Garfield at 30

It’s time for another Anniversary Friday, despite it being Saturday (got a little busy yesterday). I’m pretty sure Garfield qualifies as children’s literature; I for one read it every day as a child. Cartoonist Jim Davis first published a Garfield strip on June 19, 1978, looking like this:

Here are some other views of the cat early on:

Lots more vintage strips are available here.

And in later years Garfield came to look like this:




Then eventually he made his transition to full motion video, in seven seasons of the Saturday morning cartoon Garfield and Friends:

And then CGI, in not one but two feature films, with Bill Murray taking over Garfield’s voice work from the inimitably deadpan Lorenzo Music:

Here are some web resources: First of all there’s Garfield’s official site itself. There’s always Wikipedia, for both Garfield and Jim Davis (seen here).

Speaking of whom, here’s a short interview with Davis from before the release of the second film. Here’s an insanely in-depth analysis by David Malki, alias the Comic Strip Doctor, which is actually incredibly interesting.

And finally, what would Garfield be—for the grown-ups, at least—in this day and age without Dan Walsh’s brilliant website Garfield Minus Garfield? An existential tour de force that was recently singled out by Rolling Stone as one of the symbols of modern humor, the site/strip has excised Garfield to leave poor Jon Arbuckle alone, sometimes pathetic, and often profound, a symbol of isolation and ennui. Jim Davis wisely gave the project his blessing, and the whole concept has given new life to Garfield as he enters his fourth decade. Here are some examples: