Garfield
Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield (named after Davis's grandfather); his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Arbuckle's dog, Odie. As of 2007, 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]
Though this is rarely mentioned in print, Garfield is set in Muncie, Indiana, the home of Jim Davis, according to the television special Garfield Goes Hollywood.
Common themes in the strip include Garfield's laziness, obsessive
eating, and hatred of Mondays and diets. The strip's focus is mostly on
the interactions among Garfield, Jon, and Odie, but recurring minor
characters appear as well. Originally created with the intentions to
"come up with a good, marketable character
Garfield has spawned
merchandise earning $750 million to $1 billion annually. In addition to
the various merchandise and commercial tie-ins, the strip has spawned
several animated television specials, two animated television series,
two theatrical feature-length live-action films and three CGI animated
direct-to-video movies. Part of the strip's broad appeal is due to its
lack of social or political
commentary; though this was Davis's original intention, he also
admitted that his "grasp of politics isn't strong," remarking that, for
many years, he thought "OPEC was a denture adhesive.
