By KAM on Friday, October 08, 1999 - 05:43 am:

When Odie first showed up in the Garfield strip he was owned by Jon's friend Lyman. After a while Jim Davis stopped using Lyman and a few years later, Jon was considered to be the owner of Odie. What happened to Lyman? Did he get accidentally covered with tomato sauce and noodles and was eaten by Garfield? No explanation for Lyman's disapperance was ever given in the strip.

By D.K. Henderson on Friday, October 08, 1999 - 07:52 am:

I think that Davis wants to pretend that Lyman never existed. Not only is Jon Odie's owner, but there have been references to Jon acquiring Odie from a pet store. Too bad, because I happened to like Lyman. He had some good lines. I don't see why Davis couldn't have put in a quick story line where Lyman left, leaving Odie behind. Or why Lyman had to leave in the first place.

By Odie on Friday, October 08, 1999 - 11:16 am:

BARK!

By ScottN on Friday, October 08, 1999 - 12:56 pm:

If Odo shapeshifted into a dog, would he be called Odie?

"I'm so happy, I could just barf." -- Garfield the Cat

By Matthew Patterson (Mpatterson) on Friday, October 08, 1999 - 05:01 pm:

I kinda liked Lyman.

"That's called disco dancing, Garfield."
"Oh, good. For a minute there I thought he had a live carp in his jockey shorts."

By D.K. Henderson on Tuesday, October 12, 1999 - 07:44 am:

Jon: "You ever have a cat, Lyman?"
Lyman: "I grew up with four of them."
Jon: "Oh? What were their names?"
Lyman: "Let's see...there was 'Cat', 'Cat', 'Cat', and 'Cat'."
Jon: (Some comment here. Can't remember.)
Lyman: "What's the point in naming an animal that won't come when you call it?"
Jon: "Good point."

I think I read an interview with Jim Davis once in which he said that Lyman just wasn't turning out to be that exciting a character - basically he was a duplicate of Jon - so he had him leave Odie in Jon's care and split.
(Lyman does reappear once, making a cameo in Garfield's 20th-anniversary Sunday strip.)

My all-time favorite strip:

Garfield (standing on birdbath, addressing audience): I will now toss this bird into the air and catch it in my mouth!

(Tosses bird. Opens wide. Waits patiently, while the bird...)

Garfield (not changing position): I am soooo $tupid.

PS - Thanks for this board. I wonder what's become of our friend Timothy (the original inspiration for it?) I expected this board to be spackled with joyful references to sitcom actresses waving Garfield mugs by now.

Has Garfield stopped aging, because he'd be 24 years old right now, and would soon become the oldest cat!

What cartoon characters do age? Oh yeah. The cast of "For Better Or Worse".

And after Trudeau's sabbattical in 1983, the characters in "Doonesbury" have been aging (and considering the meticulous attention given to these characters would be an excellent strip to find nits).

There were continual references of Garfield getting older in at least the first ten years of the strip, from what I recall.

Yes, Garfield's still aging...sort of. I was just paging thru the latest Garfield collection the other day - the funniest in awhile, IMHO - and it contained the usual week of strips revolving around Garfield's birthday. His 24th!

(The oldest documented pet cat ever in real life lived to be 36, so I guess there's still some room for Davis to maneuvre...)

But Garfield is still drawn as a 'middle-aged' cat - no mention of health problems or frailty or whatever. I get the distinct impression that since Garfield is human in most other respects Davis has decided to slow his aging to a more human pace, too.

"And after Trudeau's sabbattical in 1983, the characters in "Doonesbury" have been aging." - norman

True. But I'm not sure how closely to real time they're aging, though. I just thought of another series where the cast was allowed to age - "Gasoline Alley". That was a hallmark of the series, as a matter of fact.

Terry & the Pirates, at least under Caniff, Terry Lee started off as a boy & grew up.

Prince Valiant has the children, at least, getting older.

Dick Tracy has had a number of characters age. (Junior has grown-up, married, had a kid, become a widower, & the first villain, Big Boy died of old age)

I believe the creators of Baby Blues have said the characters age, but at a much slower rate than real time. I think it was said to be 1 year for every 2 real years.

What about "Blondie"? First there was Baby Dumpling (Alexader), then came his sister, Cookie. They're both now teenagers, aren't they? Of course, as far as I know, they were never anything inbetween teenagers and babies were they?

I remembered Blondie after I had logged off. The strip began with her as a single girl, she dated Dagwood, they married, etc.

Oddly enough while children do age in a number of these strips the adults don't seem to age at the same rate.

On a related note the online comic College Roomies From Hell!!! recently celebrated 3 years and the characters reached winter break, causing one reader to calculate that if Maritza keeps the strip going at this rate the Roomies won't graduate for another 21 years. (And for fans that's a good thing. ;-)

Stop presses: Garfield hits the big screen! (Really!)

I was reading the paper over my subway seatmate's shoulder this morning and noticed the announcement - a combined live-action/CGI feature film focussing on 'the sibling rivalry between Garfield and Odie.'
No word yet on who'd play Jon. (Probably Brendan Fraser or Matthew Broderick. ) And of course Garfield's voice is gonna be weird...unless they can find a Lorenzo Music soundalike, which I doubt.

(Can't help feeling happy for Timothy, who seems to have disappeared from NitCentral, but is probably somewhere in the seventh heaven right about now...)

If true, Brendan Fraser would be better. He has the right coloring, and has much more experience playing the "goofy clueless" type person. (George of the Jungle, Dudley Do-Right).

about Lyman- The real reason he was dropped from the strip was because too many people kept asking Jim Davis if Jon and Lyman were a gay couple.
I guess back then we weren't as tolerant as we are today!

Hadn't heard that.

Did read in the 25th Anniversary book, Jim Davis comment about where Lyman is. "Don't look in Jon's basement."
Nooooooooooooooo!!!! 8-O
Although... Jon does seem to fit the profile of a troubled loner. ;-)

Or maybe we should look here & the next day?

Very amusing KAM!

Thanks, although I think Steve Troop deserves the credit. ;-)

That's funny!

I personally thought the Garfield strip went downhill once Garfield became "human" (bipedal, less cat-like) and Jon became a complete dork. And I, too, noticed Lyman's absence.

And here.

Steve Troop shows what 'really' happened to Lyman starting here and it runs to the end of the week.

Ha! I love the Uncle Max reference!

Melonpool says goodbye to Lyman.

Man, that strip is more warped than LICC!

Bill Murray is, according to imdb.com all set to voice a CGI Garfield in a live action moive starring Breckin Meyer as Jon.

I have noticed the last few weeks that Jon and Liz are now dating(after years of her avoiding and rejecting him). I wonder if Davis is trying to duplicate aspects of the movies in the strip?

Liked the strip last week where Liz tells Garfield she wants to be friends, and he says that would be tough since she's seen him naked.

Lyman turns up in another webcomic.

And another! (He's been freed from the Evil Overlords dungeons. See previous link)

3/27/82 Reprinted in The Third Garfield Fat Cat 3-Pack

Garfield says , "who waxed the fench?"
Fence not fench.

This article claims The
Garfield strip has Evergreen charm
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2023/09/garfield-comic-appreciation/675308/

I have quite a few of the comic strip books.

Tim, Same here , More about
Garfield https://vigourtimes.com/why-garfield-remains-timeless-exploring-its-enduring-charms/

Anyone else here have any Garfield books?

I do. But don't tell Jeff as he'll assume we want to start talking about Garfield in his many ramblings about the subject....

Many imaginary people are wondering who would win a fight? A Garfield book or a Heathcliff book?

No doubt you "read it online"

A Ziggy Comic Strip from 2014 about a
Church of Garfield !! I'm like where can we all get Baptized !!!
https://www.gocomics.com/ziggy/2014/06/08

Good article about the Blondie comic strip for
Sunday October 25, 2015 where Garfield makes a cool Cameo Appearance !! http://the-unmutual.blogspot.com/2015/11/blondies-halloween-party.html
Also some people theorize that Lyman from the Garfield comic strip & Uncle Max from
Calvin and Hobbes are actually the same person

Also some people theorize that Lyman from the Garfield comic strip & Uncle Max from Calvin and Hobbes are actually the same person

Steve Troop of the webcomic Melonpool used that idea 20 years ago.

Recycled ideas are common in comics.

Heck, flat out ripoffs are common in comics.

Except then they're called 'tributes'.

Sometimes, but I was thinking to a bunch of old-time comic strips and magazine cartoons and it's amazing how many times some of the same jokes would come up in various comics by different creators.

Not to mention all those comics that are another comic with the serial numbers filed down, i.e. Dotty Dripple knock off of Blondie.

Heck, back when Milt Caniff was doing Terry & the Pirates the joke was if Caniff died he would put 8 people out of work (because there were 8 artists who were duplicating his art style on different comics.)

Archie Comics did that all the time.

Well, Archie Comics was trying to do a 'House Style' where they try to have their artists draw in the same look (originally like Bob Montana, then like Dan Decarlo) which is not exactly the same thing as an artist choosing to duplicate another artist's style because he thinks it'll make him more popular.

And of course it's different from having the same art teacher(s). Almost everybody who graduates from the Joe Kubert School draws almost exactly like Joe Kubert until their natural style develops and takes over.

What I meant is that Archie Comics had this habit of writing the same story over and over again.

The art would be different each time. They would sometimes switch one character, that the story was focused on, for another (Jughead for Reggie).

However, they were fooling no one.

Some Far Side comics by
Gary Larson
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFarSide/comments/u7j7tm/my_daily_farside_dump_caw_caw/ keep clicking until you see the Map of The United States where it says
"Garfield Belt" along with 3 Other Belts ,

Garfield is now 45 years old.

Pretty good for a cat!

Well yeah, he can regenerate eight times.

Garfield from Gallifrey

Funny how on
Married... with Children
Kelly Bundy is a Huge
Garfield Fan

Tim , what is Gallifrey ?
More about Lyman, https://davidsatkinson.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/where-the-hell-is-lyman-i-want-answers/
Lyman should Return to the
Garfield Comic Strip, maybe Not as a Regular Character, but an occasional cameo appearance here and there
The Garfield strip for
April 2, 2013 shows a picture of Lyman in the Newspaper
Jon Arbuckle is reading, what's the story behind that, the strip can be found on gocomics.com

Anyone see this
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2020/06/18/newly-discovered-davis-pre-garfield-garfield/

I'm not Tim, but Gallifrey is the planet of the Time Lords in the British TV show Doctor Who.

More about Lyman

More like a tongue in cheek rant. *shrug*

I believe Lyman did appear in the 25th anniversary Garfield comic.

Interesting to see the dry run for Garfield.

Another "post a link and run away" from Winters.

What else is new?

Too much LDS in the sixties….

LOL!

More about Garfield
https://hilaryjanesmith.substack.com/p/garfield-cathy-and-the-malaise-of

"Post A Link And Run Away" Winters strikes again.

Former Vice President
Mike Pence is a Huge Garfield fan

I've always wanted to see
Garfield creator Jim Davis host
Saturday Night Live , he would be great on SNL

Keith, I looked it up
Lyman didn't appear in the
25th anniversary Garfield strip
https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2003/06/19

I guess I misremembered.

As far as I know, Peanuts creator, Charles M. Schultz, never hosted SNL. Neither did the great Stan Lee.

Why should Davis get to host, if they didn't?

Please don't use dubious references to link either SNL or a comic strip to the tragedy of 9/11, Winters. (I had a much longer post prepared, as that really got me going. But, I thought more clearly, and tabled it.)

Tim - Neither did the great Stan Lee.

Never read Marvel Team-Up #74? ;-)

But yeah, Jim Davis is a cartoonist not a performer so being chosen to host a show that involves acting and performing is highly unlikely.

Also humorous comics strips are there to make people laugh and escape from reality, so serious comic strip tributes to real life tragedies strike me as doubly failing to do their job.

I would have picked Stan Lee to host SNL before I'd pick Jim Davis.

Sadly, since Mr. Lee is now dead, that's no longer possible.

Sadly, since Mr. Lee is now dead, that's no longer possible.

If you wait a few short years, they will be able to make a completely convincing AI recreation of him and have THAT host an SNL episode.

There's a disturbing thought!

A person typed online in 2020 about Garfield & Arlene in the Garfield Comic Strip and Franchise that
Copyrighted material deleted - Moderator

Whoopty freakin' doo!

The same person in 2020 also typed

Copyrighted material deleted - Moderator

The Garfield strip has a new character named Stan
https://garfield.fandom.com/wiki/Stan How much more of Stan will we
be seeing ?

The Wikipedia entry for
Bill the cat aka Bill D.Cat says
Bill the cat is the illegitimate son of Garfield the cat , but is that fully Canon ? Or an accepted part of the Garfield comic strip and Franchise

Bill Cat has no connection to Jim Davis and United Feature Syndicate.

Therefore, the answer to the question of Bill canonically being Garfield's son is a big, fat no.

If you'd read Bloom County you'd know Bill the Cat was intended as a parody/mockery of Garfield.

I don't think Berkely Breathed had any intention of doing more with the character after his initial appearance(s), but fans liked the idea of the 'anti-Garfield' so he ended up becoming a main player in Bloom County.

Of course, most don't accept everything that they 'read online' as the gospel truth.

I looked it up , the person who typed those online comments in 2020 is named
Valerie Vargas
She also typed about Garfield

Copyrighted material deleted - Moderator

Valerie Vargas also typed

Copyrighted material deleted - Moderator

Jeff,

1. This is a thread for the Garfield COMIC STRIP, not the animated Garfield shows.

2. If Valerie wanted her comments reposted here she could have posted them here herself. We are not a repository for what other people said elsewhere on the web.

3. If you are going to repost other people's thoughts, post your own as well. Fair Use doesn't mean reposting other people's thoughts willy nilly, it includes commenting on them. Why did you think these were important?

i{If Valerie wanted her comments reposted here she could have posted them here herself. We are not a repository for what other people said elsewhere on the web.}

We have explained this to winters in the past. It's always fallen on deaf ears.



If you are going to repost other people's thoughts, post your own as well.

Too much like work.

I personally would love to see
The Buddy Bears from
"Garfield and Friends" appear in the
Garfield comic strip

This website is cool
https://dailygarfield.com/

Note how Winters just ignored everything that KAM, the forum Mod, said (and just kept rambling on).

You expected anything else?

Just found this article dated
Today about why people Love Garfield
https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/film/why-we-love-garfield/
Garfield the cat and the Garfield
Franchise is Timeless , just like
Star Trek, Star Wars, Ghostbusters,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc
People will Never stop loving
Garfield and these other Franchises I
Mentioned

You forgot Doctor Who.

BURN THE BLASPHEMER!

My Bad, I never got into
Doctor Who
Funny Also how in
The episode of "Young Sheldon" titled
"Quirky Eggheads and Texas Snow Globes" which aired on September 26, 2019 showed Sheldon's mom purchasing some books, one of them was "Garfield Hangs out"
The Full Title
"Garfield Hangs Out: His 19th
Book" by Jim Davis
The Very first Garfield Book I owned was
"Garfield Rounds Out: His 16th Book" by Jim Davis
I still have it !!! I ordered it from the Weekly Reader order form when I was in the 3rd Grade, it was very fun and enjoyable to read on an early Saturday Morning
I never stopped loving Garfield

Another Fun Fact
The Odysseus Lunar Lander that landed on the Moon this February 2024 is literally nicknamed Odie
Odie !!!! Odie !!! Nicknamed
Odie after Odie in the
Garfield Comic Strip !!!!
That is so cool !!

A different Garfield fan once said
Back in 2013

Copyrighted material deleted - Moderator

Yes Indeed
All Power to Garfield Fans, Past , Present, Future, Forever !!!

Jeff, once again, we need to remind you.

Do not — repeat, DO NOT!!! — copy and paste other people posts here wholesale. That is copyright infringement. It is also against output rules. This it the second time you have been warned about this.

ATTENTION MODERATOR

I don’t think there is a moderator for this section. I’m sure Tim or Butch will deal with it if it needs to happen.

I am the mod here Rodney.

The posts have been dealt with.

Thanks Keith.

Guess it's hoping too much that Winters actually gets the message.

This is an interesting
Garfield article
https://www.cracked.com/amp/article_41295_here-are-the-darkest-implications-of-the-garfield-franchise.html
Let's discuss the 5 Important
Garfield Topics listed in the
Article

Cracked? The humor site? What next Garfield articles from The Onion or the Babylon Bee?

One has to wonder if Winters even bothers to read the sites he posts links to.

As you have said before Tim- too much like work…..

Somewhere, not sure where, but probably online, I read a comment that Jim Davis didn't know of any other cat strip out there.

Which is not necessarily impossible given the oddities of newspaper distribution it could just be that none of the newspapers that Jim Davis had access to didn't run Heathcliff which preceded Garfield by 3 years (1973 vs. 1976).

I finally looked it up since I came across someone (I thought it was Jeff, but I couldn't find it in this thread) saying that Garfield was the first orange cat comic strip which is demonstrably false.

Admittedly with all the comic strips out there since the form was invented we don't know that Heathcliff was the first orange cat comic strip, but we do know Garfield wasn't it.

Garfield and Heathcliff are the only orange comic cats I'm aware of.

I found this from
The Onion
https://www.theonion.com/i-wish-i-had-your-metabolism-sighs-woman-seeing-garf-1851320375 It's funny because I used to think the same exact thing about Garfield's Metabolism

You know, Jeff, I was joking about articles from The Onion. It's a humor site. Their articles are comedy pieces, not journalism.

With how crazy the world is getting, sometimes it can easy to forget The Onion is fiction.

I remember somebody making a list of Babylon Bee articles that came true a few years back.

"It's not comedy, it's the future!"

Most of us know not to take The Onion seriously.

I know that The Onion is satire
but in The Garfield Comic strip , while we see what Garfield thinks because of his thought bubbles in the strip. It seems in the Garfield strips that Jon Arbuckle almost knows exactly what Garfield is thinking, is there any official explanation, how much can
Jon understand Garfield in the Comic Strip ? Which Interpretation is correct

Probably whichever interpretation the writer was thinking of when they wrote it.

People with pets do seem to have conversations with their pets as if they understand them, but do they understand them or just think they understand them?

That could be one angle the writers are going for. Or they could have just forgotten Jon can't hear Garfield's thought and wrote the joke thinking he could.

I think that's the reason someone did the Garfield Minus Garfield strips, to show how insane Jon comes off when his dialogue is too dependent on Garfield's thoughts.

Of course in the very first Garfield strip Jon broke the fourth wall and talked to the readers, so Jon knows he's in a comic strip and maybe he can understand Garfield and just pretends not to sometimes. Ooooh weeee ooooh! ;-)

Anyone see the Garfield strip of
April 18, 2023
Garfield says to Jon that we must
"Love our enemies"
Jesus also said we must
Love our enemies in the Bible Verse
Matthew 5:43-45
Don't misunderstand , I'm Not comparing Garfield the cat to
Jesus Christ or Vice Versa, but was
Jim Davis thinking of the Words of Jesus when he wrote today's Garfield strip ?
Imagine the words of Jesus inspired
a Garfield strip !!

More likely that Mr. Davis was just familiar with the saying, having heard it before.

Like using a line from Shakespeare (parting is such sweet sorrow) without knowing the origin of said saying. People do that all the time.

Today's strip!? Winters, April 18, 2023 was almost a year ago!

Tim , my bad, I was typing very fast , thanks for pointing out my error, the Garfield strip of
Today Tuesday March 19, 2024 has Garfield asking if a Tomato is a
Fruit or a Vegetable

Jeff - I'm Not comparing Garfield the cat to Jesus Christ or Vice Versa

Have you never seen the plushies of Garfield crucified on car windows?

;-)

LOL!!

Did anyone see this
Mother Goose and Grimm comic from
2022 https://www.grimmy.com/
Garfield makes a cameo appearance
But I don't know the name of all
The other fictional cats shown
Anyone know

I was referring to The grimmy strip for
Sunday July 24, 2022

Jeff - But I don't know the name of all The other fictional cats shown Anyone know

Seriously???

The Cat in the Hat (from Dr. Seuss)

Stimpy (from Ren & Stimpy)

Sylvester (from Looney Tunes)

Catbert (from Dilbert)

Attila (not a cameo, he's a native of the comic)

The bird is Tweety also from Looney Tunes.

Yeah, even Winters can't be that out of touch.

Yeah, the only one I even had a few seconds trouble recognizing was Catbert.

I knew the Cat in the hat and Catbert
But not the other cats
I wonder if Bill Maher is a Big Garfield fan
(Link to a Daily Mail article where Bill Maher compares Donald Trump to Garfield deleted by moderator.)

Well, since he compared Garfield to a man he hates, I'd say no.

I'd also prefer you not post links to articles that might lead people to engage in political discussions here.

We have Political Musings for that stuff.

As I said, I doubt Winters even reads the sites he keeps posting links to. Just posts links and runs away.

I'm back
Remember how in the
Superb 2001
Comedy film
"Freddy Got Fingered"
Gord Brody says early in the film
"I'm gonna shop my drawings, I'm gonna be like Charles Schulz"
Now imagine if
Gord said the name Jim Davis instead !! Jim Davis the legendary creator of Garfield the cat and the Garfield Franchise , or what if
Gord Brody said
"...like Charles Schulz or Jim Davis" in that line

You think Freddy Got Fingered was superb!? In what world is that true, Winters!?

And they probably said Charles Schulz because he's better known.

The Garfield strip for Today
Sunday April 21, 2024
https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2024/04/21 Jon Arbuckle is talking about how cool his smartphone is
Does it look like more of an
Android or iPhone smartphone
In our headcanon is Jon using an
Android or iPhone ? Seems like in
America most people are using iPhone

Ok, I'm confused. Why would anyone care which brand of phone someone uses, especially a cartoon character? Reminds me of Gulliver's travels, where the people of Lilliput and Belfuscu go to war over whether an egg should be opened at its fat end or its pointy end. I mean, seriously, get a life man.

Don't waste your breath, Francois. Winters never listens.

I'm back I was just busy blogging on other sites, doing research, etc.
In today's Sunday Garfield strip
Jon Arbuckle mentions a
"Comic Strip World" to Garfield
https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2024/05/05 Jon Arbuckle is still a
cartoonist in the strip , Jon Arbuckle being based on
Jim Davis himself. Not sure what to think of the "Comic Strip World" mentioned by Jon in Today's strip
How should I compare it to the Superb
2007 Direct to DVD CGI Garfield Movie
"Garfield Gets Real"

Who cares?

Just enjoy the strips?