, Jon and the other humans. In the April 1 ( April Fools' Day ), 1997, strip drawn by

7866-401: The late 1960s, it became a mouthpiece for Capp's repudiation of the counterculture. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who

7980-403: The late 19th century. The Yellow Kid is usually credited as one of the first newspaper strips . However, the art form combining words and pictures developed gradually and there are many examples which led up to the comic strip. The Glasgow Looking Glass was the first mass-produced publication to tell stories using illustrations and is regarded as the world's first comic strip. It satirised

8094-505: The members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst , whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism , and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all

8208-499: The mid-to-late 80s and 1990s respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run "generic" title panels. Garfield (character) Garfield is a fictional cat and the protagonist of the comic strip of the same name , created by Jim Davis . Garfield is portrayed as a lazy, fat, cynical and self-absorbed orange tabby Persian cat . He is noted for his love of lasagna and pizza , coffee , and sleeping, and his hatred of Mondays , Nermal ,

8322-524: The name of an earlier Gnorm Gnat character. The final character was Lyman's dog Spot, who was renamed Odie so as to avoid confusion with a dog also named Spot in the comic strip Boner's Ark . From 1976 to early 1978, these characters appeared in a strip called Jon which also ran in the Times . In 1977, the strip's name was changed to Garfield. The Jon comic strip was largely unknown until 2019, when YouTuber Quinton Hoover found several digital scans of

8436-462: The nation's first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal . The history of this newspaper rivalry and the rapid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon . Numerous events in newspaper comic strips have reverberated throughout society at large, though few of these events occurred in recent years, owing mainly to the declining use of continuous storylines on newspaper comic strips, which since

8550-471: The originals]". Ballantine Books, which publishes the Garfield books, released a volume of Garfield Minus Garfield strips on October 28, 2008. The volume retains Davis as author and features a foreword by Walsh. On June 19, 2020, the website was shut down during the strip's 42nd anniversary, following Paramount's acquisition of Paws, Inc. in August 2019. The website now redirects to Nick.com, with an alternative link to GoComics. Garfield's animation debut

8664-400: The owner of Mamma Leoni's has to choose between giving away Garfield or closing down his restaurant; so Garfield is sold to a pet shop. Garfield is adopted from the store by Jon Arbuckle on August 19, 1978. Garfield frequently gets into many adventures, such as getting stuck in roll-up shades, sparring with mice, and getting locked up in animal shelters. It is also given that Garfield uses

8778-685: The picturesque ran to 9 editions between 1812 and 1819, spun off two sequels, a prequel, numerous pirate imitations and copies including French, German, Danish and translations. His image was available on pottery, textiles wallpaper and other merchandise. The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror , an influential English comic series published in London between 1807 and 1819 by Thomas Tegg included some satirical stories in comic strip format such as The Adventures of Johnny Newcome . The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in

8892-567: The political and social life of Scotland in the 1820s. It was conceived and illustrated by William Heath. Swiss author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the US in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, German painter, author, and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created

9006-526: The release of The Garfield Movie . Starting in 1980, the comic strip has been collected in anthologies. 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 sellers list. For these compilation books, Davis devised a book layout which

9120-439: The reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at

9234-413: The second panel revealing the truth of the situation. Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips (known colloquially as "the funny papers", shortened to "the funnies"), such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie , filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page . Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried

9348-504: The sports page because of its subject matter. Lynn Johnston 's For Better or For Worse created an uproar when Lawrence, one of the strip's supporting characters, came out of the closet. The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts

9462-468: The strip Max and Moritz , about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of seven severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter ("Shockheaded Peter"). In the story's final act, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by

9576-412: The strip was appearing in more than 1,000 newspapers. 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

9690-402: The strips from 1978 to 1993 from United Feature. While retaining creative control and being the only signer, 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

9804-451: The strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman 's Krazy Kat . An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore , may be printed on

9918-432: The strips. Some examples date from 2006. A webcomic called Arbuckle does the above but also redraws the originals in a different art style. The Arbuckle 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

10032-462: The television special Garfield: His 9 Lives to be Mama Leoni's Italian Restaurant) who immediately ate all the pasta and lasagna in sight, thus developing his love and obsession for lasagna and pizza . Gags in the strips commonly deal with Garfield's obesity (in one strip, Jon jokes: "I wouldn't say Garfield is fat, but the last time he got on a Ferris wheel , the two guys on top starved to death") and his disdain of any form of exertion or work. He

10146-410: The three characters' conflicting personalities. Regular themes include Jon's frustration with Garfield's antics; Garfield's disdain for Odie; and Jon's interactions with his girlfriend and the pets' veterinarian , Dr. Liz Wilson. 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

10260-654: The time, and the game was cancelled. A ROM image of the game was however released with Jim Davis' blessing. Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal is a 1987 video game for the Atari ST , ZX Spectrum , Commodore 64 , Amstrad CPC and the Amiga based on the comic strip . Towa Chiki made A Week of Garfield for the Family Computer , released only in Japan in 1989. Sega also made the 1995 video game Garfield: Caught in

10374-439: The trouble Garfield causes, Jon has a heart of gold and is very tolerant of Garfield's shortcomings, a fact which Garfield often takes advantage of. Jon's exact age is unknown, as in one 1980 strip where he stated he was 29 (though the fact he said that he would be 30 if he wasn't sick a year and this was said in the context of a joke told to Garfield makes it possible he is a different age) and in an episode of The Garfield Show he

10488-424: The vet, and exercise. Garfield is an orange cat belonging to Jon Arbuckle . He was born on ( 1978-06-19 ) June 19, 1978 (the day the first Garfield strip was published), in the kitchen of Mamma Leoni's Italian Restaurant. Jim Davis named Garfield after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis. As a kitten, he develops a taste for lasagna, which would become his favorite food. Because of his large appetite,

10602-487: The voice of Garfield. The Garfield Show , a CGI series, started development in 2007 to coincide with the strip's 30th anniversary in 2008. It premiered in France in December 2008 and made its U.S. debut on Cartoon Network on November 2, 2009. A new series is currently in development at Nickelodeon after Paramount Global acquired the franchise. A live-action / computed animated film titled Garfield: The Movie

10716-505: The way for some of these strips, as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms—as animals, vegetables, and minerals. The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury . Al Capp's Li'l Abner espoused liberal opinions for most of its run, but by

10830-486: The websites their children can view to a preset list. A variety of edited Garfield 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 previous Garfield strips. Another approach, known as "Silent Garfield", involved removing Garfield's thought balloons from

10944-486: Was a denture adhesive ". Originally created with the intentions to "come up with a good, marketable character", 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/CGI animated films, and three fully CGI animated direct-to-video films. Garfield

11058-665: Was also made for PS2. Garfield: Saving Arlene was only released in Japan and in the United Kingdom. And recent additions for mobile devices are "Garfield's Diner" and "Garfield's Zombie Defense". Konami also released a Garfield handheld electronic game titled Lasagnator in 1991, which met with mild success. In 2012, a series of Garfield video games was launched by French publisher Anuman Interactive , including My Puzzles with Garfield! , Multiplication Tables with Garfield , Garfield Kart , Garfield Kart: Furious Racing , and Garfield's Match Up . Garfield appears as

11172-422: Was an earlier Blondie crossover on the Garfield strip published April 1, 1997, and vice versa, as part of the comic strip switcheroo . Among Garfield's character traits are laziness, cynicism, and sarcasm. He hates Mondays , the cat Nermal, and he loves lasagna. He also has a tendency to be annoyed by Jon's dog Odie. In February 2017, a dispute arose on the talk page of the character's Misplaced Pages page as to

11286-459: Was announced as the voice of Garfield, with animation being provided by DNEG , a production company of the film. David Reynolds was announced as the screenwriter of the film, reuniting him with Dindal after they worked together on The Emperor's New Groove . Sony Pictures will maintain global distribution rights for the film, apart from China. On May 24, 2022, Samuel L. Jackson joined the voice cast as Vic, Garfield's father. In September 2022,

11400-407: Was announced that Alcon Entertainment would develop a new CG-animated Garfield film, with John Cohen and Steven P. Wegner producing, and Mark Dindal directing the feature. 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. On November 1, 2021, Chris Pratt

11514-525: Was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era . At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm

11628-408: Was created the character of Garfield. The title character Garfield 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." Garfield's human owner Jon Arbuckle derived his name from a 1950s coffee commercial. Jon's roommate Lyman, added to give Jon someone to talk with, carried on

11742-487: Was implied that Jon is inspired by a drawing of Davis himself when he was first drawing the strip. Jon was portrayed as a cartoonist in the first strip and occasional others in the early years; Davis stated his intent had been to express his own frustrations as a cartoonist. Ultimately, Jon's job has been referenced far more frequently in Garfield animated series than in the strip. First appearance: August 8, 1978 Comic strip Most strips are written and drawn by

11856-561: Was on The Fantastic Funnies , which aired on CBS on May 15, 1980, voiced by actor Scott 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 primetime Garfield 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 adaption also starred Music as

11970-488: Was originally created by Davis with the intention to come up with a "good, marketable character". Now the world's most syndicated comic strip, 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

12084-625: Was released in July 2016 for San Diego Comic-Con . In 2018, a ghost restaurant themed after the franchise known as GarfieldEATS was opened in Dubai . Customers order food through the official mobile app, which also contains games and allows users to purchase episodes of Garfield and Friends . The restaurant serves lasagna, Garfield-shaped pizza, " Garfuccinos ", and Garfield-shaped dark chocolate bars. A second location opened in Toronto in 2019. Due to

12198-587: Was released in theaters on June 11, 2004, and a sequel titled Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties was released on June 16, 2006. Both films were released by 20th Century Fox with actor Bill Murray voicing the character in both films. Despite receiving negative reviews from critics, the films were both commercial successes. Three direct-to-video films were released by Paws, Inc. in cooperation with Davis Entertainment : Garfield Gets Real on November 20, 2007, Garfield's Fun Fest on August 5, 2008, and Garfield's Pet Force on June 16, 2009. On May 24, 2016, it

12312-477: Was stated to be 22. His birthday is July 28. Jon loves (or occasionally hates) Garfield and all cats. Many gags focus on this; his inability to get a date is usually attributed to his lack of social skills, his poor taste in clothes (Garfield remarked in one strip after seeing his closet that "two hundred moths committed suicide"; in another, the "geek police" ordered Jon to "throw out his tie"), and his eccentric interests which range from stamp collecting to measuring

12426-722: Was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971. Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers. Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating

12540-421: 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

12654-426: Was to make it easier to "push Odie off the table" or "reach for a piece of pie". The redesign was in part on the advice of Davis's mentor and erstwhile rival Charles M. Schulz ; though Schulz privately expressed some jealousy at Garfield overtaking his own strip Peanuts and thought Davis's characters were lacking in subtlety and nuance, he provided substantial advice to Davis over the years, particularly in setting

12768-411: 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 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. Davis figured he could create a cat star, having grown up on a farm with twenty-five cats. Thus

12882-561: Was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens , chickens, cows, worms , amoebas , and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal, and fantasy characters, but also does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur . Bob Thaves 's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved

12996-599: 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!". When the North American tour concluded in 2012, it toured throughout Asia. In agreement with Paws, Boom! Studios launched in May 2012 a monthly Garfield comic book, with

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