The strip's title character. Most of the time, he's a fat, lazy, cynical cat, with Jon being the main victim of his constant sarcasm. Many of the strip's gags revolve around his constant eating and/or sleeping, as well as offering plenty of sarcasm towards Jon and abuse towards Odie.
Acrofatic: For a cat who is supposedly morbidly obese, Garfield is surprisingly athletic when he wants to be. Subtly lampshaded in an early strip when Garfield ran so fast that he went straight up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall! Jon noted that "I know cats are fast, but that's ridiculous."
Another strip shows Garfield voluntarily jogging, of all things. He tells the reader that even he can run when he has the proper motivation, and in the last panel we see that he's chasing an ice cream truck.
Birthday Hater: Garfield hates birthdays, mainly because they remind him of how old he is. (Considering the strip has been around for two or three regular cat lifespans, he may have a point.) When the actual party comes, however, he usually softens up.
Centipede's Dilemma: The first time Garfield moved around on only two legs, Jon pointed out that cats couldn't do that, invoking this trope, in a way. Doesn't stop him from making bipedalism his preferred mode of travel in the new strips, though.
In one strip, Jon asks Garfield which way he puts his feet down when he walks. Garfield is then paralyzed, saying, "I'll never walk again."
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Despite his general cynical attitude, Garfield loves his mother very much. He also loves Jon's mother quite a bit too, due in no small part to the amount of food she makes at family gatherings.
Extreme Omnivore: Occasionally. Non-food things he has eaten include his own food dish (accidentally while shoveling down his food super-fast), the TV remote (to prevent Jon from taking it), Jon's wallet ("Genuine cowhide."), and an unknown object Jon was carrying on a plate ("I hope that was food!")
Flanderization: A strange inversion. Garfield started out very lazy and sarcastic, but de-Flanderized into a more playful attitude by the late eighties. Over time, he's gradually shifted back into his more cynical self.
Furry Denial: He constantly forgets that he's a cat. One time, he forgot to such an extent that he shaved.
Furry Reminder: On the other hand, he often does feline things, like licking himself, eating birds, playing with balls of yarn, etc.
Heavy Sleeper: He's timed himself to see just how long he can sleep.
In one strip, this gets exaggerated; he wakes up and looks out the window to see a Jetsons-esque future, to which he says that his nap was a little long.
Hiccup Hijinks: Occurs in a week from 1998 where he starts "freestyle hiccuping".
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although he constantly abuses both Jon and Odie, he does seem to love them both deep down. His softer side is most prominent around Christmastime.
Karma Houdini: A extreme example - he can bully Jon, Odie, and Nermal (verbally and physically) and NEVER receive any punishment whatsoever. (Every rule has its exceptions, though, and sometimeskarmadoesgethim.)
Not so much in The Garfield Show, where Jon tends to suspect Garfield of wrongdoing when something bad happens... and he's often right.
Also invoked at the end of Garfield's Halloween Adventure:
Garfield: Odie, I'm about to do something that's really out of character for me. But seeing that you saved my my life about 10 bazillion times tonight, I'm going to give you something that's very close to me. Something that really represents who I am. Here's your half of the Halloween candy.
Talking Animal: Subverted; his speech is represented through thought bubbles, a-la Snoopy. Due to the Rule of Funny, Jon can understand him only if Jon's understanding is necessary for the punchline.
Trademark Favorite Food: Lasagna. However, it's rarely mentioned nowadays and seems to have been replaced with pizza.
Your Mom: In one strip, when Garfield stands on the talking scale:
Scale: Let me put it this way... Have you ever considered a career as a river barge?
Garfield: Your mother was a blender!
Scale: That hurt.
In another strip, when he does his act on the fence, he tells his audience: "All you your mothers wear army boots!"
Yet another strip, Jon tries to train Garfield to be an "attack cat", and makes a dummy from him to practice. When he orders "Attack!", Garfield tells the dummy: "Your mother wears combat boots!"
Garfield's owner and the most prominent human in the strip. For most of the strip, he was a simple enough bachelor who cared for Garfield, but eventually grew to be portrayed as a total loser. His personality hit a watershed in the late 2000s when he and Liz finally became the Official Couple.
Jon: You wouldn't believe my day, Garfield. First, I tripped and fell down six flights of stairs. When I landed, I got my head stuck in a bucket of pork chops. Then, a roaming pack of hungry wolves mistook me for lunch...and chased me into an open elevator shaft, which wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the rabid shaft badgers.
Lethal Chef: Jon is fine on everyday meals, but his attempts to produce something special invariably have results that even Garfield would rather starve than eat.
The Noseless: He doesn't have a nose so much as he has a very long philtrum.
This Loser Is You: "Sometimes you're lucky....and sometimes you're Jon."
Took a Level in Dumbass: In the early years of the strip, he was a fairly normal person. By the mid-90's, he's become a total moron who finds interest in mundane activities, mistakes sudoku for crosswords, and mistakes an upside down restaurant menu for French.
Straw Loser: Jon was Flanderized into this, becoming possibly the biggest loser in the world so that Garfield, with his laziness, gluttony, and general lack of doing anything in the comic other than just laying there can seem cool by making wisecracks at his expense. It's pretty sad when you're a Straw Loser to a cat. (Although lately, Liz the Veterinarian has apparently gone and fallen in love with him and they've started dating, which, apparently, takes some of the points off his Loser Scale.)
Write Who You Know: Like his creator Jim Davis, Jon grew up on a farm and later moved to the city. Davis has also said that he's based some of Jon's dating disasters on some of his own dating experiences.
Odie
Introduced in the strip's first year as Lyman's pet dog (see below), but later Retconned to be Jon's dog. He's pretty much portrayed as wide-eyed, drooling and dumb.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Sometimes done for laughs. For instance, one strip shows him waiting for Jon and Garfield to leave the house and then watching a TV series on Mozart with a copy of War and Peace at the side. Another arc showed him to be good at sudoku. There's another one involve him looking like he accidentally locked himself in the car, while him, Jon and Garfield is on a picnic, but turns out he actually locked them out so he could eat the food himself, while forcing Jon and Garfield to wait outside while it was raining.
In one 1980's strip, Jon sees a smug Odie beating a disgusted Garfield in 5-card draw poker.
JON: I don't believe it.
GARFIELD: Neither do I. Odie drew to an inside straight.
Overly Long Tongue: Some strips show it to be even longer than his body.
The self-proclaimed "world's cutest kitten". Initially a kitten owned by Jon's mom, Nermal also had his origin blatantly retconned. He's now just a neighborhood cat who wanders into Garfield's house at random times.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He never misses an opportunity to mock Garfield about his weight and/or age.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Since the '90s, Nermal has a tendency to disappear from the strip for a long period of time then return.
Comic Book Time / Not Allowed to Grow Up: Parodied. Nermal has been a kitten since the strip's second year. In several strips, Garfield has asked Nermal how he stays young, and Nermal has revealed that he's a midget who uses extensive anti-aging therapy.
Dude Looks Like a Lady: Made even more obvious on Garfield and Friends, where he has a very obviously female voice actor. The Spanish dub even called him gatita (female kitten) before correcting it later on.
Jon's roommate, who appeared two months into the strip. He was initially Odie's owner, and was intended to provide the role of someone that Jon could talk to, until Garfield took over in that role. As a result, Lyman totally disappeared from the strip.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Such a prominent example that the trope could easily be called The Lyman. He appeared less and less between 1981 and 1982, not appearing or mentioned in Here Comes Garfield, before vanishing after April 1983. According to Jim Davis, he joined the Peace Corps and was never heard from again (possibly Killed Off for Real).
Demoted to Extra: Prior to being written out, he was a major for the first two years, before being demoted to a minor character through the remainer he appeared.
Garfield and Odie's vet, and the frequent target of Jon's affection. Although Jon spent a good quarter century trying to date her with minimal success, she finally gave in.
"What a pretty name! Is it short for Elizabeth?" "No, it's short for Lizard."
Long Bus Trip: Her last failed date with Jon was in 2000. After that, she didn't appear again until July 2006, where she and Jon were finally hooked up.
