Editing Jim Davis (cartoonist) (section)

==Career==
Before creating Garfield, Davis worked for an advertising agency. In 1969, he began assisting Tom Ryan on ''[[Tumbleweeds (comic strip)|Tumbleweeds]]''. He then created his own comic strip, ''[[Gnorm Gnat]]'', that ran weekly from 1973 to 1975 in ''The [[Pendleton, Indiana|Pendleton]] Times''.<ref name="Quinton" /> When Davis tried to sell it to a national comic strip [[syndicate]], an editor told him: "Your art is good, your 'gags' are 'great', but bugs—nobody can relate to bugs!"<ref>Davis, Jim. ''20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection''. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998, p. 14.</ref> He then began studying the comic strips; still believing that animals were funny, he noticed in ''[[Peanuts]]'' that [[Snoopy]] was not only a [[scene stealer]]  but was a far greater marketing success than [[Charlie Brown]]. Believing that the comic market was oversaturated with dogs, he decided instead to create a cat as a main character for his next strip.<ref name="wapocat">{{Cite magazine |last=Shapiro |first=Walter |date=December 12, 1982 |title=Lives: The Cat That Rots the Intellect |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1982/12/12/lives-the-cat-that-rots-the-intellect/d6ed28c6-bee3-41ad-81f2-1839b34b87b1/ |magazine=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=June 23, 2019 |archive-date=June 23, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190623024810/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1982/12/12/lives-the-cat-that-rots-the-intellect/d6ed28c6-bee3-41ad-81f2-1839b34b87b1/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Jon - 1976-01-08.png|alt=The first strip from Jon, 1976|thumb|The first ''Jon'' strip, which ran in the ''Pendleton Times'' on January 8, 1976]]
From January 1976 to February 1978, Davis published a weekly strip titled ''Jon'' in ''The Pendleton Times'', starring the young bachelor [[Jon Arbuckle]] and his lethargic, cynical housecat Garfield; the latter's increasing popularity among both editors and readers led Davis to rename the strip ''Garfield'' on September 1, 1977. ''Garfield'' began syndication in 41 newspapers on June 19, 1978.<ref name="Quinton">{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPidZP_3X8 |title=Finding Garfield Lost Media |date=July 28, 2019 |type=Video |publisher=Quinton Reviews |access-date=July 29, 2019 |archive-date=August 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190801024533/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPidZP_3X8 |url-status=live }}</ref> As of 2008, it appeared in 2,580 newspapers and was read by 300 million readers every day.<ref name="BW1">{{Cite press release |date=January 22, 2002 |title=Garfield Named World's Most Syndicated Comic Strip. |publisher=[[Business Wire]] |location=Kansas City, Missouri |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2002_Jan_22/ai_82001296 |url-status=dead |access-date=July 26, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090121005601/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2002_Jan_22/ai_82001296 |archive-date=January 21, 2009}}</ref>

In March 1986, Davis launched the barnyard comic strip ''[[U.S. Acres]]'', known outside the U.S. as ''Orson's Farm''. It failed to match the success of ''Garfield'', and was concluded on May 1, 1989; Davis' assistant Brett Koth was credited as a co-artist during its final year. From 2000 to 2003, Davis and Koth created a strip based on the [[Mr. Potato Head]] toy.

Davis founded the Professor Garfield Foundation to support children's literacy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=TRC About Us: Professor Garfield |url=http://www.professorgarfield.org/parents_teachers/about/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100714190628/http://www.professorgarfield.org/parents_teachers/about/about.html |archive-date=July 14, 2010 |access-date=December 15, 2013 |website=ProfessorGarfield.org}}</ref>

His influences include [[Mort Walker]]'s ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'' and ''[[Hi and Lois]]'', [[Charles M. Schulz]]'s ''[[Peanuts]]'', [[Milton Caniff]]'s ''[[Steve Canyon]]'' and [[Johnny Hart]]'s ''[[B.C. (comic strip)|B.C]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ashton |date=November 9, 2012 |title=Interview with Jim Davis |url=http://blog.calendars.com/2012/11/interview-with-jim-davis/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140225005336/http://blog.calendars.com/2012/11/interview-with-jim-davis/ |archive-date=February 25, 2014 |access-date=February 20, 2014 |publisher=Calendars.com}}</ref> Schulz became a valuable mentor to Davis; Davis credited Schulz with redesigning Garfield to his modern, bipedal form to allow him to perform physical gags, while the two were working on television specials featuring their respective strips in the early 1980s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Wood |first=Robert |date=2024-12-17 |title=Peanuts' Charles Schulz Redesigned Garfield For a Touching Reason |url=https://screenrant.com/garfield-peanuts-charles-schulz-snoopy-dancing-davis-factoid/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=ScreenRant |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Tardive |first=Ambrose |date=2024-06-19 |title=Peanuts vs. Garfield: Charles Schulz Secretly Considered Jim Davis His Arch-Rival |url=https://screenrant.com/peanuts-garfield-charles-schulz-jim-davis-rivalry/ |access-date=2024-06-21 |website=ScreenRant |language=en}}</ref> Davis dispelled a claim by [[David Michaelis]] that Schulz held any ill will toward Davis in the wake of ''Garfield's'' success.<ref name=":0" />

From 1984 to 2001, Davis owned a fine-dining restaurant in Muncie called Foxfires. He closed it after its head chef was hired elsewhere.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/253372237/ | title=Foxfires plans to close its doors for good next week | work=The Star Press | date=April 13, 2001 | access-date=November 28, 2023 | author=Brian Saparnis | pages=5C}}</ref>

In 2019, Davis sold Paws, Inc. to the mass media conglomerate [[Viacom (2005–2019)|Viacom]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Whitten |first=Sarah |date=August 6, 2019 |title=Viacom Buys Lasagna-Loving Garfield for Nickelodeon |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/garfield-bought-by-viacom-for-nickelodeon.html |access-date=October 5, 2020 |publisher=[[CNBC]] |archive-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930031440/https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/garfield-bought-by-viacom-for-nickelodeon.html |url-status=live }}</ref> which months later merged with [[CBS Corporation]] to form ViacomCBS (now [[Paramount Global]]).

In 2019, Davis offered more than 11,000 hand-drawn ''Garfield'' comic strips from 1978 to 2011 for auction by [[Heritage Auctions]], at the rate of two daily strips a week.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-12-21 |title=30-plus years of ‘Garfield’ comic strips to sell at auction |url=https://apnews.com/article/4405538b55a97d8cc52ed3315dfda4ca |access-date=2025-02-07 |website=AP News |language=en}}</ref>

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