For other uses, see Garfield (disambiguation).

Garfield (right) and Odie

Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis featuring the cat Garfield, the pet dog Odie, and their socially inept owner Jon Arbuckle. As of 2006, it is syndicated in roughly 2,570 newspapers and journals and it currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip [1]. The popularity of the strip has led to an animated children's cartoon show, several animated television specials and two feature-length live-action films, as well as a large amount of Garfield-related merchandise.

The main character is named after Davis' grandfather, James Garfield Davis, who was named after former U.S. president James Garfield.

1 Overview
2 Garfield's Marketing
3 Characters
4 Themes and Settings
5 Removing Garfield's thought bubbles
6 Television
7 Books
- 7.1 Numbered Paperbacks
8 Other books
9 Video games
10 Films
11 External links

Overview

Garfield had its debut on June 19, 1978, which is also considered Garfield's birthday. The strip pokes fun at pet owners and their relationship with their pets - often portraying the pet as the true master of the home. Garfield also struggles with human problems, such as diets, loathing of Mondays, apathy, boredom, and so on. Garfield is able to understand anything that Jon or other humans say, but doesn't talk to humans (he communicates to the reader in thought balloons, and Jon reacts to Garfield's thoughts). However, Garfield is able to talk to Odie and the other animals. Odie understands what Garfield says to him, but in general can not communicate back to Garfield except by barking. Most of the other animals (Arlene, Nermal, mice, and the other dogs) are capable of a two-way conversation with Garfield. Garfield apparently is able to type and a few times has written messages that Jon has read and understood (typically letters to Santa Claus), however this happens very rarely.

Over the course of the strip, Garfield's behavior and appearance evolved. Initially, he was drawn grossly obese with flabby jowls and small round eyes. Later, his appearance was slimmed down and his eyes enlarged. By 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 Jon's inability to make social connections. A number of the strip's readers feel that the quality of the writing has lessened, even as the artwork retained a consistent level of quality. Like many comic strips, Garfield is not exclusively drawn and written by its creator. Jim Davis's company, Paws Inc., employs cartoonists and writers who do most of the work of scripting, drawing, and inking the strip, while Davis's work is usually confined to approving and signing the finished strip. Davis spends most of his time managing the business and merchandising aspects of Garfield.

Learning from the indifference met with his previous comic strip creation Gnorm Gnat, Jim Davis has made a conscious effort to include all readers in Garfield; keeping the jokes broad and the humour general and applicable to everyone. As a result the strip typically avoids the social or political commentary present in some of Garfield's contemporaries, such as Boondocks, Doonesbury, Dilbert, and Cathy. Although a couple of strips in 1978 addressed inflation and, arguably, organized labor, as well as Jon frequently smoking a pipe or subscribing to a "bachelor magazine", these elements were ultimately pruned from the product with the intent of maintaining a more universal appeal. Davis adamantly disavowed social commentary in an interview published at the beginning of one of the book compilations, joking that he once believed that OPEC was a denture adhesive.

The characters and situations in Garfield are often constant, with no change or development for the past several years. While this is not unique to Garfield, as Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes and the children of Peanuts never age, 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.

The comic strip was turned into a cartoon special for television in 1982 called Here Comes Garfield. Actor Lorenzo Music, previously known as the voice of Carlton the doorman on the show Rhoda, was hired to portray the voice of Garfield. Soul singer Lou Rawls provided musical accompaniment. Twelve television specials were made (through 1991) as well as a television series, Garfield and Friends, which ran from 1988 to 1995.

A live-action movie version of the comic strip, Garfield: The Movie had its debut in the United States on June 11, 2004. The film employed a computer-animated Garfield and live-action Odie. Lorenzo Music had passed away prior to the filming of the movie, and Bill Murray was cast as the voice of Garfield. Murray's laid-back, deadpan delivery has often been compared to Music's; indeed, Music provided the voice of Murray's Peter Venkman character in the cartoon version of Ghostbusters. Murray became the fourth actor to provide a voice for the Garfield: Tommy Smothers voiced the role in a cat food commercial, and an unnamed Music soundalike was used in another TV spot. Prior to Murray being cast, it was widely reported that actor John Goodman had been picked to provide Garfield's voice for the film.

For his work on the strip, creator Jim Davis received the National Cartoonist Society Humor Strip Award for 1981 and 1985, and their Reuben Award for 1989.

On June 7, 1999, newspapers began to be offered full-color Garfield weekday strips.

Garfield's Marketing

His album: Am I Cool or What?
His suction-cupped kitties: "Stuck on You" were a phenomenon across America and took several years for production to meet the demand. The concept was created after an idea trade with Scott Adams in 1990, which involved what type of object could hold the thing other than sticky items.
His Fantasy Books: Garfield and friends appear in a series of fantasy books called Garfield's Pet Force where Garfield, Nermal, Arlene, Odie and Pooky were given super powers in an alternate dimension.

Garfield's inoffensive, merchandising-oriented approach has been criticized by a number of commentators including Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, whose views against merchandising were explained at great detail in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. Watterson, when asked for his opinion of fellow cartoonists, including Jim Davis, once tactfully described Garfield as "consistent". [2] Chris Sullentrop of Slate accuses Davis of creating Garfield merely for the merchandising [3] while internet humorist "Maddox" charges Davis with "traumatizing millions with his bland humor week after tragic week". [4]

Garfield and Odie also are featured on product packaging for the retail chain Meijer.

Characters

Main article: List of Garfield characters

Major characters in Garfield include:

Garfield: The main character. A lazy, overweight, orange cat who likes eating and sleeping above all. He considers himself to be more intelligent than humans or dogs. Also, he hates Mondays and loves lasagna. It was also revealed on February 10, 1999 that he has a criminal record.
Jon Arbuckle: Garfield's owner. He has poor social skills and his attempts at dating women always fail, but Garfield is happy as long as he keeps him fed. His birthday was July 28, 1950 as was revealed in the 2005 strip on that date and a strip on December 23, 1980 where he declares that he is 30 years old, making Jon currently 55 years old.
Odie: Jon's pet dog (although technically owned by Jon's friend Lyman, who hasn't been seen in the strip in well over a decade). A yellow, long-eared dog who is always drooling. He is very stupid and naïve and because of this, Garfield likes to play tricks on him. Sometimes Odie is smart enough to play tricks on Garfield. Odie walks on four legs. Odie is the only character who cannot speak any sort of English, solely communicating with body language and his enthusiastic barking. Also, Odie didn't appear on the very first comics, debuting on August 8, 1978 (the day after Lyman).
Arlene: Garfield's on-and-off girlfriend. A pink cat with a long neck and a gap in her teeth. She truly loves Garfield, but he's too in love with himself to care.
Nermal: "The world's cutest kitten". Garfield hates him when he comes to show everyone how cute he is. Garfield often tries to mail him to Abu Dhabi.
Liz: A veterinarian. Garfield hates going to the vet's, but Jon often forces him to. Sometimes the visit is just an excuse for Jon to ask the beautiful Liz out for a date. Also, she claims that Liz is short for Lizard. She may have been joking.
Pooky: Garfield's teddy bear and best friend. He gives the best hugs in the world.
Lyman: Once was Jon's roommate and Odie's owner. Stopped appearing in the strip after a few years, apparently because he was considered superfluous. (Jim Davis explained how the character was created to give Jon someone to be friends with and talk to, but as Garfield's character evolved and ended up speaking with Jon, the conversations became more Garfield-Jon oriented. This made Lyman's character unneeded, so even though they don't explain why, he was written out. Jim Davis later gave humorous scenarios of what happened in the Garfield 25th Anniversary Book.)
Mom: Jon's mom. Lives on a farm, and is known to be a great cook.
Dad: Jon's dad. Lives on a farm, and is completely useless when it comes to modern equipment.
Doc Boy: Jon's brother. Lives on a farm with his mom and dad, and often fights with Jon, calling him a "City sissy".
Spiders: Like most animals, spiders can communicate freely with Garfield. Unfortunately for them, he takes great pleasure in swatting, squishing, or smashing them. The spiders occasionally show a desire for revenge, but are usually friendly.
Mice: shown in many previous Garfields. They live to torture Garfield, and get Garfield into a lot of trouble when Jon sees the things the mice do (tiny snowmen, balconys, etc.). Jon also makes many futile attempts to entice Garfield into chasing the mice and usually plots against them, with or without Garfield.

Themes and Settings

Usually, the standard setting is Garfield standing on a table or floor, always flat. Occasionally, Garfield ventures elsewhere and when goes somewhere else, he usually spends a week or two in that area.

The TV Chair is one of Garfield's favorite places, where he entertains himself with shows such as Binky the Clown and others. Many of the shows mentioned are absurd and stupid, and give Jim Davis an opportunity to comment on pop-culture.
Outside, Garfield has confrontations with various characters, such as dogs (more vicious than Odie), birds, worms, and even conscious flowers. "Beware of Dog" signs are abound, and Garfield often tries to torment the chained-up dogs as some kind of revenge. Garfield tries to capture birds in the bird fountain, often unsuccessfully (However, unlike Tom in Tom and Jerry, Garfield does occasionally kill and consume his prey). He finds it a lot easier to capture flowers though, and often eats them.
Early in the series, Garfield would spend time on the window ledge and always get trapped in the roll-up blinds. This culminated in a two-week storyline in which Garfield, Odie, Jon, two complete strangers, and even a street lamp (Odie had to go) all got trapped in the blinds. This was one of the few storylines in which a Sunday strip was part of the regular story arc. After this, Jon bought Venetian blinds (which Garfield, somehow, still manages to get stuck in).
The Fence in the Alley is an area where Garfield often tells bad jokes or caterwauls, in a homage to vaudeville. Odie joins the act from time to time, once as a ventriloquist's dummy, and once as "Mr Skins", who accompanied Garfield on the drums. Garfield is frequently the target of disgusted fans, who throw shoes, rotten vegetables, and houseplants at him and once burned down his fence with burning arrows (Garfield's temporary replacement, a plastic flamingo, just "didn't feel the same"). Garfield, however, loves the attention he receives, and once complained that he thought a joke deserved more than a single shoe. He does sometimes get applause from his audience, though one time the audience consisted solely of his mother.
Up the tree is another area where Garfield often traps himself. Garfield knows not to climb, but ironically can never overcome the urge. A firefighter usually has to save him on the last day of the week. One time, Jon got stuck up the tree trying to rescue him.
The table with a telephone Jon often trys calling women for a date, almost ALWAYS failing, where Garfield makes a sacastic remark after his date hangs up.
Occasionally, Garfield will be taken to the vet's office, a place he loathes. In this setting, Jon always tries to get a date with Liz, the vet, and usually fails badly, his failures causing Garfield to snicker. At the end of one date, Jon got a kiss, currently his only on-screen kiss in the comic.
Sometimes Jon takes Garfield to the park. Jon tries to meet girls in the park, but always fails miserably and humorously.
Vacations are taken by Jon and his pets every so often, usually to exotic places. Early in the series, Garfield had to sneak along in the suitcase, but at some point Jon gave up and took him along as an equal. These are funny because they portray Jon's inability to get along with people normally. They also introduce new scenarios, which are usually rare in this strip.
The Beach is frequented by Garfield and company, and is another site at which Jon fails at finding girls. Garfield hates the beach simply because it has no TV, and is too hot. This theme will often show up in the summer.
Irma's diner was visited often early on, but not as much as the series progressed. Irma is a chirpy, but slow-witted and unattractive waitress/manager, and one of Jon's few friends. The food is terrible, and is the center of most of the jokes, along with the poor management.
The window is a setting showing Garfield looking from inside the house, making comments on events going on outside. Sometimes Jon joins him.
Jon periodically visits his parents and brother on the farm. This results in comical displays of stupidity by Jon and his family, and their interactions.
The used car lot is an entertaining scene that parodies the business. Jon always gets conned by the overly clever and sneaky salesman, while Garfield knows it all along. This is paralleled in the used refrigerator store and used Christmas tree lot which appear later.

Garfield often engages in week-long interactions with a minor character, event, or thing, such as Nermal, Arlene, the mailman, an alarm clock, a scale, the TV, Pooky, spiders, mice, coffee, hamburgers, balls of yarn, rubber chickens, dieting, shedding, pie throwing, fishing, Mondays, Clive, lasagna, the "Caped Avenger", sweaters, colds, etc.

Some more unique themes are things like "Garfield's Believe It or Don't", "Garfield's Law", "Garfield's History", which show the world, history, and science from Garfield's point-of-view. Another particular theme is the "National Fat Week", where Garfield spends the week making fun of skinny people. Most of December is spent preparing for Christmas, with a predictable focus on presents. Every week before June 19th, the strip focuses on his birthday, which Garfield dreads. Occasionally the strip celebrates Halloween as well with scary-themed jokes. Jokes are introduced seasonally, with snow-related gags common in January or February and beach or heat themed jokes in the summer.

One storyline, which lasted a week from October the 23rd, 1989 (possibly to coincide with Halloween, although the 31st actually fell the following week), is unique in that it is not humorous. It depicts Garfield awakening in a future in which the house is abandoned and he no longer exists. This is revealed to have been a dream of some kind, and ends with this narration: "An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice...or terrify, all depending on how we conduct ourselves today." Alternatively, some theorize that the end of this storyline actually implies that the rest of the series, the more conventional strips, are all fantasies Garfield is playing out in his head to delude himself from realizing the dark turn his life has taken, as he slowly starves to death in an abandoned house. This is arguably supported by the text, as the narration reads "After years of taking life for granted, Garfield is shaken by a horrifying vision of the invevitable process called 'time'. He has only one weapon... Denial" right before Jon and Odie reappear. This emphasis on Denial, with the word given its own box in the panel it appears in, and being followed immediately by the earlier text on the power of the imagination, could support the theory. However, it could also be that denial is what Garfield needed to snap himself out of this dark vision.

Removing Garfield's thought bubbles

On February 11, 2006, author Neil Gaiman noted a new internet trend of removing Garfield's thought bubbles from the strip [5], apparently invented by MackJ of the Truth And Beauty Bombs forums, posted January 30, 2006 [6]. Tailsteak, author of the webcomic 1/0 and progenitor of a similar project, Arbuckle, explains: "'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 is the world as he sees it. This is his story." [7]

Television

Garfield as seen on Garfield and Friends.

Garfield and Friends (Animated cartoon series, 1988–1995)
Garfield Gets a Life (animated special) 1991
Garfield's Feline Fantasies (animated special) 1990
Garfield's Thanksgiving (animated special) 1989
Garfield's Babes and Bullets (animated special) 1989
Garfield: His 9 Lives (animated special) 1988
Garfield Goes Hollywood (animated special) 1987
A Garfield Christmas (animated special) 1987
Garfield in Paradise (animated special) 1986
Garfield's Halloween Adventure (animated special) 1985
Garfield in the Rough (animated special) 1984
Garfield on the Town (animated special) 1983
Here Comes Garfield (animated special) 1982

Books

Numbered Paperbacks

These books, generally released twice a year, contain reprints of the comic as it appears in newspapers daily. These books were originally printed in black and white, but recent ones have been in color, each book covers approximately six months of comics, including the larger weekend comics (in black and white in all except the recent editions).

The titles of these books were styled as double entendres alluding to Garfield's weight or his habits. These books introduced the "Garfield format" in publishing, whereby the books are horizontally oriented to match comic strip dimensions. They are currently being reprinted in a larger format, showing the Sunday strips to be formatted in a size as they usually are, instead of shrunken-down to meet the book size. Newer versions of the books will be released in paperback only, and in full color for every cartoon, not just the Sunday strips.

Garfield At Large: His First Book 1980
Garfield Gains Weight: His Second Book 1981
Garfield Bigger than Life: His Third Book 1981
Garfield Weighs In: His Fourth Book 1982
Garfield Takes the Cake: His Fifth Book 1982
Garfield Eats His Heart Out: His Sixth Book 1983
Garfield Sits Around the House: His Seventh Book 1983
Garfield Tips the Scales: His Eighth Book 1984
Garfield Loses His Feet: His Ninth Book 1984
Garfield Makes it Big: His 10th Book 1985
Garfield Rolls On: His 11th Book 1985
Garfield Out to Lunch: His 12th Book 1986
Garfield Food for Thought: His 13th Book 1987
Garfield Swallows His Pride: His 14th Book 1987
Garfield World Wide: His 15th Book 1988
Garfield Rounds Out: His 16th Book 1988
Garfield Chews the Fat: His 17th Book 1989
Garfield Goes to Waist: His 18th Book 1990
Garfield Hangs Out: His 19th Book 1990
Garfield Takes Up Space: His 20th Book 1991
Garfield Says a Mouthful: His 21st Book 1991
Garfield By the Pound: His 22nd Book 1992
Garfield Keeps His Chins Up: His 23rd Book 1992
Garfield Takes His Licks: His 24th Book 1993
Garfield Hits the Big Time: His 25th Book 1993
Garfield Pulls his Weight: His 26th Book 1994
Garfield Dishes it Out: His 27th Book 1995
Garfield Life in the Fat Lane: His 28th Book 1995
Garfield Tons of Fun: His 29th Book 1996
Garfield Bigger and Better: His 30th Book 1996
Garfield Hams it Up: His 31st Book 1997
Garfield Thinks Big: His 32nd Book 1997
Garfield Throws His Weight Around: His 33rd Book 1998
Garfield Life to the Fullest: His 34th Book 1999
Garfield Feeds the Kitty: His 35th Book 1999
Garfield Hogs the Spotlight: His 36th Book 2000
Garfield Beefs Up: His 37th Book 2000
Garfield Gets Cookin': His 38th Book 2001
Garfield Eats Crow: His 39th Book 2003
Garfield Survival of the Fattest: His 40th Book 2004
Garfield Older and Wider: His 41st Book 2005
Garfield Pigs Out: His 42nd Book 2006

In the UK, over 60 Garfield books, mainly 'Pocket Books' or paperbacks, have been published by Ravette. The format is slightly different, as the strips are presented in a vertical style.

Other books

Garfield: His 9 Lives (1984) - graphic novel, later made into a TV special.
Garfield and the Truth About Cats (1991)
Garfield book of Cat Names (1988)
Garfield Crazy about Numbers (sticker book)
Give Me Coffee and No One Gets Hurt (discontinued)
Garfield and the Santa Spy
Garfield's Ghost Stories (storybook)
Garfield's Christmas Tales (storybook) (1994)
Garfield's Haunted House and Other Spooky Tales (storybook) (1994)
Garfield's Stupid Cupid and Other Stories (storybook) (1995)
Garfield Goes to Disobedience School (picturebook) (1997)
Garfield's Big Book of Excellent Excuses (2000)
Garfield's Guide to Everything (2004)
Odie Unleashed: Garfield Lets The Dog Out Book (2005)

Additionally, adaptations of Garfield television specials have been published in comic format:

Garfield as Himself (2004) collects the following books:

Here Comes Garfield (1982)
Garfield on the Town (1983)
Garfield Gets a Life (1991)

Garfield Holiday Celebrations (2004) collects the following books:

Garfield in Disguise (Haloween special) (1985)
Garfield's Thanksgiving (1988)
A Garfield Christmas (1987)

Garfield Travel Adventures (2005) collects the following books:

Garfield in the Rough (1984)
Garfield in Paradise (1986)
Garfield Goes to Hollywood (1988)

Several early-reader adventure novels featuring Garfield were published in the late 1990's:

Garfield and the Beast in the Basement (1998)
Garfield and the Mysterious Mummy (1998)
Garfield and the Teacher Creature (1998)
Garfield and the Wicked Wizard (1999)

Garfield's Pet Force is another series of early-reader novels:

#1: The Outrageous Origin (1997)
#2: Pie Rat's Revenge (1998)
#3: K-Niner: Dog of Doom (1998)
#4: Menace of the Mutanator (1999)
#5: Attack of the Lethal Lizards (1999)

Garfield Extreame is a series of children's picture books.

Garfield's Extreme Cusine: Pigging the Way Out! (2003)
Garfield's Ironcat (2003)
Garfield's Awesome Ski Adventure (2002)
Garfield's Sumo Beach Bellyball (2002)

Video games

Title screen for Garfield: Caught in the Act

Garfield was also transported into video games, the first being a never-released Atari 2600 prototype, in 1983, and there was also a NES game of Garfield made in Japan in 1989.

Other titles: