Garfield

Because Garfield <3

Favorite strips? Stories about how you found Garfield? Do you relate to him in some way? Have a theory about the comic? Shoot.

My theory is that John is a schizophrenic While Garfield and Otis are part of his personality

I remember there was a cartoon at some point. Never read the strip.

Oh yeah, the cartoon also had an unrelated Orson's Farm segment, which I remember quite a bit better.

Urrgh, I hated those bozos on the farm.

There's a series of Garfield strips, made by fans, where they remove Garfield and Odie and just leave Jon. I wasn't sure if you knew this, so I thought I'd mention it. Just Google "Garfield minus Garfield".

I've heard about that! Pearls Before Swine made a Parody out of it by showing "Pearls" episodes with Pig removed from it!

Those farm animals came from a strip Jim Davis did called US Acres. That strip only lasted for 3 years before great criticism forced it to end. It had appeared in 505 newspapers when it started in 1986. On an interesting side note, Bill Watterson of Calvin And Hobbes called U.S. Acres an abomination. He obviously hated it to death if he was willing to apply a word on it that is usually reserved for religious and cosmic stuff.

I watched the Garfield and Friends cartoon when I was a lot younger. To be honest, I wish the shorts consisted only of Garfield and characters related to him, and didn't include those shorts with the farm animals at all!

I thought the early years of Garfield were good. However, I am convinced that the strip has fallen into Strictly Formula territory, and apart from a couple instances of something different (like Jon hooking up with Liz), it shows no sign of getting out of this!

I've even heard it said that Jim Davis doesn't actually draw the strip anymore, but instead wallows in luxury and leaves a team of artists to do the dirty work! And That's Terrible!

edited 27th Feb '12 5:14:25 PM by TiggersAreGreat

Yeah, he only really made Garfield for the money in the first place.

Actually, that's what ultimately happens to a LOT of cartoonists that become very successful. Charles Shultz was a glaring exception, as he really did write and draw every strip in Peanuts' 50 year run, only using assistants to do the stuff for licensing. But for instance, Hank Ketchum, of Dennis the Menace fame, did not draw or write his strip for something like 20 years before he died; all he did was final approval. Al Capp, of L'il' Abner fame used assistants within 5 years and quit drawing his strip completely about 10 years in. His most famous assistant was Frank Frazetta. Aaron Macgruder didn't draw Boondocks after something like it's first year (though he did keep writing it up until he ended it). A lot of strips buy gags from freelancers, too. It's very well known practice among professional syndicated cartoonists, but it isn't terribly well known to the general public.

I've heard that fictional works that were made simply for Money, Dear Boy tend to low-quality. There are exceptions to this. Like I said, Jim Davis did do a good job with Garfield...in the early years. But now, it has turned repetitive, uninspired, boring, unimaginative, uncreative, and <<insert adjective here>>.

It's a good thing TV Tropes has knowledgeable people like you to tell us all about these things! Those people working for Jim Davis, and drawing his strip for him...they seriously need to get a creativity boost!

edited 28th Feb '12 5:46:33 AM by TiggersAreGreat

I have to wonder if Garfield really has decayed, or if you just have fonder memories of the strips you read when you were too young to know better.

I'm well aware of Garfield Minus Garfield. It annoys me that nobody remembers the predecessor to that, which just removed Garfield's though bubbles.

I do really like Jim Davis' reaction. I seem to remember he praised Speechless Garfield for being a lot funnier than the originals, and not only approved the publication of a collection of Garfield Minus Garfield strips in dead tree form, but actually wrote a foreword to it. Kudos, dude. That's cool of you.

I loved Garfield when I was a kid, and I still have at least the first 15 strip collections and probably more, but I'm completely passe on it nowadays and have been for years.

Well, Garfield had way more variety in the early days! How so?

1. There was that long storyline that had Garfield and Odie wander far away from home, and it was a long time before they got home!
2. There was at least one storyline that had Garfield visit the old Italian restaurant he was born in, which is now inhabited by a large gang of cats.
3. There was an episode that had him go down a storm drain...and then find out that other cats are ending up on the same side with him from other locations!
4. There was a storyline that had Garfield finding himself all alone in a broken-down version of the house...with the implication that he has become a ghost!
5. There were some nice Christmas storylines that had Jon visiting his family.

These days, there has not been one episode or storyline in Garfield that has been half as imaginative as the ones listed above! That leads me to conclude one thing about Jim Davis and his assistants: They Just Didn't Care!

I'm sure Garfield used to be awesome. You see, fairly recently I began binging the comic archive, and i've found some really, really nice storylines. EG: when Jon's grandmother came to visit.

I listed it on the CMoH Garfield page, if you want to go have a look.

Older Garfield actually did have some more risque jokes in the earlier years. Like there's one week of strips where it was Garfield stealing Jon's tobacco pipe and smoking it, which I doubt would fly at all today.

There's also this one. Take a wild guess behind that metaphor.

Yeah, Jim Davis totally had a Getting Crap Past the Radar moment with that one. I bet most little kids would never have guessed that it has drugs and prostitution references in it!

I remember this one Pearls Before Swine episode poking fun at Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory, and it concluded with "Join me next week as I show you how Garfield's liking for lasagna represents the reemergence of totalitarian Russia." I know that last part is definitely a joke, because Davis has stated that he doesn't do political stuff with Garfield. Except for that one episode smeared inked cat paws on paper to communicate a message of love and peace to the world, but that one was very obvious!

The early stuff, between years 2 and 10. At about that point Garfield took form and the jokes got funny. Most of it was observations from a snarky fat perspective.

Seconding the enjoyment of the strip's early years and disappointment with how it is now. However, something that I don't feel gets enough love is the graphic novel Garfield: His 9 Lives; the "Primal Self" chapter is still one of the scariest comic book stories I've ever read.

On another note:

Something I hate is when people bring up the "Jim Davis only drew the strip to make money" thing. Yes, certain creative choices (like having the star be a cute animal or not dealing with "topical" subject matter) were made with the intention of increasing the strip's popularity. However, (a) most successful writers/artists change their story based on what they think audiences' will like, and (b) wanting to make money off the strip is not the same thing as only wanting to make money off it. Do you honestly believe that someone who's purely interested in a practical, moneymaking strategy would take up cartooning as their chosen career path?

edited 25th Mar '12 4:10:04 AM by RavenWilder

I recall reading somewhere that one of the first strips Davis tried to sell, after leaving as the assistant on Tumbleweeds, was something involving, like, an insect. He was told his art and writing were great, but that no one wanted to read a comic strip about a bug. The cute critters are sometimes what it takes to get your foot in the door.

That was called Gnorm Gnat. I can understand why nobody would want to read such a thing, because who likes gnats? If you're curious on how that strip ended, a giant foot comes out of the sky, squishing Gnorm Gnat, and he gets Killed Off for Real.

I need to re-read Garfield: His 9 Lives over again...as I recall that was very good.

It was really rather a daring thing. Much of it is wildly out of tone with what you'd expect from Garfield. I liked the hard-boiled detective episode best — it was actually a pretty good, noirish story. It was the inspiration for the "Garfield: Babes and Bullets" animated special, which was actually pretty racy for a Garfield special (good luck finding it; I don't think it's ever been released on DVD, and I've never seen it broadcast since it first aired). Kudos to Jim Davis for this one. It was an excellently realized experiment.

I really don't get WHY people dislike U.S.Acres(without even bothering to explain)or have such a HUGE problem with them! (though I admit, I like the cartoon version more then some parts of the comic version) Just because the creator of Calvin and Hobbes hated it doesn't mean he's right and he's NOT GOD!

It seems you people only dislike it because "it's not Garfield".....that's a pretty close-minded and non thought out reason to dislike something!

Not to say I never liked Garfield but the U.S.Acres were the reasons I gotten the Garfield and Friends DV Ds! The characters are different and interesting and they were just as funny as the Garfield segments! After watching them again, I never laughed so hard in ages. The U.S.Acres segments are just as Funny especially later on in the seasons(and especially when Roy and Wade interact!) and it's STILL much more funnier then most of the newer crappy cartoons we have these days!

Yeah, much like Alan Moore, Bill Watterson is a person of great integrity and he's often right on the spot, but at some other points, their opinions are pretty skewed up because they have pretty narrow views of the world. But their fanbases are quick to forget that and take everything they say for an uncontestable fact.

edited 11th Jul '12 5:10:49 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Its just getting boring now.

1st February 1990

I really like how this strip appeals to the absurd humor and dry wit side of the comedy without indulging on either. It could have just been really dry, like Jon reacting to Garfield sitting in his chair most of the time, or really wacky, like Garfield being on an equal playing ield with Odie and going for broke - usually any in-between is malaligned at best. But this is a good strip imo, because it's ridiculous, it's relatable in a strange way and the joke is simple but effective - and dry enough to be funny.