The Creation of Garfield

Chapter 1

Introduction

Everyone knows Garfield the cat. He is one of the most recognizable figures of the twentieth century: his face has adorned newspaper strips, billboards, animated TV shows, movies and every other single piece of merchandise you can think of, from colouring books to lunchboxes, cat food bowls, bumper stickers and toys of every variety. Garfield is a global phenomenon. The sarcastic orange cat inspires people to hate Monday a little more, to be that little bit lazier and to indulge in their love of lasagne.

From humble small-town beginnings in rural Indiana, Garfield the cat – the creation of cartoonist Jim Davis – has become a worldwide presence since his debut in the late 1970s. He is one of the most loved and enduring comic strip characters in history, alongside Peanuts, Dilbert, Calvin and Hobbes and many more. He is even recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most popular comic book strip in the world, syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers globally. The cat’s large eyes, even larger belly and scathing sarcasm have become a staple of pop culture, relatable to many, many people over different decades and generations.

Much has been said of Davis’ commercial aspirations when he first created the adorable ginger cartoon cat, and about Garfield’s true authenticity. Davis has even been quoted as saying that he created the comic strip with ‘a conscious effort to come up with a good, marketable character’, as he told Walter Shapiro in an interview for the Washington Post in 1982. ‘And primarily an animal … Snoopy is very popular in licensing. Charlie Brown is not.’ However, there is more to be said than that. Garfield is the meeting point between commercialization and creativity. Nobody levels the same criticisms at Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, that the world’s most famous mouse is a cynical creation, so why do so with Garfield? Garfield probably has just as much merchandise as Disney – perhaps even more – but just because the cat has been licensed many times over, does that make the character somewhat empty in many people’s eyes? Does that mean that there is a lack of legitimacy in the work? It is a trait that always follows Garfield around; much like with Odie, Garfield cannot get rid of it.

The cat has permeated into the American psyche. From becoming part of the zeitgeist in the 1980s with plush toy hangars found on every car, to reinventing himself to suit the meme culture of the 2000s, Garfield’s adaptability is second-to-none. His power to survive has seen him through over forty years in the mainstream, and he is still going strong. Everyone knows Garfield: he is as recognizable a brand as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola or Wendy’s. Whether the comic strip is on a par with creations like Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts is questionable to some, but in terms of sheer recognizability and longevity, Davis created a marketing and cultural icon, a combination of several key elements that connected with society. Garfield has appeared in newspapers for over forty years, on best-selling book lists and even comic books. His domination of all genres of the comic strip is unmatched by any character. His reach has extended into children’s animation and children’s education. The intention of Garfield was to create an apolitical comic strip, something so far removed from the news that surrounded it in the newspaper. The opposite of a New Yorker cartoon, the joy of Garfield is that anyone can appreciate it; the strip is designed meticulously for that purpose. The craftsmanship and effort that goes into producing Garfield can sometimes be overlooked. From a young child to an elderly person, Garfield can get a laugh out of anyone; the character is evergreen. He is unrepentant in what he is, and it’s this attitude that has endeared him to fans, regular readers and even people who just scan the strip in passing while perusing the newspaper. If you see a Garfield comic strip, you know what you are going to get. The same can be said of creator Jim Davis and his company Paws Inc., who created Garfield; they are unrepentant in what they wish Garfield to be. All Garfield does is insult Jon, hate Mondays and working, then criticize Odie and eat a lot of lasagne or any other available food. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, which is why people adore him. The beauty is in the character’s simplicity. It’s a timeless comic strip that has no real defining place or time to it, so much so that Davis made a conscientious decision not to name the location where Garfield lives, wanting it to feel like Garfield could live next door to you.

‘My strip Garfield really doesn’t deal with any social or political comment whatsoever, that’s for the rest of the paper, that’s for the news broadcasts,’ Davis says, ruminating on Garfield’s position in the world. Given his laid-back attitude, Davis would rather bring joy to the world than offer up any political comment. It is an interesting attitude – indeed one which has been criticized – but Davis has always stuck to his guns in that regard.

So why has the popularity of this lazy, sarcastic cat prevailed since he was created in the late 1970s? What makes a lethargic orange tabby cat so enduring and endearing to the world? As well as being in the Guinness Book of World Records, he has – at the time of writing – over 16 million followers on Facebook and 146,000 followers on Twitter. Garfield also heads up the campaign for Safe and Secure Online, a campaign which aims to make children safe with online browsing, and in China, Garfield was for a time used as a mascot to help children learn English. With Garfield, Davis and Paws Inc. try to use the character as a learning aid to make a difference in the world. One of the biggest examples of that is Davis’ non-profit collaboration with his alma mater, Ball State University, to create professorgarfield.org, an ‘edutainment’ (education and entertainment) website dedicated to providing kids struggling with dyslexia and their teachers a fun learning aid to help battle illiteracy. Professor Garfield would become the face of different cartoons, apps and games to actively help children of different needs learn to read. He also has his own national day! Celebrated each 19 June, the anniversary of the publication of his first comic strip, the day is set aside to honour all things related to the ginger feline. So Garfield works harder than many think; certainly harder than he wants you to think!

National Garfield the Cat Day was first celebrated in 1998 on the twentieth anniversary of the comic strip and Garfield’s birthday. Boca Raton City Council member Wanda Thayer proclaimed 19 June as Garfield the Cat Day during a surprise birthday party at the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Florida. Having a national day of celebration is no mean feat, but what would Garfield’s reaction to that be?

Jim Davis says:

‘Garfield is an international character. Therefore, I don’t even use seasons. The only holiday I recognize is Christmas. I don’t use rhyming gags, plays on words, colloquialisms, in an effort to make Garfield apply to virtually any society where he may appear … I would like for readers in Sydney, Australia to think that Garfield lives next door. Dealing with eating and sleeping, being a cat, Garfield is very universal. By virtue of being a cat, he’s not really male or female or any particular race or nationality, young or old.’

For this author, his journey with reading as a whole – and his love of comic books in particular – started by collecting Garfield books. It was really my first foray into reading and into comic books. I used to take several of the books on long car journeys with my parents to keep me occupied as we travelled from Belfast to Omagh to visit family. I used to adore the pocket-sized books that were printed vertically. And I most definitely had a Garfield plush toy too.

Chapter 2

Jim Davis

Davis was born in 1945, on an 120-acre farm 5 miles outside Fairmount, Indiana. Davis describes his early years as ‘one of those glorious childhoods, filled with sunshine and running through the fields, cats and dogs and animals and good times’. In postwar Indiana at the time, people found work either on farms or in the state’s burgeoning automotive industry. Davis grew up with lots of cats, dogs and other animals. However, he suffered from severe asthma and, in his own words, was ‘allergic to pretty much everything’. Spending a lot of time indoors, his mother encouraged him to draw when he could not go outside to play or to do chores.

Davis attended Fairmount High School (as did film star James Dean), playing in the high school football team for four years, despite his asthma. He was also in school plays for four years:

‘I learned a lot about doing a comic strip, from doing theatre, because there is not much difference in it. By virtue of being the cartoonist, I get to write the script, I get to set the stage, I get to determine the blocking, determine how everybody moves and acts from that. You know, all I do is freeze frame and draw them at three frames.’

Growing up, Davis was a big fan of comic books: ‘I was a big fan of Peanuts and Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, eventually B.C. and Wizard of Oz and also Pogo. That one, I never understood it but I’d love looking at the pictures, the artwork by Walt Kelly.’

Davis went on to Ball State Teacher’s College in 1963, where he studied art education. All the while, in the back of his mind he wanted to be a cartoonist. When he was faced with having to teach art, which he didn’t want to do, he switched over to business, thereby setting himself up with an education and knowledge that he would later put to good use.

He explains his thinking behind coming up with a cartoon cat:

‘Garfield is based on the people I knew, rather than the animals; I just put a human personality in a cat’s body. I went to a Holiday Inn in Indianapolis and just sat in a room for three days, with piles of paper and pens and thought about it. There’s some truth to it that dogs are dogs. You know what your dog is thinking. Cats, they are a little withdrawn, subdued, so people tend to lend human thoughts and feelings more to cats than they do dogs, so as a result I can get away with Garfield thinking human thoughts.’

While Garfield is known for being a lazy, bored cat, his creator is the furthest thing from it. Davis’ work ethic is the thing that took his comic strip from the newspapers and into every piece of merchandise than can possibly be produced. Davis’ eye for an opportunity and background in marketing made him the ideal person to form a character perfect for the general public; a public eager to identify with a lazy, work-hating cat.

Times had changed when Davis created Garfield. The children of the 1950s boomers had grown up and were having children of their own. Having to become everything they hated about their parents, they perhaps identified with a lazy cat who hated work. From a hardworking background in rural Indiana, Davis grew up on a farm with lots of animals, including at least twenty-five cats.

Davis is still very hands-on in the process, but no longer writes or draws every Garfield strip. He has an entire team at Paws Inc. to do that now:

‘I see gags and I work with assistants on the strip and stuff like that. We do roughs and it all filters through me so that it has one voice. We all get together occasionally in the same room and draw and work on shapes of fingers and gestures and expressions and things like that so that if any one of us draws it, you can’t tell which one did it.

‘What gets me out every day is the comic strip. That’s what I do best and I love it. It is so much fun to do because it is really positive just sitting and thinking of funny stuff and then trying to draw a really funny picture. Here I am a grown man, still it is so much fun.’

Regarding his fame, Davis has expressed gratitude that he doesn’t have to face the public:

‘Being a cartoonist, you really enjoy a lot of anonymity. [If] you take a half-dozen of the biggest cartoonists and walk them down any street, nobody would notice them. They only know their characters. So I just hide behind Garfield. The only time anyone knows the name or spots me is if I’m out on [a] book tour and I’m meant to do publicity. We don’t suffer any of the kind of attention problems that I think people do on TV or in movies. It’s not a big deal. I’m sitting here in