Garfield Complete Works: Volume 1: 1978 & 1979

Garfield Complete Works #1

by Jim Davis

Featuring rare archival material and an introduction to the series by creator Jim Davis, this inaugural full-color volume will appeal both to new readers and longtime fans of the lasagna-loving cat.

Garfield Complete Works: Volume 1, 1978 & 1979 launches the consummate collection of Jim Davis' phenomenally successful comic strip. Since its debut in 1978, Garfield has reached historic heights, becoming the world's most widely syndicated strip.

"From the outset, Garfield established who the real master was in this relationship."--Jim Davis

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Animals

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2018

About the author

James Robert "Jim" Davis is an American cartoonist who created the popular comic strip Garfield. Other comics that he has worked on are Tumbleweeds, Gnorm Gnat, Slapstick, and a strip about Mr. Potato Head.

Jim Davis was born in Fairmount, Indiana, near Marion, where he grew up on a small farm with his father James William Davis, mother Anna Catherine (Carter) Davis, brother Dave, and 25 cats. Davis' childhood on a farm parallels the life of his cartoon character Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy. Jon, too, is a cartoonist, and also celebrates his birthday on July 28. Davis attended Ball State University. While attending Ball State, he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity. He earned the dubious honor of earning one of the lowest cumulative grade point averages in the history of the university, an honor incidentally shared with Late Show host David Letterman.

Davis as of 2007 resides in Muncie, Indiana, where he and his staff produce Garfield under his company, Paws, Inc., begun in 1981. He was married to Carolyn, a singer and elementary teacher whom he met while both were attending college, and has a son named James with her. However, the couple divorced, and Davis since 2000 has been married to Jill, Paws' senior vice president of licensing, who has worked there approximately 25 years.

Ironically, Davis did not own cats when he started Garfield because of Carolyn's allergies, but they owned a Labrador retriever named Molly. With Jill, the family has expanded to include children Ashley and Chris; three grandchildren, Chloe, Carly and Cody; cats, Spunky and Nermal; and a dog, Pooky.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whille Garfield starts out as an ugly, giant beast in the first strip, by the end of this volume he has evolved to be pretty much on model as the cute, chubby cat we know today. The humor meanwhile has hardly evolved at all. The gags established in this book are the same ones we see in the strip today, from Mondays to lasagna to all the seven deadly sins, with an emphasis on gluttony and sloth. Jon's sexual harassment of Garfield's veterinarian, Liz, ages the most poorly.

Most of the major characters are here, with Jon and Garfield sharing a house with Odie and his owner Lyman (soon to disappear without any explanation). Other familiar faces include Pooky the teddy bear, Nermal the cutest cat, and Irma the waitress.

[John H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this at work and I was drawn to it by how strange Garfield looked. I was a big Garfield fan when I was in elementary school, but I haven't read it in years. Getting a new Garfield book used to be the highlight of the Scholastic book fair when I was a kid. I wanted to see if it still held up. In general I would say "not that much". I think it's a fine children's comic. I can see that Garfield being such a smartass is why I liked it, but the humor is not very sophisticated. There was some slight improvement as this volume went along. Props to Garfield for being around for 43 years, but it ain't no Peanuts.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't help it. I like Garfield. Before the movies, before the computer-animated cartoon series, before the merchandising empire, there was just Garfield and Jon. These strips from the very beginning still pack a lot of charm.

[Rubi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this! I've watched Garfield movies but this is the first time I read the original comic strips and they were a laugh! Completely worth it and hope they finish the collection 😄

[Kurt Zisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice set of the early complete works of Garfield. Very enjoyable introcution by Jim Davis with family stories & photos that explain a lot of the influence on the timeless strip.

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hey, some of these are actually quite funny.

I grew up when Garfield (and really any newspaper comic strip) were completely bland, stripped down, minimalist. I guess we can blame Peanuts for the minimalism trend, but Garfield quickly followed suit.

There's some pretty dated stuff here like Jon harassing Garfield's vet for a date. Also some weird tongue-in-cheek jokes about healthy people. But overall its a pretty funny look into a bachelor's life in the late 70s. His only love is a fat cat that just wants to abuse him and eat lasagna and roast chicken.

I have volume 2 as well, I may try to read that one. I'm not too interested in reading more, even in just the first 2 years the jokes got repetitive.

My favourite strips are probably the last 3 from January 1979: https://garfield.fandom.com/wiki/Garf...

[Holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

heartfelt, inspiring, beautiful a true literary classic an amazing read for the whole family! While on the surface Garfield may seem like a one dimensional character but he is more than that his struggles are relate able, deep, and philosophical. The paradox presented in this book has put losers like Einstein to shame for if you get rid of Monday, Tuesday will take its place. Jon arbuckle is a great representation of how we are slaves to the system just as he is a slave to Garfield catering to his every whim like an emotionless machine, truly deep symbolic commentary. 10/10 would recommend!!!!!!

[Alyssa Apollo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always enjoyed Garfield, his comics, his shenanigans, and his Pooky. It was not until I was older, that I found out he was from Indiana, only 30 minutes north of where I grew up. This collection has a nice introduction from Jim Davis, and the first 2 years of Garfield's comics. I enjoyed this as a lovely, nostalgic, quick read. It is interesting to see the look change over the first two years, and to see the evolution of the characters. I did not know Irma was originally a waitress at a diner where Jon would eat, and Odie was not always in the comic.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vintage Garfield cartoons. I only read about half of these. Garfield is funny but I can get too much of him by reading an entire book like this too rapidly. But devoted Garfield fans will not want to miss this one.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know as I need to read all of them but I remembered the early ones fondly from when I was little and the library book fell into my outstretched hands. There were some good ones early on. And boy was Jon super creepy to the lady vet. And he smoked a pipe…. I’d forgotten that.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gotta love Garfield!

[Tobias Jansson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nicely done book, even though I wouldn’t have minded a bit more behind-the-scenes or having all strips in colour. Still, the comic itself is just wonderful.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got to love Garfield. This was a funny and quick read.

[Katharama · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much nostalgia for these strips. I must have read them 100 times when I was a kid. Still make me laugh.

[Vindria]

Jamás me sentí tan cerca de esta gato que odia los lunes. Por qué sí. Jaja.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not my favorite comic strip, this was a fun book to read. This contains all the strips from
1978-1979, it also has the Sunday strips in color. A quick read.

[Anastasia Antony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between a 4.8 to 5 star rating

[Al Capwned · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like those early Garfield strips, despite the fact that they can get repetitive and are in no way sociopolitical (and that's a big deal coming from me).

[Jamie Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Consistent with my expectations.

[David Erkale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beginning to draw Garfield comics was a great idea of Davis. These are some noteworthy strips from 78 and 79 that reflect on this period of time.

[Argiris Fakkas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice collection of the very first Garfield strips, in their original form, with an introduction by Garfield's creator, Jim Davis.

It covers about one and a half year strips, from June 1978 (when the comic started) to December 1979. You can see the progress made on the drawing of the world's most famous cat.

Most of the strips are hilarious. Garfield succeeds in being funny even after all those years since his first appearances in the newspapers. I had a difficulty getting the joke in only about 10% of the strips, which is a very low percentage.

There are Christmas vacation strips, summer vacation strips, Halloween strips. The nice thing is that there are so many characters besides Garfield and Jon so the comic has variety and never gets stagnant: there is Odie, Lyman, Nermal (the kitten), Irma (the coffee shop lady) and Liz, the vet, with whom Jon is desperately in love.

There are also some strips that share a common theme and spread throughout the week. From these I especially liked Garfield's history of cats (where Garfield explain to us how cats evolved), Garfield as the caped avenger (whose career was cut short when he had to face a stronger opponent), Garfield and Jon taking a summer vacation, Garfield and Jon going for a camping outdoors adventure and the one where Garfield's stomach outgrew his legs and had trouble walking.