Q: What kind of student were you at Ball State?
A: Enthusiastic. I had a great time. I was in a lot of organizations. I was a Theta Xi. I was in the Student Senate. I was in the Interfraternity Council. I always enjoyed intramural sports. I was an art major and a P.E. minor, and later on I was a business major. But I had a great time and attended classes on the side. I was just one of the guys that seemed to be having a good time on campus and getting along with other students and faculty. I enjoyed the whole process.
Q: It's been a long road -- 25 years -- but is there any particular image of Garfield that you have drawn, for any single purpose that might stick out in your mind?
A: I did a drawing of Garfield with his hand on Snoopy's dog house. That was after Sparky (Charles Schulz) died. Garfield just sighed. That's all there was to it. That was a tough one to draw because that obviously stuck with me. It was tough to draw because I always expected Sparky to be there. Fifty years and you think they are going to go another 50.
Q: Talk about the drawing of Garfield. Your strip has always been kind of a simple strip, not a lot of lines. Is simple important?
A: The comedic timing for a comic strip is not the same for a written joke or a gag delivered by a stand-up comedian. The timing in a newspaper strip is different. (The readers) lips aren't moving, you're reading it with your mind. You can read faster than a comedian can talk. Therefore, I have to time the words you are reading and images you are looking at to come out the same. If the words slow you up or if the art is too tricky with angles or silhouettes, artistically it's appealing but it stops your brain. I've always tried to have the reader look at the picture and read the words so you are arriving at the punch line an instant before you realize what the punch line is ... Anything that gets the imagination going and makes you say "ah." That's what people really live for and groove on. I like to have the type of humor that makes people feel better after they laugh than before. I don't do the shock or the embarrassment type of humor; certainly you get a lot of laughs out of it and I personally I think that it's funny, I just don't choose to use it for Garfield. Charles Schulz, of course, simplified the cartoon line. I think that is his greatest contribution to modern cartooning -- simplifying the line and the themes, showing the great power in interpersonal relationships and gentle gags.
Q: When the time came to actually start to build an art department, was that a welcome help for you?
A: It was. I was working so many hours. Early on we realized that people wanted "Garfield" sentiments on T-shirts and coffee mugs. Basically it was handling letters every day saying, "Where are the coffee mugs, where are the T-shirts." See, Garfield has the courage to say some things that we don't like: "I hate Mondays." Or, "I'd like mornings better if they started later." People won't say it themselves, but they will have Garfield say it on their coffee cups. I just started adding one artist at a time.
Q: We've covered Garfield, but how did you come up with Jon and Odie, the other two main characters of the strip?
A: Humor comes from contrast. Humor comes from conflict. I have always subscribed to traditional situational humor. Tall, short; fat, thin; smart, stupid; cat, dog. I created Garfield first and then consciously built the contrasts off from there. Garfield is very opinionated and Jon is very wishy-washy. Garfield is a cat; Jon is a human. Jon is like the parent figure and Garfield resents authority. Then I named him Jon Arbuckle from an old coffee commercial. They used to say, "Jon Arbuckle once said ..." I picked up on the name in college. So at Ball State, if I was ever debating something in Student Senate I would quote Jon Arbuckle. One day he might be a theologian. I remember one time we were campaigning to get rid of women's hours. Back then women had to be back in the dorm by 11 p.m. The clergy was there, the administration was there. It was a big student senate meeting. I stood up and I said, "Noted educator Jon Arbuckle once said, 'Education for education's sake often falls short of its goals.'" I don't know, I just made it up. But everyone was just sitting there going "ah." Nobody ever asked who Jon Arbuckle was.
Q: Did it work?
Like a charm. Nobody ever wanted to admit they didn't know noted educator Jon Arbuckle. So he was an inside joke. I found out later on the Larry King show, I was telling the same story and a caller said he remembered Jon Arbuckle and that he had a small coffee store that had the best coffee. Pretty soon there was Arbuckle coffee [that was] bought out by that company from the commercial.
Q: What about Odie?
Odie was actually in Fairmont where I grew up and went to school. We had Odie the town idiot. So he was an inside joke too. But it was just creating contrast. Garfield is intelligent, opinionated and Odie is a free spirit, loves everyone. Odie is optimistic and Garfield is the pessimist. When you got the friction you got the humor. If they all looked alike and they all agreed, I'd be out of a job.
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