TOTAL LICENSING
flying insects. The strip
had limited appeal and
Garfield’s birthday is
five years after drawing also marked by the
Gnorm and trying to
10th Annual
get him syndicated, Jim
Convention of
ended the strip with
Collectors. Entitled
Gnorm being crushed
by a giant foot coming
the 2008 Garfield
out of the sky! Gathering, the event
It was after this that he
takes place in
turned his attention to
Tennessee and
figuring out what was
attracts collectors
working in comic strips,
and why. There were a
and fans from far and
lot of dogs at the time wide to celebrate
– Snoopy, Marmaduke,
all-things Garfield.
Angus cows and feed crops for the
Belvedere but there
cattle, not to mention 25 cats.
seemed to be no cats.
ers, figurines and dolls followed, as
As a child, Jim developed asthma and,
Drawing on his childhood memories,
did a number of Emmy award-winning
as a result, had to stay indoors a great
the cat that seems to him to be the
television specials together with his
deal.
funniest at the time was a fat, grouchy
own series, Garfield & Friends, which
One day, his mother gave him a stack
character that he named Garfield af-
is broadcast around the globe in many
of paper and a pencil and told him to
ter his grandfather.
different languages.
draw to keep himself entertained. He
Initially, Garfield was the sidedck to
In 2004, Twentieth Century Fox took
did and, before long, he had become
the star of the strip – Jon Arbuckle.
Garfield to the silver screen in Gar-
pretty good at it.
However Jim soon realised that Gar-
field: The Movie. The sequel followed
At 18, Jim gradulated from Fairmount
field had all the humorous lines and, in
in 2006 with Garfield’s A Tail of Two
High School and left the farm for
short, a star was born.
Kitties.
Muncie where he attended Ball State
Within a couple of years of his first
By 1981, Jim Davis had founded Paws
University studying art and business. It
Garfield sketch, the strip caught the
was during his college art classes that
attention of a
he had the opportunity to begin to
newspaper fea-
experiement with different art styles,
tures syndicate.
tools and art materials.
They wanted to
His abilities were noticed by an ad-
distribute Garfield
vertising agency that hired him when
and on 19 June
he left college.
1978, Garfield and
Not long after,
the comic strip
Tu m b l e w e e d s
made its first ap-
cartoonist Tom K
pearance in 41
Ryan, also based
US newspapers
in Muncie, needed
in cities including
an assitant and
Boston, Dallas and
Jim seized the op-
Chicago.
portunity. Over a
After a couple of
period, he learned
months, the Chica-
what he needed
go paper decided
to become a syn-
to drop Garfield in
dicated cartoon-
favour of a different strip. Over 1300
Inc basically as a creative house sup-
ist and gradually
angry people wrote letters of protest
porting Garfield licensing. Today, the
began working on
and Garfield was promptly reinstated.
company based in Indiana, handles
his own ideas.
By 1982, the strip was published in
both the creative and business side
His first comic
1000 newspapers and by 1987 the
of the character. Jim Davis not only
strip was named
number had grown to 2000. Today, it
guides the comic strip but is also in-
Gnorm Gnat. The
is the most widely syndicated comic
volved in the day to day business of
cast of characters
strip in the world, according to the
growing Garfield over the years. Paws
included a variety
Guinness Book of World Records.
has a staff of around twenty artists,
of bugs, slugs and
Merchandising – books, T-shirts, post-
writers, designers, sculptors, anima-
86
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