One week a month, he sits alone by himself to think.
First, he closes the office's drapes and turns the lights low. Surrounded by cornfields and farms, his office looks more like a hidden resort than a work station.
What he's trying to achieve is a working meditation; a state of being where he can conjure an image and visualize it.
And then, at least for Jim Davis, an orange cat walks right into his thoughts. After 30 years, or 210 cat years, the creative process for the cartoonist has remained the same even though the character is constantly evolving.
It's like watching a television in his mind where Davis sees and hears Garfield.
The cat has a mind of his own, and Davis can't control him once he comes into his mind. All he can do consciously is put him in a situation and see him react. Whether it's putting the cat on a diet or sending him up a tree, all he can do is observe.
"After 30 years, Garfield knows what to do," Davis, a 1967 Ball State University graduate, said. "And when he makes me laugh, when he does something funny, I back up three frames and cut it off."
And when Davis is really pressed for time, he doodles and lets "the pen go to work." Sometimes, his pen writes the gag his mind couldn't see, he said.
"In essence, Garfield writes the comic strip; I just edit," he said.
In the beginning of the strip, Garfield would do cat-related gags such as cough up a hairball or fight getting a bath. Now, Garfield threatens to claw Jon's lips off if he doesn't feed him.
Davis said because the character is changing, he feels as if he has just started working on the comic. It feels more like 30 minutes have passed instead of 30 years, he said.
"I'm still, I guess, going for that one gag that makes the whole world laugh," Davis said. "That gets me out of bed every morning."
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