{"id":2588,"date":"2004-06-15T18:31:20","date_gmt":"2004-06-16T08:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/06\/16\/why-garfield-sucks\/"},"modified":"2019-12-10T13:52:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T21:52:24","slug":"why-garfield-sucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/06\/15\/why-garfield-sucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Garfield sucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:10804,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/slate.msn.com\\\/id\\\/2102299&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20090710165309\\\/http:\\\/\\\/slate.msn.com:80\\\/id\\\/2102299&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 09:06:55&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 09:06:55&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10805,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.livejournal.com\\\/community\\\/som_pos\\\/905025.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Not having been a fan of Garfield since my age hit the double-digits, I can&#8217;t really say that I was terribly surprised by this look at <a href=\"http:\/\/slate.msn.com\/id\/2102299\/\" title=\"Garfield - Why we hate the Mouse but not the cartoon copycat.\">Jim Davis&#8217; marketing-centric approach<\/a> to producing the Garfield comic strip.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  The model for <em>Garfield<\/em> was Charles Schulz&#8217;s <em>Peanuts<\/em>, but not the funny <em>Peanuts<\/em> of that strip&#8217;s early years. Rather, Davis wanted to mimic the sunny, humorless monotony of <em>Peanuts<\/em>&#8216; twilight years.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  <em>Garfield<\/em>&#8216;s origins were so mercantile that it&#8217;s fair to say he never sold out&#8212;he never had any integrity to put on the auction block to begin with. But today Davis spends even less time on the strip than he used to&#8212;between three days and a week each month. During that time, he collaborates with another cartoonist to generate ideas and rough sketches, then hands them over to Paws employees to be illustrated.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;d heard rumors before that Davis didn&#8217;t even bother drawing the strip anymore, but this is the first time I&#8217;d actually seen a printed reference about that.<\/p>\n<p>(via the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/community\/som_pos\/905025.html\" title=\"som_pos: Slate article on Garfield\">Something Positive LiveJournal<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><strong>iTunes:<\/strong> &#8220;God&#8217;s Little Joke&#8221; by Soho from the album <em>Goddess<\/em> (1990, 2:22).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not having been a fan of Garfield since my age hit the double-digits, I can&#8217;t really say that I was terribly surprised by this look at Jim Davis&#8217; marketing-centric approach to producing the Garfield comic strip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2028],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-2588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-links"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}