Everyday’s a Sundae

Born on a farm and afflicted with asthma, Jim Davis took to cat doodles to while away the time ~ and the rest is history, writes Mathures Paul
HE eats too much because he’s depressed. And he’s depressed because he eats too much. It took Garfield years to perfect the vicious circle! Born on 19 June 1978, Jim Davis’ humorous strip is centered round the life of a fat, lazy, cynical orange cat who loves lasagne, coffee, the television remote control, the suffering of his owner Jon Arbuckle and the other house pet, Odie. And nothing has changed in the past 28-odd years.
“I always say Garfield is a human in a cat suit. Garfield deals with two subjects that are universal — eating and sleeping. We all eat and we all sleep (with any luck). He’s also an anti-hero. He does everything we humans would like to do if we could get away with it,” says Jim Davis in an exclusive interview to The Statesman.
Davis’ upbringing charted out his future. His parents, James and Betty Davis, had a farm which, like most barnyards, had its share of stray cats — around 25 of them. Had he not suffered from asthma in childhood, Jim was destined to become a farmer. Trapped in his little room, he whiled away the time doodling. Accompanying his drawings were bubbles and so was born the first frames.
Before he reached junior high school, his asthma was under control to the extent that he turned out to be a good footballer. All this while cartooning as a profession was a distant hobby. He was spending time at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where he majored in art and business.
Before skipping to the day Garfield was born, it is imperative to know a few more facts about Davis. Leaving college, he spent two years working in a local advertising agency and soon after became assistant to Tumbleweeds creator Tom Ryan, who taught him the tricks of the trade. So was born his first strip, Gnorm Gnat.
When a newspaper syndicate couldn’t relate to the bug in his strip, Davis ventured out on his own. And after five years of drawing Gnorm, the sky sent down a giant foot that crushed the bug. The next few months made Davis think of a character that funny pages did not feature. Moving back to his childhood on the farm, a fat orange ball was born, James Garfield Davis, named after his grandfather.
“Garfield relieves our guilt. He says it’s okay to enjoy life. He overeats, naps in abandon, and is an unapologetic about his behaviour. It’s kind of refreshing,” says the artist. In 41 newspapers Garfield debuted on 19 June 1978. Running into heavy weather, Garfield was cancelled by the Chicago Sun-Times after a few months. More than 1,300 readers protested and the rest is history.
Over the years, Garfield has achieved a majestic look. Earlier he was a bit grubby. Today he has a shine, a certain majestic smile. “His looks have changed a bit. In the very early years, Garfield had much smaller eyes and his body was more or less a big blob. Over the years, his eyes got bigger because I found his eyes were very expressive. I needed the comic strip readers to see his eyes better because his eyes were capable of saying so much. His body is more rounded and his legs are longer now, too. All these changes took place pretty gradually and, for the most part, the changes were made to help story lines along. I think Garfield is more appealing graphically now than he was in 1978, and even though his looks changed, his personality has not. He’s still fat, lazy, selfish and interested in his own creature comforts — just like when he was introduced in 1978. It’s funny that you mention
Garfield looking majestic. In his next movie he plays a ‘royal’ cat!”
Garfield is enjoying the highs Snoopy once revelled in. While Snoopy still sells insurance, Garfield is on everything, from cereal to pencil boxes. But the greatest perk he enjoys being a cartoon character is eternal youth, very much like Davis who is scared of wrinkles popping up here and there. “In some ways I’m a lot like Garfield. I love the good things in life — food, relaxation, television, food. I do love lasagne and just about any Italian food, especially pizza. On the other hand, I’m pretty driven and a hard worker, so in that way I’m nothing like Garfield. Many of Garfield’s characteristics are culled from my impressions of all the farm cats I remember from my childhood. I combined typical cat-like traits with the personality of my grandfather, James “Garfield” Davis, who was a rather curmudgeonly fellow with a dry wit.”
Davis’ success doesn’t end with drawing a few frames that are carried by a few thousand newspapers. He has won four Emmy Awards for “outstanding animated programme” and was inducted into the Licensing Hall of Fame (1998). But his most prized awards are from his peers in the National Cartoonist Society: Best Humor Strip (1981 and 1985), the Elzie Segar Award (1990) and the coveted Reuben Award (1990). Among his dreams is to see Garfield strips being translated into Indian languages. “India is really a hot topic in the USA now. In fact, there was a big feature in Newsweek magazine some weeks ago. I’d love to see Garfield translated for Indian readers.”
But dreams of crossing the seven seas and introducing Garfield to readers of magazines like Tinkle and Chacha Chowdhury will not give birth to Indian or other Asian characters in the strip. In Garfield, rarely do we find Indian, Japanese or even Afro-Americans. “I’ve never been asked that before. It’s an interesting question. There’s no conscious decision on my part, one way or the other. Garfield’s world is a reflection of my world. So far, Garfield has done well with the original ensemble cast — Jon, Odie and Garfield. There are other characters that make occasional appearances: Jon’s family — Grandma, Mom and Dad, Doc Boy; then there’s Jon’s love interest, Liz the veterinarian, Arlene, Garfield’s now-and-then girlfriend, and Nermal, the world’s cutest kitten. Considering the comic strip is just three frames long, you don’t need a lot of characters to fit into the story.
“But I do occasionally pull a character out of thin air if it moves the joke along. Sometimes these people appear more than once, and other times, one time and POOF, they’re gone. I don’t know, when I’m creating them, if they’ll return.”
Like Blondie or Superman, a good deal of daily happenings are featured in Garfield, making cartoons/comics a potent medium. “Obviously there’s a lot of nonsense — most cats don’t order pizza, use a TV remote control and drink coffee. But it’s Garfield’s human characteristics that make him resonate with people. So, in that regard, a great deal of the humour in the strip is derived from real life experiences.”
Besides Garfield, Davis had a comic strip called US Acres (about a bunch of farm animals) and several books based on that comic strip were made. With video games based on comic books becoming popular (Asterix is a case in point), Davis is not unaware of the medium’s potential. “Garfield’s just getting warmed up. This year there will be several new video game releases. There’s a new Gameboy game called ‘Garfield: His Nine Lives’, which is coming out next month. Then in June, there will be a Playstation 2 and Nintendo DS video game based on Garfield’s new
movie, ‘Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties’. In the fall, a new Nintendo game called ‘Garfield’s Nightmare’ will be released.”
But what about Garfield, the film? Wasn’t the cat too big, too old, a bit un-Garfield? “I loved it. We worked hand-in-hand with the director of the film to get Garfield to look like he belonged in the ‘real’ world. It wasn’t easy to do because everyone is so used to seeing Garfield from the comic strip, but I was very pleased with the results. The film was a great success at the box office and we’re excited about the sequel coming out this year.”
If you thought cartooning is all fun and no work, think again and again. “I set aside one week every month to focus on writing the comic strip. Once I get in writing mode, the gags can sometimes really flow and I might write four to six weeks’ worth of material in one week. Brett Koth, a talented writer and artist in his own right, assists me in gag writing sessions. We play off each other and it helps to have someone to bounce ideas off. I have several assistants on the comic strip — Gary Barker and Jeff Wesley draw the strip based on my thumbnail sketch. It’s then inked by Lori Barker or Larry Fentz and then Eric Reaves does the lettering and coloration. I’m guessing from that start to finish it takes about six hours to complete a strip.”
And what about the future of Garfield? What mischief will he be up to next? Will Odie be spared the kick while waiting at the table-edge? “We’re considering colonising Mars. Just kidding. As long as there’s lasagne in the world, Garfield will go on.”
With those words, Jim takes leave to drill into Garfield the meaning of “diet” — “die” with a “t”!
(The article was published in The Statesman before The Tale of Two Kitties was released)