Garfield Comics in Newspapers: The Ultimate Collection for Fans

Garfield is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as Jon in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as Garfield, it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his human owner Jon Arbuckle, and Odie the dog. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals and held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.[1]

garfield comics in newspapers

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United Feature Syndicate accepted the strip for national distribution, which had been retitled Garfield on September 1, 1977, in March 1978 (ending its run in the Times on the 2nd) and made its nationwide debut in 41 newspapers on June 19 of that year (however, after a test run, the Chicago Sun-Times dropped it, only to reinstate it after readers' complaints).[1][11]

Garfield quickly became a commercial success. In 1981, less than three years after its nationwide launch, the strip appeared in 850 newspapers and accumulated over $15 million in merchandise. To manage the merchandise, Davis founded Paws, Inc.[11] In 1982 the strip was appearing in more than 1,000 newspapers.[18]

By 2002, Garfield became the world's most syndicated strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers with 263 million readers worldwide;[1] by 2004, Garfield appeared in nearly 2,600 newspapers and sold from $750 million to $1 billion worth of merchandise in 111 countries.[19] In 1994, Davis's company, Paws, Inc., purchased all rights to the strips from 1978 to 1993 from United Feature. The strip is distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, while rights for the strip remain with Paws.[citation needed]

The strip was originally rejected by King Features Syndicate and Chicago Tribune-New York News; United Feature Syndicate, however, accepted it on January 24, 1978. It debuted in 41 newspapers on June 19 of that year. In 1994, Davis's company, Paws, Inc., purchased all rights to the strips from 1978-1993 from United Feature. The strip is currently distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, while rights for the strip remain with Paws.The appearance of the characters have gradually changed over time.

Garfield quickly became a commercial success. In 1981, less than three years after its release, the strip appeared in 850 newspapers and accumulated over $15 million in merchandise. To manage the merchandise, Davis founded Paws, Inc. By 2002, Garfield became the world's most syndicated strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers with 263 million readers worldwide; by 2004, Garfield appeared in nearly 2,600 newspapers and sold from $750 million to $1 billion worth of merchandise in 111 countries.

Jon periodically visits his parents and brother on the farm. This results in week-long comical displays of stupidity by Jon and his family, and their interactions as seen in many comics. On the farm, Jon's mother will cook large dinners much to Garfield's delight. Grandma Arbuckle has on occasions been seen and mentioned. Jon's parents once visited Jon, Garfield, and Odie in the city. Jon's father drove into town on his tractor and brought a rooster to wake him up.

The primary example of the art form's laziness is a comic strip devoted to the idea of being lazy: Garfield, which newspapers and readers alike politely tolerate as it drops a Monday-hating, lasagna-eating fart every day.

I don't mean to pick on Davis; he's pretty upfront about Garfield being a business first and a comic strip second. And it's not like the rest of his comics-page cohorts are any better. The Wizard of Id makes bland, terrible jokes about a kingdom. Hagar the Horrible makes bland, terrible jokes about a Viking. Marmaduke makes bland, terrible jokes about a big dog. Fred Basset makes bland, terrible jokes about a British dog.

Even the newspaper comics that made some vague stabs at contemporary resonance, like Dilbert or the now-defunct Cathy, quickly devolved into the same kind of shallow, repetitive gags they originally seemed to rebel against.

Comic enthusiasts tend to wax nostalgic over the medium's glory days, when a cartoonist like Winsor McCay or George Herriman could command a full-color newspaper page for a single comic. But while the conditions that led to canonical masterpieces like Little Nemo or Krazy Kat are long gone, it's not impossible to use the modern limitations of the medium to greater effect. Decades before its slide into corporate mediocrity, Peanuts packed plenty of zen koan-like wisdoms into a four-panel format, which quickly became the industry standard. Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson openly (and successfully) battled for less restrictive standards for his Sunday comics, but he still managed to tell years of terrific stories in a four-panel format before retiring his strip in 1995, amid frustrations over near-constant attempts to commercialize it.

And that brings us back to Berkeley Breathed, who was heralded as a potential savior when he returned to the comics page with the Bloom County spin-off Opus. Breathed insisted on certain standards for Opus that were alien to the industry: the freedom to tackle uncomfortable political issues, the refusal to publish his strip online, and the insistence on a full half-page from any newspaper that wanted to syndicate it. That was 2003; one by one, those standards gradually eroded, and Opus ended, with relatively little fanfare, in five years.

Today, the few remaining comic strips with any wit or originality can be found online, free of censorship, deadlines, or panel restrictions. It's hard to blame them for sticking with a format that allows for both more creative freedom and more creative control. But it's frustrating and baffling that newspapers, for all their reach, haven't even attempted to draw on the explosion of talent you can find online.

It's a win-win. With so much potential competition from other cartoonists and entertainment media, truly talented comics creators could use the platform to reach an engaged audience. With so much potential competition from other news sources and entertainment media, newspapers could use their comics pages to distinguish themselves with brilliant voices or artwork.

At a time when audiences are increasingly turning to serialized storylines, there's no limitation to the kinds of stories a creative person could unfold on a daily basis: funny, suspenseful, tragic, or anything in between. It's not too late for a near-insane, passionate creator to make the comics page worth reading again.

The names, logos, and other source identifying features of newspapers depicted in our database are the trademarks of their respective owners, and our use of newspaper content in the public domain or by private agreement does not imply any affiliation with, or endorsement from, the publishers of the newspaper titles that appear on our site. Newspapers.com makes these newspapers available for the purpose of historical research, and is not responsible for the content of any newspapers archived at our site.

When its creator first tried to break into the competitive realm of comic strips, he hoped to build a buzz with an insect. Mastermind Jim Davis talks to David Barnett about CGI, newspapers and finding the funny groove

What else can be said about the world's most famous -- er, not to mention fattest and laziest -- cat? He's just a wise-cracking, nap-taking, coffee-guzzling, lasagna-loving, Monday-hating, dog-punting, spider-whacking, mailman-mauling fat feline. And he's the most beloved strip in the world, read in more than 2,400 newspapers, with a readership of 200 million.

In college, he studied art and business before going to work for Tumbleweeds creator Tom Ryan. There, he learned the skills and discipline necessary to become a syndicated cartoonist and began his own strip, Gnorm Gnat. When he tried to sell the strip to a newspaper syndicate he was told, "It's funny, but bugs? Who can relate to a bug?" After five years of Gnorm, Davis crushed the bug strip idea and tried a new tact, studying the comics pages closely. He noticed there were a lot of successful strips about dogs, but none about cats! Combining his wry wit with the art skills he had honed since childhood, Garfield, a fat, lazy, lasagna-loving, cynical cat was born. Davis says Garfield is a composite of all the cats he remembered from his childhood, rolled into one feisty orange fur ball. Garfield was named after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis.

Davis's philanthropy has been directed at educational and environmental projects. He founded The Professor Garfield Foundation in cooperation with Ball State University, to support children's literacy. A free educational Web site (www.professorgarfield.org) is the cornerstone of the Foundation's work to date. He has underwritten a number of environmental projects in his home state. Davis spearheaded reforestation, prairie and wetlands restorations, and built the world's first all natural wastewater plant for commercial use. He was awarded the National Arbor Day Foundation's Good Steward and Special Projects Award, and the Indiana Wildlife Federations' Conservationist of the Year Award.

Jim Davis's first Garfield comic strip debuted on June 19, 1978 in 41 newspapers. The antics of a cranky, overweight orange cat quickly drew fans. When a Chicago paper dropped the strip in favor of something else, more than 1,000 readers complained until they reinstated it. The look of the comic strip has changed over the years, but Davis has said that he based his simplicity of line on Charles Schulz's work in "Peanuts." 2ff7e9595c