June 19, 2023 – Garfield

45 years ago today, the first Garfield comic strip went into nationwide syndication, debuting in 41 newspapers across the country. The comic strip was created by Jim Davis, who noticed that there were no comic strips starring cats at the time. So he created the character Garfield, taking his name and personality from his grandfather, James A. Garfield Davis. Jon Arbucle came from an old coffee commercial, and Odie was the name of a character that appeared in a car dealership commercial Davis had written. Garfield was an immediate success. Just 3 years after its debut, the comic strip was appearing in 850 newspapers and was making $15 million in merchandise sales. Since then, Garfield has spawned a huge range of merchandise, everything from clothing and toys to Caribbean cruises and credit cards! Garfield earns $750 million to $1 billion from merchandise annually. Today, Davis retains creative control but only writes and usually does the rough sketches of the comic. Most of his time is spent supervising production and merchandising the characters. Garfield currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most syndicated comic strip. Learn more here.