:Jim Davis (cartoonist)
{{Short description|American cartoonist and creator of Garfield}}
{{Use American English|date=February 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| image = James R. Davis.jpg
| caption = Davis in 2010
| imagesize = 250px
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1945|7|28|mf=yes}}
| birth_place = Marion, Indiana, U.S.
| education = Ball State University
| years_active = 1969–present
| notable_works = {{Plainlist|
- Garfield
- (1978–present)
- U.S. Acres
- (1986–1989)
}}
| occupation = {{hlist|Cartoonist|television writer|television producer|screenwriter|film producer}}
| parents = {{Plainlist|
- James William Davis
- Anna Catherine Davis
}}
| net_worth =
| signature = Jim Davis signature.svg
}}
James Robert Davis (born July 28, 1945) is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as the creator of the comic strips Garfield and U.S. Acres. Published since 1978, Garfield is one of the world's most widely syndicated comic strips.{{Cite web |last=LaMartina |first=Jerry |date=January 28, 2002 |title=Garfield Comic Strip Makes Guinness Book of World Records |url=https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2002/01/28/daily4.html |access-date=January 29, 2018 |website=bizjournals |archive-date=September 20, 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020920074947/https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2002/01/28/daily4.html |url-status=live }} Davis's other comics work includes Tumbleweeds, Gnorm Gnat, and Mr. Potato Head.
Davis wrote or co-wrote all of the Garfield TV specials for CBS, originally broadcast between 1982 and 1991. He also produced Garfield and Friends, a series which also aired on CBS from 1988 to 1994. Davis was the writer and executive producer for a series of CGI direct-to-video feature films about Garfield, as well as an executive producer for the CGI animated TV series The Garfield Show and Garfield Originals.
Early and personal life
File:Jim Davis (Yearbook Portrait 1962).jpg
James Robert Davis was born in Marion, Indiana, on July 28, 1945.{{Cite book |last=De Weyer |first=Geert |title=100 stripklassiekers die niet in je boekenkast mogen ontbreken |publisher=Atlas |year=2008 |isbn=978-90-450-0996-4 |location=Amsterdam / Antwerp |page=244 |language=nl}} He grew up on a small Black Angus cow farm{{Cite web |title=Jim Davis Bio |url=https://premierespeakers.com/jim-davis/bio |access-date=October 5, 2020 |website=Premiere Speakers Bureau |archive-date=December 2, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202222813/https://premierespeakers.com/jim-davis/bio |url-status=live }} in Fairmount, Indiana, with his father James William Davis, mother Anna Catherine "Betty" Davis (née Carter), and his brother Dave. Davis's childhood on a farm parallels the life of Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy, and is also a cartoonist whose birthday is on July 28. Davis attended Ball State University where he studied art and business; one of his fellow students was David Letterman. At Ball State he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity.
At Fairmount High School in 1959, Davis joined the staff of his school's newspaper The Breeze, where he became Art Editor. Here his first comic was featured, apparently inspired by school life. Davis also drew the majority of the illustrations for his 1963 senior yearbook, using the same characters.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG6y6FkMEQ4&t=47s |title=My Garfield Vacation: A Historical Voyage |date=June 12, 2020 |type=Video |publisher=Quinton Reviews |access-date=June 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/IG6y6FkMEQ4 |archive-date=December 11, 2021 |url-status=live |via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}{{Cite web |title=0 Pre-Pendleton |url=https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BY8LbndpcUiRQeaF4kJ9Z53S_JXJYpYM |access-date=October 5, 2020 |via=Google Drive |archive-date=June 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606004016/https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BY8LbndpcUiRQeaF4kJ9Z53S_JXJYpYM |url-status=live }}
Davis has been married twice. He was married to Carolyn Altekruse, who was allergic to cats;{{Cite magazine |date=December 7, 1981 |title=Those Catty Cartoonists |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,953256-2,00.html |magazine=Time |access-date=June 6, 2020 |archive-date=April 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220430130011/http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,953256-2,00.html |url-status=live }} the couple owned a dog named Molly.{{Cite web |title=Jim Davis - Everything2.com |url=http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Jim+Davis |website=Everything2.com |access-date=November 16, 2017 |archive-date=November 17, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117070030/https://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Jim+Davis |url-status=live }} They have a son. On July 16, 2000, Davis married Jill, who had two children from a previous marriage.
Davis joined the faculty of Ball State University in Muncie as an adjunct professor in fall 2006, lecturing on the creative and business aspects of the comics industry.
Davis resides in Albany, Indiana, where he and his staff produce Garfield under his company Paws, Inc., which he founded in 1981.{{Cite web |date=January 25, 2022 |title=Jim Davis |url=https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/artists/jim-davis/ |access-date=January 25, 2022 |website=The Saturday Evening Post |archive-date=January 25, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125225220/https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/artists/jim-davis/ |url-status=live }} Paws, Inc. employs nearly 50 artists and licensing administrators, who manage Garfield's worldwide licensing, syndication, and entertainment empire.
Davis is a former president of the Fairmount, Indiana chapter of the FFA.{{Cite web |title=National FFA Organization Prominent Members |url=https://www.ffa.org/documents/about_prominentmembers.pdf |publisher=National F.F.A. Organization |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100713074526/http://www.ffa.org/documents/about_prominentmembers.pdf |archive-date=July 13, 2010}}
In December 2019, Davis announced that he would hold weekly auctions for all hand-painted Garfield comics made from 1978 to 2011. He explained that he started drawing comics digitally using a graphics tablet in 2011. Older comics remained sealed in a climate-controlled safe, and Davis had to figure out what to do with them.{{Cite web |last=Muncy |first=Julie |date=December 21, 2019 |title=Garfield Cartoonist Jim Davis Is Putting 30 Years of Strips Up for Auction |url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/garfield-cartoonist-jim-davis-is-putting-30-years-of-st-1840579280 |access-date=December 23, 2019 |website=io9 |language=en-us |archive-date=December 22, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222204848/https://io9.gizmodo.com/garfield-cartoonist-jim-davis-is-putting-30-years-of-st-1840579280 |url-status=live }}
Career
Before creating Garfield, Davis worked for an advertising agency. In 1969, he began assisting Tom Ryan on Tumbleweeds. He then created his own comic strip, Gnorm Gnat, that ran weekly from 1973 to 1975 in The Pendleton Times. 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!"Davis, Jim. 20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998, p. 14. 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.{{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 }}
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.{{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 }} As of 2008, it appeared in 2,580 newspapers and was read by 300 million readers every day.{{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}}
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.{{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}}
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.{{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}} 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.{{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}}{{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}} Davis dispelled a claim by David Michaelis that Schulz held any ill will toward Davis in the wake of Garfield's success.
From 1984 to 2001, Davis owned a fine-dining restaurant in Muncie called Foxfires. He closed it after its head chef was hired elsewhere.{{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}}
In 2019, Davis sold Paws, Inc. to the mass media conglomerate Viacom,{{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 }} 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.{{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}}
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Awards
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- Bruce McCabe, "The Man Who Put Garfield on Top", The Boston Globe, March 8, 1987.
External links
- {{IMDb name|0204825|Jim Davis}}
{{Garfield}}
{{Inkpot Award 2010s}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Jim}}
Category:20th-century American artists
Category:21st-century American artists
Category:American comic strip cartoonists
Category:American comics artists
Category:American comics writers
Category:American television writers
Category:Artists from Muncie, Indiana
Category:Ball State University alumni
Category:Ball State University faculty
Category:Jim Davis (cartoonist)
Category:People from Albany, Indiana
Category:People from Grant County, Indiana
Category:People from Marion, Indiana