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0 pointsvintermann11mo ago0 comments

> The concern is that Garfield is the product of conscious market research and not whatever we imagine a comic artist goes through when creating their comics.

Jim Davis has consistently said this, but really, take a look at strip #1. It's not funny, it's not cute. It's a cruel joke at his own expense - I don't think it's overanalyzing it to say that the cartoonist loser Jon is a stand-in for Jim. If this was a product of market research, it was the worst market research ever!

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the_af11mo ago

It's possible Davis overstated his claim for effect. There are definitely elements of Jon as an author stand-in.

As an aside, over here (Argentina) we have an extremely marketing-oriented and bad comics author, Nik, who "invented" a cartoon cat vaguely similar to Garfield called "Gaturro", which started as a copy of Garfield with a slightly more political bent. It's as bad and bland as Garfield, without any trace of originality.

As Fight Club would have it, "a copy of a copy of a copy...".

I'm sure some of my vitriol against Garfield is influenced by my dislike of Nik and his Gaturro.

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