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Garfield
1978–present
The lasagna-loving, Monday-hating tabby who became the world's most syndicated comic strip
- Owner
- Created by Jim Davis
- Years
- 1978–present
- Known for
- Cartoon Icon
Garfield padded into the world on 19 June 1978, when cartoonist Jim Davis launched his comic strip in 41 American newspapers. A fat, cynical orange tabby with a bottomless appetite for lasagna, a deep contempt for Mondays and diets, and a habit of tormenting the hapless dog Odie, Garfield was an instant hit. Within a few years the strip was running in hundreds of papers, and it went on to hold the Guinness World Record as the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world.
Garfield's appeal is his relatability: he is lazy, greedy, sarcastic and unapologetically himself — a cat who says out loud, in thought balloons, all the things a real cat's face seems to be thinking. His long-suffering owner Jon Arbuckle and the ever-cheerful Odie make perfect foils, and the strip's gentle, food-obsessed humour has translated into television specials, feature films, video games and one of the largest licensing empires any cartoon character has ever built.
Jim Davis has said he deliberately made his star a cat because cats let him make wry observations about human nature without moralising — a cat, after all, feels no guilt about being selfish. More than four decades on, that comfortable, cynical tabby remains one of the most recognisable cats on the planet, real or drawn.