Celebrated each year on June 19, it is National Garfield the Cat Day. A fictional character, Garfield is a title protagonist from the comic strip Garfield which was created by Jim Davis. Today is set aside to celebrate him and the entertainment that he brings us.
June 19, 1978, was the first publication of Garfield which chronicles the life of the lead character, the cat Garfield (named after Jim Davis ’s grandfather); Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle: and Jon’s dog, Odie.
- 2013 – Garfield is syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals and holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip.
Set in Muncie, Indiana, common themes in the comic strip include Garfield’s laziness, obsessive eating, love for lasagna and coffee and hatred of Mondays and diets. The focus is mostly upon the interaction between Garfield, Jon, and Odie.
- Garfield was one of the cartoon characters to appear in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
National Garfield The Cat Day was first celebrated in 1998 on the 20th anniversary of the comic strip and Garfield’s birthday. Boca Raton City Council Member, Wanda Thayer, proclaimed June 19 as Garfield the Cat Day during surprise birthday party at the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton.
Mainly the themes of the comic strips revolve around just how lazy Garfield is, how much he LOVES lasagna and of course his hatred of mondays and dieting. Really he sounds more human than you think when you write it like that, personally I know heaps of people who are exactly like Garfield! Heres a full list of the major characters in the Garfield comic strip series (to the best of my knowledge):
- Jon Arbuckle (Garfields owner) first appearance June 19, 1978
- Odie (The pet dog) first appearance August 8, 1978
- Dr Liz Wilson (Garfields vet, Jon’s crush and later girlfriend) first appearance June 26, 1979
- Arlene (Garfields girlfriend) first appearance December 17, 1980
- Pooky (Garfield’s teddy bear)first appearance October 23, 1978
- Nermal (Garfields nemesis, the self proclaimed cutest kitten in the world) first appearance September 3, 1979
- Lyman (Jons friend and roommate for a while) first appearance August 7, 1978
- Jon’s Family (Including his mum, dad, brother “doc boy” and grandmother)
- Garfields Family (Including his mum and grandfather)
- Jon Was Suppose To Play The Lead, Not Garfield – Garfield creator Jim Davis had initially started with a comic strip named ‘Jon’ were he intended Jon to play the lead. However Jon had a wise-cracking cat busting with dangerous amount of naughty energy. So back then, Davis had been working for T.K. Ryan who was the cartoonist of Tumbleweeds and when he tried showing Ryan the developing strip called Jon, Ryan laughed and said that “The strip must be about the cat.”
- You may never have given a thought to it but Jon is a cartoonist which was mentioned only once, in the first strip.
- Origin Of The Name Garfield – The history behind it has quiet a connection. Jim Davis named the awesomest cat in the planet after his grandfather James A. Garfield, who was named after President James A. Garfield.
- Garfield Holds A Guinness World Record – The fat cat has got as many as 17 million Facebook fans. And that not all, Garfield has been reportedly syndicated in over twenty five hundred journals and newspapers therefore winning the most widely syndicated comic strip ever.
THE HISTORY OF GARFIELD: 40 YEARS AND COUNTING [INFOGRAPHIC]
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