Legendary cartoonist, Jim Davis grew up on a farm with 25 cats. Do you think that inspired his work in any way?
Davis’ most well-known cartoon strip was originally titled Jon in 1976, but was changed to Garfield when the strip went into nationwide syndication in 1978. Garfield has since been printed daily since June 19, 1978.
Garfield is known for being a manipulative cat that loves coffee and food (lasagna in particular), but hates Mondays and diets. When he’s not constantly insulting his owner, Jon Arbuckle, he’s kicking Odie the beagle off the table, or mailing Nermal the cat to Abu Dhabi.
In the past 40-plus years, Garfield has won the hearts of many around the world, making billions in merchandise, and made the leap from the pages of a newspaper to television and the cinema.
There have been three television series: Garfield + Friends (1988 – 1994, 7 seasons and 121 episodes); The Garfield Show (2009 – 2016, 5 seasons and 109 episodes); and Garfield Originals (2019, 1 season and 24 episodes). Of the five live-action CGI Garfield films, only the first two received theatrical releases.
There’s even more Garfield projects in the work for both the big and small screens. Nickelodeon announced a new Garfield series, and Chris Pratt and Samuel L. Jackson have signed on for a theatrical film set for release in 2024.
When researching for this post, I wasn’t expecting to find so many Garfield tattoos, and ones which differ so greatly from one another – I always enjoy the creativity of people and their tattoo artists when it comes to the same character. Matching sibling or friends tattoos would work great, with one of you getting Garfield, and the other getting either Odie or Nermal.
Keep scrolling and get ready to over-indulge on tattoos like Garfield does with lasagna.
The Tattooed Archivist 