Jim Davis Is a Tool
I recently ran across this article at Slate on the business process behind Garfield. In short, Jim Davis is a tool. It’s not news that his strips aren’t funny to anyone over eight — how many times can someone tell a lasagna joke? — but it also turns out that Davis is merely a man behind a curtain pulling levers and twisting knobs:
Garfield’s origins were so mercantile that it’s fair to say he never sold out—he never had any integrity to put on the auction block to begin with. But today Davis spends even less time on the strip than he used to—between three days and a week each month. During that time, he collaborates with another cartoonist to generate ideas and rough sketches, then hands them over to Paws employees to be illustrated. […]
So, it would seem that drawing the strip is merely a means to an end for Davis: he keeps the cogs in the machine turning just so that he can power his licensing efforts. To be sure, I have nothing against artists profiting off their work; still, I’m put off that a so-called artist would go through the motions, knowingly churning out drivel just for the check.
You aren’t alone. Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame was a vocal critic of Jim Davis.
I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I mean, it’s true that it’s a rubbish cartoon and I remember giving up years ago after the third book of strips (it was actually funny for a while, at the start), but at the same time it’s just a product. It’s a way for him to earn a good living. He very definitely isn’t artist; he’s the manager of a cartoon factory, churning out tepid, tasteless, cholestrol-laden cartoon burgers.
Not having a go now, but you can’t say that you’ve only just spotted that it’s a purely commercial venture. Otherwise he would have killed the strip (and that damn tabby) years ago. Just as he did with his preceding and much less successful strip. Perhaps he’s having his own joke at the expense of a very competitive, low-margin industry? For every Jim Davis there are literally thousands who never make it.
It’s true, Garfield is terrible. Even after running for 28+ years in various incarnations, the only Garfield product I know of that is even remotely interesting is the series of strips that ran for Halloween in 1989 (available in YTMND form here).
I can’t believe I share a birthday with that cat.