Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis featuring Garfield the cat, Odie the dog, and their owner Jon Arbuckle. As of 2007, 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 television series, several animated television specials and two theatrical feature-length live-action films, as well as a large amount of Garfield merchandise.

Garfield debuted on June 19, 1978, which is considered Garfield’s birthday. The strip makes fun of pet owners and their relationship with their pets, often with the pet as the true master of the home. Garfield also struggles with human problems, such as diets, Mondays, apathy, boredom, and so on. Garfield is able to understand what Jon or other humans say. He supposedly cannot talk back, but often Jon seems to be able to tell what he is saying just from his expression or gestures which are much like those of a human.^[2] However, Garfield is able to talk in thought bubbles to Odie and the other animals. Odie understands what Garfield says to him, but in general cannot communicate back to Garfield except by barking; he is the only character that doesn’t seem to have any normal way of communicating. Although, Odie did have three thought bubbles with words in the strip.^[3] In an earlier strip, Odie is shown poking his former owner (Lyman) and it is written in his thought bubble “I’m hungry.” In a second strip, Odie is on the fence in the alley with Garfield and it is written in his thought bubble “Hi to the people, dummy”. In a third strip, Odie says, “Lady of Spain, I adore you” although this may just be Garfield as a ventriloquist. Odie has also had an empty thought bubble on a few occasions. Most of the other animals (Arlene, Nermal, Squeak the Mouse and others) are capable of a two-way conversation with Garfield. Garfield, apparently, is able to type, and he has written messages that Jon has read and understood (mostly letters to Santa Claus); which happens almost every year.

Over the course of the strip, Garfield’s behavior and appearance evolved. Initially, he was drawn extremely fat with flabby jowls and small round eyes. Later, his appearance was slimmed down, his eyes enlarged, and his head made rounder and more infant-like; these changes contributed to a stereotype cuteness appearance. By 1981, Garfield started walking on his hind feet from time to time (these rear paws are now drawn as proportionally huge), because he was too fat to walk on four legs. 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.

Like many comic strips, Garfield is not exclusively drawn by its creator. Jim Davis still writes and makes rough sketches for the strip, but his company, Paws, employs cartoonists and assistants who do most of the work of drawing and inking, while Davis’s final job is usually confined to approving and signing the finished strip. Otherwise, Davis spends most of his time managing the business and merchandising of Garfield.

Learning from the indifference 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 humor 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.

Garfield and Odie with Jim Davis.

The characters and situations in Garfield have often 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.^[4] On 17 July, 2006,^[5] 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^[6] on 28 July (both Jon and Jim Davis’s birthday), when Jon finally could say that he had a life.

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 music. Twelve television specials were made (through 1991) as well as a Saturday Morning television series, Garfield and Friends, which ran from 1988 to 1995 on CBS, and still runs occasionally today.

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 .

In 1990, Garfield made an appearance on the TV special, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. While he was in Corey’s (the sister’s) room, he was a lamp sitting beside a picture of ALF.

In June 7, 1999, newspapers began to offer full-color Garfield weekday strips.

A live-action film 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 real Odie. Lorenzo Music had died before filming began, 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 Real Ghostbusters, the cartoon version of Ghostbusters. Murray became the fourth actor to provide a voice for Garfield: Tommy Smothers voiced the role in a cat food commercial, and an unnamed Lorenzo Music sound-alike was used in another TV spot.