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As Garfield celebrates his 34th birthday today, his creator explains how he would like to see the smart-alecky cartoon live on.
Jim Davis originally created the Garfield cartoon on June 19, 1978, to “make people laugh, to feel better”. He explains to the Daily News that he would have no problem seeing someone carry on the legacy.
“I thought if I could do it right, I could do it for 25 years — which would have been nine years ago,” he said to the Daily News.
Davis and company plan to celebrate the lasagna loving cat in true Garfield style, stuffing their face with hamburgers and hotdogs.
Contrary to the success it has endured, Garfield was not set to be the original title of the strip, it was set out to be the cartoon’s owner Jonathan Arbuckle’s with the title “Jon”.
“But every time I wrote a gag, the cat took the punchline,” Davis said. “The cat was a wise guy and, I swear, from the first day took over the strip. So, I gave in and changed the name of the strip to ‘Garfield’ and played with it.” (The Daily News)
In 1978,, the comic strip initially ran in 41 newspaper, but three months after it launched, one of Garfield’s biggest clients, the Chicago Sun-Times, dropped it. However, the cat lovers and readers bombarded the paper with angry calls and letters until Garfield was brought back for the fans.
Abrupt and big hearted, Davis’ grandfather, the original origin of Garfield’s name has been a household name for 34 years running in 2,400 newspapers worldwide.
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