- Garfield has 94% familiarity in the U.S. That ties him with Santa Claus, and puts him three percent behind Mickey Mouse. However, it does put him above Snoopy.
- In 1978, the comic's first year, Garfield debuted in 41 newspapers. By 1979, it appeared in 100 newspapers. In 1982, the number reached 1,000 newspapers.
- Garfield has nearly 17 million "likes" on Facebook.
- The first Garfield book, "Garfield at Large," was on the New York Times' best-seller list for two years.
- A film adaptation of the Garfield comics was made in 2004.
- Garfield is not censored in China.
(via Jim Davis and Garfield and Friends website)
A group of students will be making computerized versions of Garfield as a project and Davis’ goal was to familiarize the students with all things “Garfield,” he said.
Davis began drawing as a result of his asthma; whenever he would have an asthma attack, his mother would give him a pencil and some paper to draw.
“My drawings always made her laugh,” Davis said. “She was always an easy mark.”
In 1969, Davis began working under Tom Ryan, creator of “Tumbleweeds.” It was then when he decided not to work with people, but with animals, if he ever had his own comic strip.
He learned the skills of a syndicated cartoonist, and started his own strip, “Gnorm Gnat.” However, the strip never really took off because, as the newspaper syndicate told him, audiences couldn't relate to a bug.
The decision to make a comic about cats came to Davis easily; he had grown up with 25 cats, yet hadn’t seen a lot of cat comics.
“Dog lovers liked dog comics, maybe cat lovers would like a cat comic,” Davis said of his thought process.
Davis decided he would draw on real life to create the gags in his comic. He wouldn’t—and hasn’t—mixed politics or very controversial topics into “Garfield” since its 1978 debut. He attributes the real-life aspect to what makes “Garfield” successful.
“More often than not, when you laugh at a comic strip it’s because you’re saying ‘Isn’t that true?’” Davis said. “It’s not about [Garfield]. It’s about you. It’s about the reader. He says things for you.”
Davis named his creation after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis.
“He had the world’s biggest laugh,” Davis said. “He seemed grumpy; he would rarely smile. But he was very warm; his eyes would give him away.”
The original Garfield looked quite different from today’s cat. He didn’t have stripes for the for the first nine years of his existence. The newspaper syndicate had suggested the stripes, Davis said.
His eyes were also smaller, his belly was larger and he didn’t stand on two feet.
“Comics were getting smaller, and people needed reading glasses [for them],” Davis said. “Everything expressive [about Garfield] had to be bigger.”
Davis has had fun working with the comic over the years. Sometimes he puts tributes to other cartoonists in “Garfield,” or jokes from within the cartoonist world. There are two or three strips he made just for himself, he said.
He has never felt in control of the character. Rather, Garfield dictates for Davis what to write and draw. He compares thinking of what Garfield will do to watching a movie—when Garfield does something funny, Davis “backs up three frames and freezes.”
While sometimes, passion can turn into business, that is not the case for Davis. He continues to enjoy creating one of the most recognized figures in the United States.
“The comic strip still gets me out of bed in the morning,” he said. “It’s fun. We have a saying, ‘If we take care of the cat, the cat will take care of us.’”
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