Together for the first time, a beautifully packaged, full-color collector's edition of the second year of Garfield strips, featuring an introduction by Jim Davis and never-before-seen material from the archives.
From teasing the constantly clueless Odie and Jon to planning his next lavish meal, Garfield has done quite a bit in the last forty years. Garfield Complete Works: Volume Two collects Garfield's antics from 1980-81 in a gorgeous full-color package.
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.
I feel like this is where the strip descends into just a series of fat jokes. Or was it like this from the beginning and I just got bored during this one?
Some of this is pretty entertaining. Garfield has a great personality. I like Jon trying to date Garfield's Vet. But I can't say I recommend it. Pick up the first volume instead, it's a bit rough around the edges and much more experimental.
There was one strip where Garfield says he's a "Moon Unit" then the next Sunday Jon is calling up a place called Joe's Garage. I didn't know Davis was a Frank Zappa fan. I think Zappa would lean more towards Krazy Kat than Garfield for his cat comics.
It took me weeks to get through this as it was so easy to just set it aside and forget about it. All the roughness of the first volume is gone as Garfield is now on model and grinding out the same handful of jokes he'll be returning to for decades. Tiring.
If you are owned by a cat then this book of comic strips will make you fun and go oh yeah. If you aren't owned by a cat then you will know about what the life of a cat person is.
If you love Garfield, you'll enjoy this collection of the classics from the early 80s as Garfield does his usual-getting into trouble, eating too much and basically being the best self-absorbed cat around. This is a professional book with all the stuff you'll want and, plus, it's part of a series, so you can read multiple of these in the same format. Garfield fanatics rise to the occasion!