Thursday, June 19, 2008

This Day in Cartoon History (“Garfield” Debuts)


June 19, 1978—Fat, caffeine-addicted, unrepentantly lazy, the orange cat Garfield debuted in 41 newspapers.

The comic strip’s creator,
Jim Davis, latched onto the idea of a cat character after an editor told him that his initial inspiration, a bug, was not a creature that humans could relate to. Instead of the usual canines, Davis chose felines.

Currently, Davis’ creation is the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world, running (or, I should say, “appearing”—the energy-conserving cat never “runs,” of course) in thousands of papers worldwide.

The strip has made a ton of money over the years for its owner, Indiana-based
Paws Inc. The cat likes to think he, not ostensible owner Jon Arbuckle, is lord of the manor, and he’s encouraged in this belief by his worldwide empire: licensing, TV, books, video games, movies, and more.

If all of this sounds reminiscent of
Charles Schulz’ “Peanuts,” it’s no surprise. Davis admits that the creator of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, etc. inspired his clean, simple lines. By the time the cat had come on the scene, Schulz’ strip had lost zip of its joy de vivre, due not only to a level of creativity and philosophical sophistication nearly impossible to sustain over a prolonged period, but also due to Schulz’ bouts with depression. In contrast, Davis’ strip has not changed as radically over the years. The big cat is fully matured—perfect, he would say.

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small,” mad silent screen star Norma Desmond declaims in Sunset Boulevard. As a marketing phenomenon, at least, Garfield is about to become even bigger this year, with a brand-new direct-to-DVD feature, Garfield’s Fun Fest, due this August; the debut of 26 all-new TV episodes in France (coming to other parts of the globe early next year); even a free Website,
http://www.professorgarfield.com/pgf_home.html , benefiting students, teachers and parents.

Though I’ve been a dog rather than a cat owner, I do feel one point of identification with Davis: like him, I suffer from asthma. (My experiences with it did not occur until adulthood.) Like Theodore Roosevelt, Davis’ medical condition pushed him, while still in childhood, into a lifelong avocation. In TR’s case, he not only, at his father’s urging, built up his puny body through boxing, but also, in the times in which he was confined to the house (all too frequently, because the future president was entirely home schooled until he went off to Harvard), took to reading and writing his thoughts down in journals—excellent preparation, of course, for a literary life.

On the other hand, Jim Davis’ mother encouraged him to draw—something that did not require much physical exertion. Perhaps without knowing it, the future cartoonist began to understand the thinking behind his exercise-averse creation. (“Some call it laziness. I call it deep thought.”)

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